17 Traffic Building Tips from Some of the World’s Most Popular Bloggers

  • March 15, 2010 by Corbett Barr
  • 110 Comments

Traffic Building Tips

I asked my favorite popular bloggers for quick and uncommon tips for building website traffic. They really came through with some priceless wisdom and tips, including my favorites by David Heinemeier Hansson, partner at 37signals and James Chartrand of Men With Pens.

When you’re done, I would love to hear a quick and uncommon tip for building web traffic from you, in the comments!

  1. “Give your very best content away.”
    Josh Hanagarne, World’s Strongest Librarian

  2. Find people wherever they hang out and bring them back home. If your audience likes to use YouTube then create videos, if they are businesses then check out LinkedIn, and if they are mostly consumers then put effort into engaging them in Facebook and attract them to your blog from there.”
    Chris Garrett, Chris Garrett on New Media

  3. Make your content unmissable. Think ‘How could I make all of my content be viewed as something that can’t be missed?’ That may mean writing when you can’t not write. It might mean killing a lot of mediocre ideas. But it’s mostly about deliberately choosing to only publish content that makes people hungry for more.”
    Jonathan Mead, Illuminated Mind

  4. After you hit publish on your next blog post, head on over to Google blogsearch and find other people who have wrote about the same thing. If it is fairly popular, there will be quite a few blogs which have covered the same subject recently, so go to their posts and join in the conversation by leaving a comment. Anyone who clicks on your comment from that site will find very relevant content, as if it is an ‘extension’ of the site they were just reading, and they’ll probably stick around for quite a while.”
    Glen Allsopp, ViperChill

  5. One of the often overlooked ways to build traffic online is by leveraging offline strategies & tactics. By that I mean things like:

    * Attending conferences for networking opportunities
    * Speaking or presenting at relevant events
    * Handing out business cards with your website URL

    …and any activity which positions you as an expert in your field offline. National press exposure (or even local press) usually results in huge spikes of traffic and it’s one of our main strategies for the Location Independent network this year. It’s often overlooked because people naturally focus on the online world – which, let’s face it, is actually relatively small, incestuous and often we’re all talking to the same people! Expanding your outreach to focus on spreading the word and your message to audiences who aren’t already online is a great way to build high traffic quickly.
    Lea Woodward, Location Independent

  6. Considering that April is just around the corner, here is an uncommon tip to generate traffic: leverage April Fools’ Day. That is right, if you pull a crazy enough prank on your blog it might go viral, and the traffic will be huge. Last year I invented a service that would let Internet users download the whole Internet to their hard drives….!”
    Daniel Scocco, Daily Blog Tips

  7. The best thing that has worked for me is to avoid incestuous blogging. Most blogs live in a small circle of influence; they write about other blogs in the circle and other blogs in the circle write about them. To really increase traffic beyond the same group of readers, you have to establish multiple spheres of influence within a variety of industries. This is contrary to the old idea of ‘do one thing well.’”
    Chris Guillebeau, The Art of Non-Conformity

  8. Visualize it. Imagine. Chant. Pray. Believe. FEEL what it will feel like to hit your traffic goal. Do whatever woo-woo thing you’re inclined to do that is about the energetics of what you’re aiming to achieve. It’s amazing how many practical ideas — and synchronicities — will happen when you get get away from your to-do list and into an affirmative mindset.”
    Danielle LaPorte, White Hot Truth

  9. Video is all of the rage these days, not only with people, but with search engines too. If you’d like to drive both direct and search engine traffic to your website, I’d recommend using video as part of your traffic generation arsenal. If you have a blog post, or a certain page on your website that you’d like to drive traffic to, create a short video that compliments the written content on your site. Upload it to YouTube, and make sure the name of the video and all of the tags are related to the keywords of the specific page on your blog, and be sure to insert the URL into the description of the video as well. Embed the video on your webpage, and make sure all backend meta, video description data all contain the keywords as well. Your blog post or webpage will now climb the ranks of the search engines, and you’ll also have direct/search traffic coming from the YouTube site of things as well. Additionally, you may end up on the first page of the SERPs for the video results related to those keywords as well.”
    Pat Flynn, The Smart Passive Income Blog

