Whether your blog is a space for political discussion or a gathering place for people who raise beta fish, you’ve already realized that the more traffic you can generate, the better! Not only will your blog have an active community, but if you have pay per click advertising on your blog, every visitor is a bit of extra cash in your pocket. There are many ways to generate traffic to your site, and it is just a matter of finding one that suits your site and your personal style.
One innovative way to get the clicks where you want them is take part in a social bookmarking site. If you have not yet heard of the phenomenon, there are sites where you can store your list of bookmarks online. This is convenient for the person who’s always hopping from computer to computer; you’ll always have all the information you need at your very fingertips. Even better, you can make your bookmarks public; you can share things like your favorite news sites, or your top ten favorite webcomics. The big advantage to this sort of service comes when you realize that you are an expert. Make a list of bookmarks that feature other sites that are like yours and make it public.
Social bookmarking sites work because of the selection involved. As more people become wise to the concept of search engine optimization, they are a lot more wary of the first ten hits that come up when they check Google or Yahoo. Social bookmarking works because it has the endorsement of another real person. A real community can spring up around the idea of social bookmarking and it becomes a network of people who are trading information. With the right list of bookmarks made public, it will take a very small amount of time before your blog will be getting more hits than ever before.
To get started with social bookmarking, there are a number of sites that you can go to. http://www.technorati.com/ is one of the first sites to take advantage of this phenomenon and the interface is quite usable. You’ll find more technical bookmarked lists here, which is ideal if you have a blog on computers, televisions, or general gadgetry. At http://www.stumbleupon.com/ you will find a more social atmosphere, and there is more of a focus on entertainment. If you have a blog on the latest celebrity doings or even of your photography, this might be the place for you. Though it might look less polished than the other two, http://del.icio.us/ packs a lot punch with a history that goes back almost five years. Del.icio.us is a wonderful place for almost anything you might want to find and more and more people are using it to find the information they need.
This is also a good way to find out how people are coming to your blog. What searches are they using to get there? Once you can pinpoint that, you can can tailor your blog to meet the demand and receive more traffic as well. Many blogs also offer subscriptions, which will tell readers when you have updated, and in this way, with a list of readers at your disposal, you can play your content to an audience that you know better.
Social bookmarking is a trend that any blogger who wants more traffic to his site should take advantage of and with sites like Technorati, Stumbleupon and Del.icio.us, you have many avenues waiting for your personal touch.
