Business Sphere

Many bloggers are saying that content is king. But I say, content is only one side to a coin. The other is traffic. What good is content, even high quality unique content, if no one is reading it?

Therefore, if content is king, traffic is queen. Without a unique content, you cannot keep your readers to visit you blog daily. Without readers and visitors, your blog will just die.

In reality, running a blog is similar to running a business. You have to use the principles of business and management to make your blog survive, grow and be competitive with millions of other blogs out there. This management principles include planning, organizing, controlling, time management, budgeting, cost-benefit analysis.

I’ll let you in to the secret—the top five secrets to bring in quality traffic to your blog, as distinguished from the many click or drop and run traffic being promoted by some traffic and banner exchange sites. This is to make your site survive, grow and become competitive. These are as follows:

1. Publish Unique Content. No person likes to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. Update your blog content at least twice a week.

When you write, you should not write on just anything. It must be relevant, useful and  informative, to your readers. It must answer to their needs for information, guidance and advice. Hence, you must publish not just a content, but unique, high quality, and original content as far as possible.

2. Submit To Article Directories. The niche you’ve chosen for your blog is one that interests you, and will make you an expert on the subject. So, create content not only for your blog but also to be submitted to article directories to boost your credibility as an expert.

Of the many article directories, I am quite partial for EzineArticles.com (www.ezinearticles.com) which is considered by many as the cream of the crop and where I’m an expert author with platinum level status.

EzineArticles.com is a matching service between tens of thousands of expert authors and millions of readers and publishers looking for expert solutions to millions of problems.

Your published articles in ezinearticles.com will give you high quality backlinks from the EzineArticles site, a page rank 6, giving your site a popularity rating, thus will help increase your page rank.

In addition, people searching topics in the top search engines like Google and Yahoo! can find your site because of your Ezine link and articles.

Furthermore, your articles help surge in traffic to your blog, caused by the ezine publishers who come to its site throughout the year to pick up quality articles for their email newsletter or website. EzineArticlesc.om has also end-user base of millions of people who are looking to immediately benefit from your experience as an expert author.

3. Use RSS Feeds. Install in your blog an RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted. It is an easy way for them to keep up with your blog without spending all day online.

Because of your RSS feeds, your readers can spread and pass around your articles, forward it to their friends and relatives anywhere through their e-mail, giving your article and your blog free promotion.

4. Submit Your Blog to Search Engines. Submitting your blog to search engines, especially to the top 3 search engines which are Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing allows it to be indexed by the said search engines, especially Google. As result, people searching the web can find your articles and blog.  This presupposes that your blog posts are high quality with unique content.

Traffic from search engines is the only constant traffic, because everyday millions of people search the web to get information, acquire knowledge, and read on any topic that interest them.

5. Visit other blogs. Visiting other blogs by posting comments therein usually result to site owners visiting your blog in turn.  It is an unwritten rule in life, as in the blogosphere, that we reap what we sow, and that love begets love.

When you comment, add your link or URL in your comments, so readers can also click through your site and visit you.

Moreover, visiting other blogs will give you ideas on what works and doesn’t work. You can compare your blog to other blogs and discover your blog’s strengths and weaknesses, capitalize on its strengths and improve its weaknesses.

Conclusion

Try these five secrets to drive traffic to your blog –free. It takes time but you will build and sustain the quality, not click or drop and run, traffic that you want. This is the only sure way to make your blog survive, grow and become competitive in the blogosphere.