  10. “Focus on one topic, write great content, interview great people who are also in your niche = overnight success!”
    Everett Bogue, Far Beyond the Stars

  11. My approach is simply to try to provide as much value as I can. I don’t view blogging as a job—I’ll go weeks without posting sometimes—I only do it when it’s something I find interesting or useful, and when I do post I’ll often spend 5 hours researching and crafting a good post. That doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s my approach.

    Another thing that is integral to your success is to build relationships with other, established bloggers who inspire you. From there, you can start to guest post on the most popular blogs related to your niche—frequently the biggest source of new traffic—and enlist others’ help on your projects.”
    Cody McKibben, Thrilling Heroics

  12. “I purposely don’t read the big names. I’ve never read Penelope Trunk, or Seth Godin, or anyone else who’s considered an A-list blogger, and I do that on purpose. I don’t want to be influenced by what they’re saying–consciously or unconsciously–and want to avoid recycling the same information over and over again. By not following their conversations, I’m better able to produce my own original content, which I think is one of the biggest reasons why I’ve gained so much traction in so little time. Original, bold, and exactly what I think. Blogging favors strong opinions; not wishy-washy, maybe this or maybe that.”
    Ashley Ambirge, The Middle Finger Project

  13. Be everywhere, all at once. It’s a strategy used to launch new Hollywood stars or models or movies, in fact. When something or someone gets plastered all over the media, people pay attention. Their brains think, ‘This person has to be pretty important to be all over like this.’ Then they think, What’s this all about, anyways? I don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t know what’s going on.’ They’ll want to learn more to stay informed – and it doesn’t take long before they do that, either. Instant traffic!”
    James Chartrand, Men With Pens

  14. Reply to every comment from day one. When someone comes by your blog and takes the time to leave a comment – it demands recognition. Think about it – there are millions of blogs out there – we’re inundated with information – so for someone to come to yours and take the time to respond, whether they agree or disagree – that means something. Make an effort to respond to every single comment that comes through, and when you respond to each comment, work to continue the conversation – follow up with another question. It may fall flat, they may never come back and read your response – but in order for a blog to be successful, the conversation needs to go beyond the post itself. Budget time in your blogging schedule to make every effort to encourage an ongoing dialogue – give people a reason to come back again and again.”
    Matt Cheuvront, Life Without Pants

  15. Don’t always focus on your own niche to find readers. Chances are whatever you blog about, there are people who enjoy that topic too, even if they don’t blog about it. For example, I write about travel. I connect with a lot of travel bloggers but they aren’t the only people who enjoy reading about travel. The entire planet does. To expand my readership, I have guest blogged on finance websites talking about how to save money when you travel and blogged on life style design sites about living independently. Just don’t focus on your own niche! Branch out and get people who might not have ever come across your website!”
    Matt Kepnes, Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site

  16. The easiest way to build traffic is to make your posts go viral. You know, having other people broadcast them because… well, that’s the secret of creating a viral blog post ;-) And it’s a really simple secret, by the way: people retweet, post to facebook, digg, stumble or reddit a blog post, because it makes them look good. Try to write your blog posts from the perspective of a guy who would want to retweet them: how does broadcasting that blog post will make me look? If the answer is ‘good’ you have a just created a viral blog post.”
    Dragos Roua, Brilliantly Better

  17. “Be undeniably interesting for years.”
    David Heinemeier Hansson, Creator of Ruby on Rails and Partner at 37signals

What’s your tip for building website or blog traffic? Please share in the comments!

photo by crsan

Written by . Corbett is the founder of Think Traffic and creator of How to Start a Blog that Matters. Read more about Corbett and this site or follow him on Twitter.

