You've probably thought and read a lot about this topic but let me tell you I'm not going to go over the exact same things you've read before. We all want more traffic to our blog and here's what I've found works.
1. Find out what questions people ask and answer them.
My favorite keyword tool for blogging is called Keyword Questions. It tells you what questions people have asked through a search engine. I got the name of this post from this tool by typing in the word "blog."
Say you blog about Utah real estate. I might type in Utah and find the question: "any homes for sale saratoga springs utah?"
Click this link, then type in a word related to a topic and see what comes up: http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions/questions?seed=blog&commit=Search
2. Write about current trends.
Google Insights for Search tells you news, keywords and trends. I use it all the time. The default is to search the web, worldwide from 2004-present. Try searching the US just for the last year or few months. Notice the bottom right for the rising searches and use those terms in your headline. I searched Utah in the last 90 days for homes and found that "parade of homes" is popular. So I'd write a post with "parade of homes" in the title and links.
3. Link your posts together.
For SEO it's a good to inner link related posts using keywords. You can install Zemanta, add all of your blogs (you have more than one, right?) and it will show up on the right side within Wordpress. Then just click the stories and pictures and it puts them in. Related posts are listed at the bottom and I just copy/paste a few into the body.
4. Make it easy to retweet your posts.
If you haven't already, install the retweet button from Tweetmeme. Don't make people hunt or think too hard. They can just click the button, change or keep the title, credit you and send the link to their followers on Twitter. I get bugged when a blog doesn't it! For best results, don't make the colors of the button blend in with your site, you'll get more clicks if it stands out. Also, if you want to see links that are popular on Twitter go to the site where it lists them by category.
Have any tips of your own? Please share in the comments.
Guest post by Eric Rea
Eric Rea is a college student from Canada who loves Blogging and Sports. He spends his free time working on his own blogs and playing sports. You can follow him at @ericwilliamrea.
4 Tips on How to Increase Traffic on your Blog is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2010. Share it freely, but please link back to this source.