Traffic to your blog

[Laurie Bridges]

Hi all!

I started this blog because I'm a longtime blogger. Recently a few librarians and I started a new blog: infodoodads.com

Of course I'd like to learn from others. It's boring to write a blog if nobody reads it, so how did you get traffic? What are some tips you have for other librarian bloggers?

[Brian C. Gray]

Make sure your RSS feed logo is obvious to your readers. Make sure your blog pings the major search engines. Comment on others blogs by linking to your posts.

[Laurie Bridges]

Okay, so how do you make sure your blog pings major search engines? I have no idea.

I'm gonna have to say my rss logo is probably not obvious. I need to check it out. :)

[Brian C. Gray]

It depends on your blogging software. Most in the preferences allow you to list the search engines that are notified each time you post.

What blogging software do you use?

[Laurie Bridges]

Well, I use wordpress. And there is a page that will allow me to ping sites, however, when I try to do it the site says I do not have writable permission. For the life of me I've been unable to unlock the thing, and I've changed the permissions, etc. So, at this point I think I need to figure out where that might be located among all the files and ftp the change. But, that gives me a headache to even think about.

[Connie Crosby]

Read the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell if you haven't already since I think it relates here. Building up traffic is all about doing it in increments, finding the "sticky" ideas that people come back for. It is probably going to be a lot of little things you do that build up your traffic. If you are lucky, something will hit a "tipping point" and you will be popular and no longer have to work quite as hard to get there. I haven't been that lucky yet! I will post some ideas about bringing in traffic as we go along since there are many ways to do it...and you need to work a little at all of them I think.

Cheers!
Connie

[Laurie Bridges]

Yes, I've reached the tipping point on my personal blog (home renovation). It's great! I barely even need to post more than a couple days a week now. Also, I make a little cash off of my personal blog, so it's bringing in between $3-4 a day, which isn't a lot, but nonetheless, is about $1,000 for the year, which is a nice perk.

[Connie Crosby]

That's amazing, Laurie! Congratulations. Are you doing that with Google Ads?

[Laurie Bridges]

Yes, the $3-4 a day on google adsense. Also, this year I got $1,000 off of a pedestal tub for agreeing to review it and write about the installation (good or bad) and giving the place a permanent ad in the upper right corner of my blog for the year. So, it was going to be a $1600 tub, but only cost us $600.

[adri]

I send out monthly update emails (sometimes twice a month) to the state library assoc discussion group. I just put a link to the blog post and then try to come up with a cheezy/interesting headline to convince them to click.

I also joined the blog oklahoma webring which gets non-librarians to visit the site more.

[Connie Crosby]

Blog post titles

Think about search engine optimization (SEO) when you give your blog posts their titles. It is fun to think up catchy names, but to really have the posts pull up in the search engines, you need to put in key words in the titles that relate to the content. I like to put in the practical title, and then give the post a fun subtitle. That way I get to do both.

A made up example:

Building Traffic to Your Blog: Becoming Paris Hilton in 20 Days

[Laurie Bridges]

Oh, now that is smart!

[Katie Dunneback]

See, I didn't even try to think of this kind of stuff. My "popularity" snuck up on me. I just started writing about the pain of the job hunt, and a lot of people found me. Fame wasn't something I was necessarily looking for at that point. The one thing I've found that helps is being honest with your readers when you know you're not going to be active. I had a friend from grad school chide me at Midwinter for not updating as often as I should, and I'd been writing more frequently in the months leading up to that! A lot of it is finding your voice as a writer. My voice is young and irreverent, even when I'm being a fuddy-duddy. I think people appreciate it. I'm also one who usually doesn't get sucked into the circular themes, mainly because I've only recently become an avid blog reader in addition to writing. However, I do feel like I'm a step behind everyone else when it comes to the new and shiny. Once again, though, it may not be a bad thing.