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Comment & Add Your Voice

David Damron March 15, 2010 at 10:07 pm

Content & Value seem to be the running theme and I couldn’t agree more.

I know that when I have half-a**ed a post, my articles tend to suffer in the community. The more I put into my articles the more recognition I receive.

Great list of top bloggers here Corbett. Thanks for sharing…

David Damron
LifeExcursion & The Minimalist Path

Reply

Corbett Barr March 15, 2010 at 10:12 pm

Hey David, thanks for stopping by. I definitely agree about half-assed posts. If you dig a little deeper though, the tips don’t just focus on content and value, they also focus on promotion. Providing great content and unmistakable value are the base requirements for building a popular site, but they alone won’t attract visitors. You also need to pound the pavement and get the word out about your site somehow.

Diggy March 15, 2010 at 10:34 pm

Hey Corbett!
Very cool new blog you have here and I really enjoyed this post. I’m going to print it out because there are quite a few new things on this list that I do not do and want to apply:)

Cheers and the best of luck with ‘Think Traffic’
Diggy

Reply

Corbett Barr March 15, 2010 at 10:43 pm

Awesome, Diggy. I think that’s the definition of a good post, right, when people want to print it out for future reference?

Thanks for stopping by. I really enjoyed Glen’s post at Viper Chill about the changes you guys made to Upgrade Reality. Keep up the great work. 1000 subscribers is fantastic.

Dragos Roua March 15, 2010 at 10:49 pm

Really neat tips, Corbett, thanks for sharing. And for making me part of such a great team :-)

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Corbett Barr March 15, 2010 at 10:53 pm

Cheers, Dragos. Thanks for sharing your tip. You have definitely made good use of the viral post concept at your blog over the past six months.

Alice March 16, 2010 at 12:25 am

Brilliant tips. I must admit, I’ve used almost all of them, except the not reading the big names. I see this from a different point of view. You can read this and that, get the facts and opinions, and then think& write on your own.

Btw, I’ll definitely pay more attention to replying to comments. Thanks for this great post!

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Kim McAllister March 16, 2010 at 4:03 am

Hi Corbett

Thanks for doing all the legwork and bringing all these tips together! I particularly like the point about offline promotion – that way you’re more likely to establish a personal relationship and turn “traffic” into individual followers who will be your brand champions.

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Corbett Barr March 17, 2010 at 11:02 am

Yeah, I don’t practice that one enough, but people you meet offline sometimes become the biggest promoters of what you do online.

Gwen McIntyre March 16, 2010 at 5:44 am

Love #4 and #15 – think outside of the box

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Richard Riley March 16, 2010 at 8:15 am

I really like #13. It like how it takes into effect human psychology. It may be hard for a new blog to ‘be everywhere at once’, but I think putting yourself out there and promoting your product/blog to everyone who will listen will eventually make a huge difference. It’s like if 1% of visitors buy your product then it will take 100 visitors to make one sale. The more people are aware of your product, the more visitors, and the more visitors, the more sales. Now…if implementing that was just as easy!

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Corbett Barr March 16, 2010 at 11:00 am

I think the “everywhere at once” strategy really has to have huge coverage to work. The goal is to actually get people to read about or see you in multiple places online over a short period of time. They may ignore the first sighting, but by the second or third, they’re very likely to take a look, if only to find out why you’re so popular.

Gentle Minds March 16, 2010 at 8:57 am

Corbett,
thanks for these fantastic tips – and all the other useful information on this blog. I’ll be coming back frequently to find out what else I can learn! I’m sure it is a lot.
Best wishes

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Danielle LaPorte March 16, 2010 at 8:59 am

way to launch!

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Corbett Barr March 16, 2010 at 9:15 am

Thanks, Danielle! I love the tip you sent!

Betsy Talbot March 16, 2010 at 9:51 am

Hey, Corbett. Fancy meeting you here. I like your new blog!

