My Ten Golden Rules for Blog Promotion

Anyone can blog, but in order to be successful and become a credible part of the blogosphere, you really have to stand out among the pack. Here are some ways that I get traffic to my blog, WorkinOnMyFitness.com, as well as types of blog posts and other tactics that have brought success to my blog.

1. Passion posts – These are posts that I try to incorporate in my everyday life about fitness and eating healthy. An example would be an interesting way to exercise to make it less boring and more fun.
2. Innovative idea posts – One of my blog posts was about a Bento Box being a way to portion control your meals, which later was linked onto AOL’s fitness site, ThatsFit.com. This resulted in a lot of traffic coming to my site that day. Now, every time someone is interested in the topic ‘portion control’ on that site, they will find the page that features my post.
3. Weekly roundup posts – Every week, which is usually Friday for me, I compile a list of blogs that interest me. Linking to other sites this way makes the reader more compelled to actually read your site because it was of interest to someone else.
4. Forums – Another way to get traffic to your blog is by going to popular forums that are related to the subject you blog about. In my case, forums related to fitness and health, I would include a link to my site in my signature or profile in that forum. As I post on forums, there is a chance that people will notice the link in my signature and go to my site.
5. Directory Listings – Directories are another way to get traffic to your site, since they are categorized in different subjects and even subcategories to become even more specific. This makes it easy for readers to find sites that are of interest to them.
6. Blog Linking – I link to blogs on my site that I enjoy reading and other bloggers link to my site if they enjoy reading my site. This is the simplest way for readers to find my blog by finding it on their favorite blog.
7. “Google Food” – Google loves content, especially relevant content that is updated frequently. Since my blog is updated often, this helps it to be able to be found in Google and other search engines through different keyword combinations.
8. Research posts – These posts are usually about a topic I want to focus on. For example, the nutritional value of a vegetable. I would have to do research to generate a post about it, and make it my own.
9. Interaction posts – These posts ask your readers to voice their opinions on a topic, such as ‘What fitness magazines do you read?’ or a poll on ‘How long do you exercise? – 30 minutes? 1 hour? 2+ hours?’
10. News posts – These posts are about what’s happening that’s making news headlines – example: The recent ban on iPods used during marathons sponsored by USA Track & Field.