Music & Marketing: URBANIZED!

How do you measure the success of a blog? By the number of visitors it receives. Traffic is essential to the survival of a site. So, what are easy and efficient ways to get it?

from wagtiradio.com



1) Provide quality content
Quality over quantity is a motto that should be in every blogger's mind. As such, editing and proofreading are two prerequisites. Before you publish anything, make sure that your content is as typo-free as possible.

2) Provide useful content
A blog is like a product. If you want to sell, your articles must be unique and visitors must relate to them. At times, it may be difficult to come up with new ideas. To overcome this problem, you could:
- set up Google alerts to receive news in your inbox. When you find an interesting article, share an extract in your blog or write something on the topic.

- visit websites like AllTop or Mashable and subscribe to valuable blogs in your niche.

And if you are an entrepreneur, why not check out the questions asked by members of LinkedIn? Some will fuel your creativity.

3) Write great titles
Titles are the main attention grabbers. When written well, they will make visitors read the articles attached to them. For example, if you want to offer tips on book promotion, something like X [number] Great Tips to Promote Your Book would work. Remember that people love numbers and lists, so organize the post as such. Be clear and concise.

4) Blog often
A blog regularly updated will bring traffic. So, try to contribute to its growth at least twice a week.

5) Ask questions
Asking questions is the best way to engage readers and show them that you care. There are three proven ways to do it:

• Ask a question in the first paragraph of your post. This will draw their attention to the problem that you are trying to solve.


• Ask a question in your conclusion in order to open the discussion. Visitors will leave comments more easily.


• Invite people to suggest future topics. Why not conduct a survey?

6) Tag, Tag, Tag
Tags or keywords are specific words that describe an item. When blog articles are published, they will be indexed by search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) according to those specific words. Without them, search engines may overlook the posts and they will end up at the bottom of the pile. So, tag all your articles and pictures.

7) Share your posts
Share your posts on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, and Stumble Upon. Search engines love them. Use Hootsuite and Ping.fm to update all your networks at once.

8) Allow visitors to subscribe to your blog
By using a tool like Feedburner, you give visitors the opportunity to stay connected with your blog by subscribing to it. Every time you publish a new article, subscribers receive a notice. It is a great way to build up a loyal audience.

9) Submit articles to directories
This is a very efficient way to get your name out there. EzineArticles and eHow are the best article submission directories right now and rank really high in search engines. Let me give you an example.

A while ago, I submitted one of my previous posts to EzineArticles. The article got accepted. Type 'rejection reviewers' in Google search and you will see 'Authors & Six Tips to Avoid Rejection from Reviewers' appear third on the first page of the search engine.

10) Answer comments & visit other blogs
Too often, bloggers do not follow up with readers comments or emails. They do not even take the time to visit others blogs or sites. Imagine a company that would not care about its customers. It would lose business very quickly. A blog works like a company. If you do not set aside some time to provide good customer service, you will get no traffic.

Should you really have no time to connect with those who contact you privately, just let them know that you will respond to their messages later. And make sure that you do!

11) Add a link to your blog in your signature
In this day and age, we all use emails. It takes a couple of seconds to add a link to your blog in your signature block. And it may bring a LOT of traffic.

12) Be patient
Solid and constant traffic does not happen overnight. So, continue working hard and do not lose heart. Good things happen to those who wait!

Now, are there other tips that I may have forgotten?