My favorite tip is the April Fool’s one – and I love his example of “downloading the internet.” I’ll have to think up something really good for April 1.

Looking forward to reading more about blog traffic from someone who knows it so well.

Reply

Corbett Barr March 16, 2010 at 10:57 am

Hi Betsy! I love the April Fools’ tip as well. That is exactly why I reached out to people like Daniel for some uncommon tips. Thanks for stopping by.

Angela Ritchie March 16, 2010 at 10:45 am

Exactly what I needed today. I’m just starting out and have a great thing happening and need to know these pointers to get my news spreading. Point #15 taken.

Reply

Corbett Barr March 16, 2010 at 10:58 am

Glad to help, Angela!

Colin Wright March 16, 2010 at 11:11 am

Great stuff here, Corbett! Definitely a niche that needed filling!

I like, too, that you’re making it about building quality traffic as much as sheer quantity. Most of the posts that I’ve read on the subject since I started blogging have focused on the quantity but not the quality of the followers/subscribers you’re attracting, and to me that’s not a great investment of time.

Looking forward to seeing more!

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Corbett Barr March 16, 2010 at 1:43 pm

Exactly, Colin. That’s why I started this blog. I was tired of all the “gurus” out there selling traffic secrets that focused just on volume of visitors and not on the quality or sources. Thanks for checking Think Traffic out!

James Chartrand - Men with Pens March 16, 2010 at 2:01 pm

There’s a great collection of tips here, Corbett, and you’ve done a good job collecting them! I’ll have to try a few of these and test them out :)

Reply

Corbett Barr March 17, 2010 at 10:58 am

Hi, James! Thanks for providing your tip here. It really is one of my favorites. I love what you do at Men with Pens.

Lilian March 16, 2010 at 6:58 pm

Hi Corbett,
Congrats on this new blog! I’ve enjoyed reading the posts and indeed looking forward for more

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Corbett Barr March 17, 2010 at 10:59 am

Thanks, Lilian. I look forward to providing lots more good stuff.

Pat March 16, 2010 at 9:22 pm

Wow, this is a FANTASTIC list of some of the best advice on the web. I’m honored to be included, Corbett. Thank you!

Congrats on the new blog – I’m really diggin’ the feel and the look. Please don’t stop producing awesome content.

Cheers!

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Corbett Barr March 17, 2010 at 11:00 am

Cheers, Pat. Thanks for taking a minute to send over a great tip. I know your blog has really taken off lately. You must be really pleased.

George Passwater March 17, 2010 at 9:18 am

Great list of tips here, Corbett.

As usual, great content is always listed, but I also like going outside of your niche to find readers and using offline methods like attending conferences. Great tips and love the new blog!

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Corbett Barr March 17, 2010 at 11:00 am

Thanks, George!

@philipanderson March 18, 2010 at 1:20 am

I like 12. At times, it’s great to ignore what else is out the there/being said and just let your own unique voice and creativity spill over.

Too many times, I’ve had this great idea for a post… which leads to me to Google it. Mistake. Inevitably, after reading 10 other utterly brilliant articles on that topic, I end up with a head full of other peoples content and the feeling that my idea or content is done and old.

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Corbett Barr March 19, 2010 at 11:12 am

Agreed. Too much research can really quash your creativity sometimes. Plus, your audience probably isn’t already familiar with those other articles, so it’s OK to share your perspective even though there are plenty of others out there.

Everett Bogue March 18, 2010 at 5:21 am

I love how different all of these suggestions are — Ash doesn’t read Seth Godin (heresy!) Matt Chevy responds to every comment! Chris Guillebeau has multiple spheres of influence. All of these are great suggestions, many of which I’ll take to heart.

Thank you for launching this blog Corbett, I’ve subscribed!

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Corbett Barr March 19, 2010 at 11:10 am

Thanks for contributing a tip, Everett. I’ve heard lots of buzz about you lately, so I know you’re doing something right.

