I am new to blogging, just launched mine. I was wondering some tips on how to advertise your blog? Right now I am just looking to do some link exchanging. I dont know if I would ever buy paid advertising for a personal blog tho. Any thoughts?

I get most traffic from these 4:

- Blog link exchanges with other entrepreneurs
- Forum Signatures (alot of traffic from EarnersForum.com actually)
- Different blogging resource sites that lists my blog
- Commenting on other blogs

//Andreas

Thanks Andreas, would you want to do a link exchange by chance?

Originally Posted by Andreas Bard

- Forum Signatures (alot of traffic from EarnersForum.com actually)

signatures are suprisingingly powerful.

I agree with the others. Forum signatures, and blog link exchanging is the best way to go. However, my blog now receives 97% of it's traffic from type-ins, bookmarks, or subscription readers.

Try to put it into your forum signature. Post daily, and see where that puts you. If you have interesting things to say, people will definitely read.

And try to start your blog off with useful information - and to top it off, try to find a direction to take it in. Irrelevant random blogs each day will alienate a user and will put him off your site after a few visits.

I get most hits from forums, then Google, then other blogs.

Google search terms:

dell m640	6	40 %
wordpress skins	2	13.3 %
review dell m640	2	13.3 %
dell m640 review	1	6.6 %
custom wordpress skin	1	6.6 %
m640 dell	1	6.6 %
lord brar	1	6.6 %
dell m640 spec

Originally Posted by Hex

Thanks Andreas, would you want to do a link exchange by chance?

Your link is online at my blog already. :thumbup:

//Andreas

Thanks for the tips guys Time to think of things to write each day!

I've managed to rake in nearly 80 uniques per day on average by blog link exchanges and forum signatures. I'd happily exchange links with you. PM me if you are interested.

Originally Posted by khalid

I've managed to rake in nearly 80 uniques per day on average by blog link exchanges and forum signatures. I'd happily exchange links with you. PM me if you are interested.

Make sure you get listed with all of the RSS feeders. Ping-o-matic can help automate that for you.

I've been using Blog Exchanges, and they don't always work. I wrote a post on my blog detailing this, but basically the traffic is not targeted, so you get all sorts of folk reading your blog, but maybe only 1% of them are actually interested and may come back.

Example for me is last Saturday my "credits" ran out, I received no traffic at all that day where the day before I got over 50 uniques, and had that sort of traffic for a few days. It was clearly obvious that the hits I was getting where just thanks to the exchange and no one was interested.

From my observations, they work when your blog is very new, but the better way to drive traffic is through other means, i.e commenting on other blogs is a good way, or by posting on forums, or by using postbacks on articles on other blogs.

I think basically the "build good content and people will come" philosophy applies very well to blogs. You'll also certainly want to do link exchanges, but writing content that people actually want to read and link to will be more beneficial in the end.

You want to distribute articels to articles directories too, like:

ezinearticles.com
goarticles.com
articlecity.com
searchwarp.com

And DO NOT FORGET To add a resource box/Bio at the end of the articles.

The best is to Add a good anchor link that will be picked up by the search engines.

Originally Posted by bodrick

I've been using Blog Exchanges, and they don't always work. I wrote a post on my blog detailing this, but basically the traffic is not targeted, so you get all sorts of folk reading your blog, but maybe only 1% of them are actually interested and may come back.

Example for me is last Saturday my "credits" ran out, I received no traffic at all that day where the day before I got over 50 uniques, and had that sort of traffic for a few days. It was clearly obvious that the hits I was getting where just thanks to the exchange and no one was interested.

From my observations, they work when your blog is very new, but the better way to drive traffic is through other means, i.e commenting on other blogs is a good way, or by posting on forums, or by using postbacks on articles on other blogs.

No kidding. You need search engine trafic.

I get most of my traffic from blog link exchanges and a bot from google. if you fancy swaping links let me know.

Blong and ping is considered blackhat spamming. Just a heads up.

For my blogs, most of my traffic is coming from social bookmarking sites. I have a tech projects blog (zerosign DOT net) that first got on digg a year ago. Since then, I've done several other projects that usually wind up on digg or shoutwire or wherever. From there, I get alot of other blog posts from people seeing it on those sites. I haven't even done a new project since March but I still average about 500 uniques a day, simply from all the work I've done on a few projects in the past.

I say write quality articles that can get linked to elsewhere, and the traffic will come naturally through social bookmarks.

Google means 60% of my blogs traffic, but I'm working on the "social bookmarking" effect leadingzero mentions, it's the best way to get readers instead of traffic.

A friend of mine used her Autoresponder account to link to her blog, so that anytime she updates her blog, anyone signed up is automatically notified through the autoresponder.

Now, what makes this good for advertising is the fact that she can now sign up her autoresponder for advertising co-ops such as Opt-In Boom and others. This helps to get subscribers and spread the word about her blog.

Just another crazy free option!

Humbly,
Trevor Dean

A good software program I use is Blog-blaster... its around 45.00 but you can pick your niche, write an artical, and send it out to millions.

www blog-blast com