One of the greatest problems many new bloggers face is getting people to read their blogs, they would work hard and try to give their best in terms of valuable content yet nobody is reading their great posts.

It is a great pity the rule “Build it and they will come“  does not apply to blogging or the internet in general.

Even if you provide such great content that will make everybody want to read and do their best to promote your blog, you will still need some readers to do that.

Below are 5 great and powerful ways to promote your new (or existing) blog.

1. Blog Commenting

This is one of the best ways to get traffic to your blog but it is very unfortunate it is not working for many people due to some reasons. Some people believe it is overrated and many of them believe since they see it everywhere it might not be effective.

Blog commenting is really great if done properly. You might decide to have a blog commenting schedule on which you make a number of comments on top blogs in your niche each day.

Those who get better results are those who do it on a large scale, I mean those who make hundreds of comments every week, nevertheless, it is still as effective as it used to be and can help create awareness for your blog.

2. Guest Posting

Having written a lot of guest posts, I must tell you guest posting is one of the most effective ways to get traffic to your blog.

It is all about taking up the courage to start. You don’t really need to start with big blogs (because many of them take time to accept your post and might even reject it which might make you feel discouraged), you might start with small to medium sized blogs and begin to grow until you build up the courage to start contacting larger blogs.

One of the most important things to consider when writing guest posts is to try and ensure your guest posts are great ones. You might be thinking how you can waste such a great post by publishing it on another blog instead of yours but I can assure you, you are not wasting your post. The better your guest post is, the more viral it will go and the more traffic you will get.

It is also important to have a great byline because that is your call to action and it will most probably determine whether the blog readers of your host will visit your blog.

It is also very important that your blog is ready by making sure you have great content on your blog because this will help you retain a large percentage of your new readers.

3. Blogging Communities

This is also another great and underutilized way by which you can get traffic to your blog.

Another great advantage of blogging communities is that it helps you create more awareness and more value since most of those who use these networks are also bloggers and they will most likely share your posts with their readers if it is great.

Two great blogging communities to start from are Blog Engage and MMO Social Network.

4. Social Networking/Bookmarking

Social Networking and Bookmarking is another powerful way of getting traffic to your website, it involves you sharing your blog posts with other users and if done properly it can send you thousands of visitors overnight.

Social bookmarking is when you submit your blog post to a website which depends on other users vote to put your website on the front page (which leads to traffic) while social networking is when you connect with other users who may be your friends, readers and followers.

Some great examples of social bookmarking sites are Digg and Stumbleupon while some great examples of social networking sites are Facebook and Twitter.

5. Search Engine Optimization

Optimizing a website for search engines is a crucial step every webmaster should take.

I might be a difficult task but the results are far better than that. Search engines have the potential of sending you thousands of visitors only if you can tap into them.

There are several factors to be considered when optimizing your site for search engines, some of which include:

i. On page factors like internal linking, use of appropriate keyword density, fast page load times, etc.

ii. Link Building

Link building is one of the most important exercises in SEO and should not be ignored. The type and number of links to your blog will determine how you will be ranked in the search engines.

Other search engine optimization factors also count and you might want to read more about WordPress SEO.

Discussion

Getting traffic to your blog is not rocket science if you choose to do things the right way. Are there any other unique tips and practices that have worked greatly for you not mentioned here? Please share them with us in the comments below, we would love to hear from you.

Photo credit: jj_pappas423