Maren Kate March 19, 2010 at 12:01 am

i’d just like you to know that this is the first time on your blog for me and I’ve been reading and following links for over an hour, wow! This is good stuff, nothing keeps my attention for that long :)

Great stuff, bookmarking the blog to come back!

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Corbett Barr March 19, 2010 at 11:08 am

Sorry to monopolize your day! I do look forward to seeing you around in the future though, Maren. Cheers.

Robert Green March 19, 2010 at 4:03 am

As a home improvement company, we are always trying to find ways to get noticed. Blogging is pretty new to me. Even though I have been doing it over a year, it is hard to get comments that make sense. I get “seo” comments that people put just for the link and they are nonsensical so I don’t approve them. Is this tactic of disapproving the nonsensical discouraging people to comment? They don’t see a conversation so they don’t chime in? Love the tips here and will be trying to get them implemented.

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Corbett Barr March 19, 2010 at 11:04 am

Hi Robert,

I definitely wouldn’t approve those “SEO” comments. They are just spam created by bots. In fact, approving them would do more to discourage people from commenting (visitors might think you’re neglecting your blog).

Getting the conversation flowing on your blog is a whole area I hope to cover here soon. Partly it is a function of traffic, but it’s also about building community. Start by asking questions at the end of your posts and directly encouraging people to comment. Also make sure you respond to comments you do get. I’ll try to share more tips in the coming weeks.

Dustin | Engaged Marriage March 19, 2010 at 6:36 am

Thank you for assembling such an awesome compilation of quality advice!

The tip about offline opportunities really struck a chord with me. My niche (marriage) is not a bit “techie” and the vast majority of my potential audience could best be found offline. I’ve already got my wheels turning a bit on some strategies for how to take advantage of this.

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Corbett Barr March 19, 2010 at 10:59 am

Great example of a topic suited well to offline opportunities. Thanks for sharing, Dustin.

Lea Woodward March 19, 2010 at 10:27 am

Tip #18 Launch a new blog with a post that is guaranteed to bring traffic from other bloggers :) Great way to launch Corbett and tip #19 should probably also be: Watch what Corbett does to generate traffic to this new site. Then replicate it.

Thanks for asking & including me on the list…love the new site :)

Reply

Corbett Barr March 19, 2010 at 10:48 am

Awesome tips, Lea! ;)

Thanks for contributing to the article. I will definitely be using my experience with building traffic to this site as material for future posts.

Robb Sutton March 19, 2010 at 12:02 pm

Great tips!!! Very cool list of bloggers as well. I am looking forward to this project of yours.

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Corbett Barr March 20, 2010 at 3:06 pm

Thanks, Robb. Hopefully you can provide some tips here as well. Thanks for dropping by.

iWoodpecker March 20, 2010 at 11:31 am

Hi, Corbett!

I bet this post took a lot of your time to compile a list of quotes like that and I bet you had to contact a lot of the mentioned bloggers to get their traffic tips..

I have lately noticed, that when I look for great posts, I try to find there something, that I have seen already – this way I select those blogs, that I wouldn’t visit again, because they repeat what was said in the blog-o-sphere.

Speaking about this blog post, I should say, that I am impressed. Some of the points were pretty much predictable hanging somewhere in my head for some time, but several of them took me 5-6 seconds to ponder – for instance, the 12th quote is extremely great.

I hope you don’t mind if I submit this post on BlogEngage. :)

Reply

Corbett Barr March 20, 2010 at 3:08 pm

Thanks for the note. Yes, posts like this take a little more time to compile, but I find that posts that require more effort often attract more readers.

Hesham @ FamousBloggers March 20, 2010 at 12:02 pm

Very nice post, I came here after a tweet from iWoodpecker !!

There is some awesome new tips for me to put in mind on your post, and I will add mine here, so my tip will be:

Concentrate while writing on good content that people might link to it as a source in your niche which will lead to more relevant backlinks, and this will serve your traffic in tow ways, getting traffic from those sites are linking to you and a higher rank in search engines.

