Friday, February 20, 2009
increase blog traffic
I've been thinking a lot about blogs this week, particularly since I started up my two new blogs. I'm always interested in getting more traffic on my blogs (particularly for my art history posts). What do you guys do to get more traffic and readers? And HOW do you get people to actually comment?
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i suppose the question that i would ask is: what do you want to get out of having more traffic? do you want to raise a little extra income through ad revenue, for example, or do you want discussion, or do you just like comments?
personally, i just like the ego boost of a comment, but since i have no more definite desires than that in terms of comment content, i don't really worry about it unless nobody comments at all and i feel pathetic.
if you're interested in generating discussion on the art history posts, for example, i think that the shortest way to actual discussion is through controversy. make some strong arguments, drop some tantalizing hints, say something aggressive and unusual that will get someone thinking and perhaps even arguing.
in other words: it all comes down to what you want to get out of said traffic. honestly, i love all of your art history posts, but i'm far more prone to comment on the ones that raise an unusual or particularly interesting side of an issue, something that i've felt passionately about for a long time, or that i haven't thought about/known about before.
oh, and i think that another key to commenting is for you to respond to comments. which you do, a lot of the time. just a general observation, which i should take better note of myself. :)
I visit a lot LOT of blogs. And I comment some. The more I comment, the more blog comments I get back. See my blog. Lately? I've been a hermit. And the love so quickly dies.
You could join, Zelophad's daughters (pretty sure I misspelled that), or one of the other LDS blogging networks (or "rings", which is just so drug-cartel and/or Mary Kay), which would also increase your traffic...
I agree with Zillah. And I'll try to comment more. :)
Zillah, I don't really want to create extra income through ad revenue. Ha - my readership is so small, I don't think it would be worth it. Basically, I'm just more interested in creating discussion (and comments give me an ego boost, too!).
I guess I do need to create more controversial posts, although I think writing aggressive posts all the time seems rather exhausting. I do need to ask more questions, though, so that they can get people to start thinking. Perhaps I have too much of an authoritative tone in my art history posts too, and that scares people away?
Ant Bee, I have noticed that I get more comments when I comment on other people's blogs. I should do that more often. I've never gotten into any of the LDS blogging communities, but that might be a good idea. I don't really post about LDS subject matter, though. I wonder if that would deter LDS readers? Hmm. It's still worth a try.
Hey, have you looked at the site Mormon Mommy Blogs? There are about 30 different categories with links to tons of different blogs. Some of the categories are for writers, scrapbookers, homeschoolers, etc. There may even be an art lovers category. (Or maybe you could start one.)
Interesting point. I think about that a lot too. I'll admit it -- I wish I had more readers. I just love reading other people's blogs so I wish they'd like reading mine!
I've often wondering how to generate readership and I just don't have the answer. The most popular blogs I'm familiar with are just so mormon-mommy, which, I'm clearly not. I've also noticed that certain blog topics I write about get the most attention -- while I like writing about those topics, it also makes me disappointed that people are only interested in one facet of what I like to write about -- and often the topic that I least enjoy writing about!
Like some of the other comments on here, I've decided I can't expect readers and/or comments unless I do the same, so I almost always comment on blogs and I try to look at everyone's blog once a day. Sadly though, a lot of people aren't comfortable with commenting.
I'm hoping that naming my blog will generate some more attention ... we'll see.
You've already gotten lots of great tips! I used to get seriously no comments on my posts, only a couple of my friends would ever comment. Then I started visiting lots of people's blogs and commenting on their posts. I've found that when I'm good at commenting on other people's blogs, usually they return the favor and comment on mine too!
facebook and twitter are both great tools if you want to generate traffic.
Hey, I don't have your email address, so I'm just going to leave a comment here. I put all of my New York photos up on facebook, so take a look at them and let me know which one you want!
Man, check out all this blog traffic!
Do you have Google Analytics on your blog so you can see where your readership is coming from?
You just copy and paste a blob of code into your blog html and do some other things on the analytics side.
It was actually because of this that we decided to go private for our family blog, which torpedoed our readership. But whatever.
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