How do you guys get traffic to your blogs? I've submitted my blog (hate-windows.com) to a bunch of blog directories, but still don't get much traffic.

What do you guys do to promote your blogs?

Nathan

The first thing you have to do is create content that people want to visit (That's not intended to imply your content isn't good). You may have quality content, but keep in mind that has to be the focus and you always have to work to make your content better. No matter how good you think it is there's probably someone else creating content on the same topic who's better. You need to give people a reason to visit your blog instead of that other one.

Next thing is a little bit of patience. It looks like your blog has only been live for a couple of weeks. It takes time to build traffic.

With good content in place you need to get yourself out there. Get yourself in front of the people who are likely to want that content. Given the title of your blog I take it a lot of the info is any Microsoft. Join communities where the people are pro-something other than Microsoft and participate in those communities.

Digg is probably a good community to join since the community is generally not fans of Microsoft. Join the community and become active. Submit content (not yours, but content you think the other members will genuinely like). Leave comments on submissions you like and get to know some of the other people there.

In time they'll get to know you and visit your site and if your content really is quality and the kind of content the community likes people will stick around.

I used Digg as an example, but you can substitute any community. Other blogs, social bookmarking sites, forums, etc. Figure out where the people who would like your content spend their time and then deliver them the content they want.

vangogh is right. Work on the content.

When I started to get serious about my blog I did like you and joined a few directories but really none of them send any real traffic except for one in my niche. Same thing with blog rolls. If I added up the amount of traffic I get a month from all of the directories I joined it wouldn't be half of what I get from Google searches.

Submit content (not yours, but content you think the other members will genuinely like).

Huh? You aren't supposed to submit your own articles on digg? I've never used digg before so I don't know.

What's the point of submitting other peoples articles on digg? How does that help promote my website?

Thanks for the help,
Nathan

It's not that you can't submit your own content to a site like Digg, but the community typically frowns on it. If you make a habit of it it's more likely people will thumb you down instead of thumbing you up.

It depends on the community, though. There are some that will be fine with you submitting your own content and some that will turn against you if you do. Spend time getting to know which is which before submitting your own content.

The idea behind submitting other people's articles is you become part of the community. The best way to get someone to do what you want is to first do something for them. If you consistently submit good content regardless of who wrote it you can build a stronger profile on Digg and extend the reach of your brand.

Contribute enough to others and they tend to return the favor.

The web is a giant network of computers and people. The more you can enmesh yourself in that network by contributing to it the more opportunities you have to turn a stranger into a visitor into a loyal reader or customer.

create content or a service that is truly useful to individuals. For my blog, freshbloggertemplates.blogspot.com, I created blogger templates and people use them. It was optional to keep the credit link in the template and many did. As a result, 60% of my traffic comes from blogs that use my templates or from other blogs including me as a resource for blogger templates.

Yes make unique content in your blog, if keywords are well targeted in it, its helps in getting extra backlinks.

Originally Posted by pow-wow

Yes make unique content in your blog, if keywords are well targeted in it, its helps in getting extra backlinks.

Unique content helps a lot but you should not stuff them with your keywords in greed for topping SERP.

If your contents are good and informative surely someone will linkback to you.

Indeed, unique and informative content is the most important for a blog or site to get traffic but after that you must work on promoting your blog through joining communities like mybloglog, blogcatalog etc. and participate in disussions and posting comments. Also submit your blog to tecnocratti nad other blog submission directories and social bookmarking site......once you start getting traffic then only the content of your blog can bound to visitor to come back and if you gwt success to rtain your visitors that will be the best thing as through this day by day your traffic will increase through referrals too.

creating fresh content is the key to drive traffic...

be sure that each post is social bookmarked (one way of promotion to drive traffic, but only temporary). you can do this regularly for best result.

try this bookmarking links
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social30.html

Don't submit more directories and link exchange. Do some SMO to promote your blog. Now a days it is best way.

You have to do blog promotion.There are several sites in which you can submit your blog.You can search those sites in goole and start submit your blog in those site.It would helpful in increasing your traffic

I would put some more RSS buttons up.

I always burn my feed through feedburner http://www.feedburner.com make it easier for people to subscribe.

Originally Posted by corlock

creating fresh content is the key to drive traffic
be sure that each post is social bookmarked (one way of promotion to drive traffic, but only temporary). you can do this regularly for best result.

try this bookmarking links
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social30.html

Indeed, updating your blog through some fresh content is really not only increase no of unique visitors but also help to retain your visitors or increase no of return visitors. And social bookmarking sites are really great source for traffic.

having a good content plus promotions on your blog will be helpful.

I have only just started a blog for my site and already its getting quite a few hits. You need a niche which no-one else is blogging about and need to get the name around. As mentioned above, I think its key to have lots of new content. I am finding it difficult to think of things to blog about but everytime someone sends me news in the industry I plan on creating a blog entry.
I am also going to join a few Facebook Groups and let people know about the blog (relevant groups of course) and hopefully in time it will also move up the rankings in Google too.

Originally Posted by Munday

I have only just started a blog for my site and already its getting quite a few hits.

hits is way too different to traffic...hits is useless for a site's stat IMO.

Originally Posted by corlock

hits is way too different to traffic...hits is useless for a site's stat IMO.

I know, I perhaps should of worded it a lot better.
I am getting more 'unique visits'.

It's all about content, content and content. Target to a particular niche market and promote it agressively.

We all know that SE are the most reliable source of traffic so if you want more traffic, better understand the different requirements of the different search engines most specially Google, Yahoo and MSN and also creating valuable,timeless and original content would help you get high traffic