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Corbett Barr March 20, 2010 at 3:08 pm

Great tip! Thanks very much for sharing.

Wilson Usman March 22, 2010 at 2:25 pm

I can definitely start applying about ten more of these tips to my blog now thanks so much, I knew there had to be more ways to really get some people to my house. This is great post I always like these because then I find other blogs I would have never found.

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Freaksmack March 23, 2010 at 7:37 am

I really like the April fools’ day idea. There’s so much potential with doing something like that to get the name out there. On or off the internet.

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Dick March 23, 2010 at 10:17 am

Corbett, great first name btw, you should try being a Dick sometime! But seriously, I went one better than Diggy, I copied and saved your tips and will use each to formulate a post based on each of the 17 tips on my paysonweb blog, a blog that targets beginner bloggers. Of course I will give you credit for the original tips, with a link to your post within my text and I re-tweeted this article as well because it was well presented.and of value to me. I have my own opinion about each tip, as over the years I have pretty much tried them all, with varied results!

I used to be like Phillip too, I would check out all the blogs that were writing about the topic I was interested in posting about, then got intimidated by so many articles being written much better than I could ever do, covering the subject like a blanket, leaving no more to be said! Well, I finally learned that even the most knowledgeable blogger doesn’t cover everything, nor should a great blog writer’s style intimidate me, fact is, I can carry a sentence or two so I’m not going to worry about going over the same ground, I do it my way by communicating as best I can to my readers and let the comments fall where they may!

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Corbett Barr March 23, 2010 at 11:21 am

Hey Dick, don’t worry, I’ve been a dick from time-to-time too. Not in name, but perhaps attitude ;)

Thanks for the comment, and I look forward to checking out your post series. If it’s as good as your comment here about Philip’s issue, you should have some great posts ahead. Cheers.

mk akan March 23, 2010 at 3:11 pm

i love the number 4 tip by Glen…never thought of this…overall, great tips i should start using on my blog.thanks

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Ed March 26, 2010 at 2:12 pm

thank you, thank you,thank you. i love this post. tons of great tips from people who do it best

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Terry Freedman April 5, 2010 at 10:23 am

Thanks for a great article. I think a variation of the give great content away type of tip is to create ebooks or other downloads that people can grab free of charge. I’ve done that several times, and the aim is to try and attract folk who may not otherwise have found my blog, or who may have found it but not had the inclination to explore it. If you have some great content in the form of articles already on your blog, I think some of the traffic you generate through freebies is ‘sticky’. That’s been my experience anyway.
The latest thing I’m giving away is ‘The Amazing Web 2.0 Project Book’, in which I collated 87 projects that teachers around the world have been runnng. People have found the book to be very useful: I think a prerequisite for this to work is that the giveaway has to be genuinely useful, not ‘fluff’.
I’m looking forward to reading more of your blog posts!

steve April 14, 2010 at 1:16 pm

Great Article! This is what I need to get start getting traffics to my site.
Thanks a lot!

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Kim @ Money and Risk May 23, 2010 at 3:08 pm

Great tips above the norm. #5 is what people tend to forget. Before I started building my blog, I never saw a single blog and neither has 99% of my friends and network.

My targeted readers are also not on the internet either except to work or surf randomly.

Every blogger needs to figure out their intended audiences.

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zimkhitha June 3, 2010 at 9:42 am

i sort of stumbled on this blog-newbie. I must say that it is a breath of fresh air. I’m doing a lot of research right now and everyone else seems to be singing the same song. This blog rocks, and i will surely try the tips as well.

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Corbett Barr June 3, 2010 at 9:23 pm

Awesome, welcome!

Kim July 29, 2010 at 4:10 am

Wow, great insights. Too much to take in for a newbie like me. It does make sense to print them out. I’m a bit overwhelmed – in a good way. I have a long way to go, thank God you guys make the learning experience easier and definitely more enjoyable.

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Corbett Barr July 29, 2010 at 2:19 pm

Cheers, Kim. Glad you liked the advice here. Best of luck putting it to use.

P Bastien August 17, 2010 at 8:04 am

Hi Corbett, thanks for pulling all of this together. David Heinemeier Hansson’s quote rang the truest: “Be undeniably interesting for years.” There’s a quote from Steve Martin in a similar vein that I think is, “Be so good they can’t ignore you”. Good luck with your blog.

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Motivatory September 14, 2010 at 2:06 pm

There are loads of smart tips in this post. Just one of such posts you want to print and read all over again. Thanks for these tips.

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Jamie November 24, 2010 at 7:52 pm

I know I am seriously late to this post, but your site has recently helped me greatly. I’ve been slowly, but surely working to make my site better by using your site as my main guide.

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Corbett Barr November 26, 2010 at 10:03 am

Awesome, Jamie. We’re always glad to help. Best of luck with the site.

Susan Weiner, CFA November 30, 2010 at 6:20 am

I hadn’t thought about #4. I’ll try it.

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Jia Jun December 17, 2010 at 6:14 pm

Awesome list, bookmark it for future reference. :D
Thanks Corbett for the hardwork on gathering these genuine and valuable information. :D

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Ryan December 22, 2010 at 4:50 pm

I like the tips about reaching out of your niche, because that’s worked like a charm for several of my blogs. One of them is about personal finance, but I branched into web design, blogging, real estate, and travel niches which helped me gain backlinks that my competitors didn’t have.

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Lisa Randolph January 9, 2011 at 3:43 pm

Nice article Corbett,
I like the recommendation to step outside of your common niche to find followers. I also agree it is important to have a comprehensive marketing strategy instead of just using one vehicle. One approach does not reach all! I will definitely be a follower of yours and recommend your information to my coaching clients. Once of my goals is to master the art of online marketing this year and with your site I think that will happen!

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Corbett Barr January 9, 2011 at 6:59 pm

Awesome Lisa, thanks for stopping by. Best of luck with the education this year.

Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen January 22, 2011 at 9:15 am

Hi Corbett,

I’m curious what you think about this….for some crazy reason, I chose http://theadventurouswriter.com/quipstipsworkingworld/ as the home url for one of my blogs. Now, I’m concerned that my painstakingly optimized post titles aren’t being optimized because of that long url.

Do you think it’s worth changing my url in WordPress, to be shorter? Will a shorter main url attract more traffic to a well-optimized post title?

Thanks for your thoughts!
Laurie

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Jon February 24, 2011 at 3:01 pm

Great list, many good ideas. A few I have heard from before but there are a lot of new ones that I have never heard of doing to get traffic. Thanks a ot!

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Allen Ewing March 18, 2011 at 4:17 pm

I have some questions. Like where do I start. I have already created a website with some original content. I made a facebook account and twitter. So far no followers and not any customers. What should I do?

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Tommy Gambon March 30, 2011 at 8:18 am

I had bumper stickers made with my blog address on it and put them on my wifes Mustang and my SUV. People see my site name every day driving to and from work and anywhere else we happen to go. Parked at the mall, grocery store, ballpark, beach etc.

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Erin Smith July 8, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Fantastic tips! This is my first time to your site and I’m loving it… My favorite tip was using the Google blog search. Before I even finished your post I ran over and found related blog posts to the one I just wrote. Thanks for the adivce!

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Nate @ Strayblogger August 9, 2011 at 9:39 am

I think the idea of finding your audience where they’re at is extremely overlooked. Taking some time to analyze and think like your target customer can be extremely valuable. Once you figure out where they spend most of their time online, spend all your focus figuring out how to get your stuff in front of them, and you’ll do well.

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Mark September 22, 2011 at 6:32 pm

Great tips Corbett! Thanks for corralling and sharing them. Going through your list of most Popular Posts now. Better late then never. ;)

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Praverb February 6, 2012 at 10:03 am

I love the tip that revolves around replying to comments. People crave attention and replying to someone’s comment shows that you appreciate their existence.

I also like the tip about not reading the bigger name sites. I believe that it can be depressing to read the bigger blogs because the blogger may want to achieve the success of that particular blog.

Thank you for the tips…

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Andy Fling August 1, 2012 at 3:14 pm

Thanks for the tips.

I’ve always put a lot of stock in creating free PDF’s. My primary website has almost 600 now. As a result traffic to this site is about to hit 400,000 visitor per month on average. Woo Hoo!

Hope this idea helps someone out there.

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David Frey - MarketingBlogger.com August 8, 2012 at 8:58 am

Corbett,

I’ve found that in today’s “everyone’s blogging” environment that great content is not enough. You have to do things that are above and beyond great content that cast your net very wide.

For instance…

1. SocialMediaExaminer publishes the annual Social Media Industry Report that gets downloaded and passed around tens of thousands of times.

2. SmallBizTrends does their annual contents for best small business marketing book and influencer awards that has contestants driving tons of traffic to her site.

3. SmartPassiveIncome started a podcast that shot up to the top in itunes and now generates thousands of new visitors.

4. Shoemoney does twitter contents with ipad prizes to generate tons of followers on twitter that he then directs to his blog.

5. Quicksprout (Neil Patel) does a ton of guest posting on the web’s biggest marketing blogs.

Great content can start you out right, but to create a top tier blog, you have to go above and beyond the normal “great content” stuff.

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Kunal September 6, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Awesome collection of advice from the Pro’s. This will help many of us to learn from them and implement to our blogs to get good amount of traffic.

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Yassin Madwin October 9, 2012 at 10:50 am

what i don’t like about great People is that they craft Great quotes while they should Give priceless step by step tips .

so here is my tip to gain an extra traffic

1 : look for an on demand eBook related to Your niche
2: Make a PDF containing a redirect code to you site
3: upload it to trusted file hosts which have other sites built on as search engines ( Rapidshare , 4shared , Mediafire )

Voila ! the job is done there is a huge range of people who search stuff like that ( Ebook name or author name pdf )

whilst they aren’t the best quality of people you can have because tey are freebies seekers but they do the job !

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Will March 17, 2013 at 10:22 am

It’s nice to see I am following the ‘do not read the big names’ tip; actually, I don’t know any of the big names, so that’s not too difficulty for me.

Some great tips there – thanks.

Will :)

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Pat March 17, 2010 at 12:34 pm

No complaints here! Almost reached my subscriber goal for 2010, and it’s only March! Woot! Keep up the good work! We’ll talk more soon :)

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Teena October 21, 2010 at 1:58 pm

Hey Robert, I know what you mean – those spambots are a real pain!

Today I’m sitting here listening to Corbett on a podcast with Pat Flynn (whose list I’m on), and they’re talking about traffic and blogging, here’s the podcast:
http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/how-to-get-more-traffic/

As for getting conversations going on your blog, I have recently listened to well known bloggers saying that they do ask their friends to comment and start conversations. It was also mentioned that it’s ok to use a different name and post on your own blog posts – controversial, yes, but not really harmful if used sensibly — and only until more people start to comment.

Something I do on a couple of my sites and blogs is to tweet about my posts on Twitter. When people comment on Twitter, I actually copy those Twitter comments and post them on my blog comments. Then I let the tweeter know and that often means they’ll tell their friends, etc etc.

Just popped over to your blog (looks great!), and the one heading which jumped out at me the one with a question – maybe more of those, the “How do I fix …”, “How strong is …”, “How can I …”, kind of questions might appeal to folks on Twitter.

Corbett, love this post, I’m just listening to you talking about it now with Pat :-)

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Corbett Barr October 24, 2010 at 2:43 pm

Hi Teena, thanks for stopping by and commenting. Glad you enjoyed the podcast with Pat. It was fun to record. Cheers!

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