Hiring the Internet

Directing traffic to your blog is like trying to unload tix to an Avril Lavigne concert when the New Kids are performing next door. It’s a formidable task – but it can be done.

Considering, though, that 175,000 new blogs a day are added to the estimated 213 million (and counting) existing English-language blogs already floating around the ’sphere, how do you make your property valuable enough to pique interest and gain a following? Here, a few tips on how to get the most out of your slice of cyber space while retaining more dignity than an angst-rattled pop star.

1.    Be Original: There’s nothing worse than a blog that regurgitates widely reported information. FYI: That’s called plagiarism, and nobody likes a cheater. But that doesn’t mean you have to retain the resources of Ted Turner to keep your blog relevant. You can recycle today’s headlines, but it has to be done in a way that grants you ownership of the content. Your posts should contain your opinion, in your own words, on what you think about the million and one topics to which you have access.

2.    Spice It Up: Blogophiles are discriminating. They deplore bland sites overrun by plain text. Our own research shows – and so does this guy’s – why and how viral content can increase your readership. Take into account another reason to add media to your site: Without it you look like an amateur, which distracts from your ultimate goal of becoming a credible and entertaining source of information. On the flip side, it nearly doubles your chances of being banned from the Society of Seriously Lonely Internet Addicts. Your call.

3.    Do you Digg?: If you don’t, you should. By adding a Digg button (or other social-bookmarking applications like StumbleUpon and Yahoo! Buzz) to your site – that is, if the site allows Javascript (stay tuned for our thoughts on that in the near future) – you’re giving yourself a real shot at being read by hundreds, if not thousands, of online news junkies. The process is simple – start by visiting AddThis, a comprehensive application that links the most popular bookmarking sites to your blog in one fell swoop.

4.    Remember SEO: It isn’t just the Romanization of a common Korean surname. Individually the letters SEO stand for search engine optimization, the “process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a Web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords.” In layman’s terms, it’s to your blog’s benefit if popular (read: well-searched) words and phrases are included within your posts. For example, if you’re blogging about Ashton Kutcher’s new social-networking site BlahGirls.com, you can optimize your blog for search engines by tagging SEO-minded ideas like ‘content-versus-demographic’ and ‘web-marketing strategy.’ (Phrases like ‘has-been’ and ‘jumping-on-the-bandwagon-way-too-late-just-to-cash-in-on-a-craze’ are optional.) By increasing your blog’s accessibility using SEO best practices, you’re actively inviting more readers to use your content more frequently.

5.    ‘Feed’ Your Audience: Publishing your blog to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds allows you to disseminate your content quickly and automatically. Readers who subscribe are sent updates every time you publish an item. Additionally, adding subcategories can help filter out unwanted material so that subscribers receive only material that interests them. Take business news, for instance. A subscriber in this category wouldn’t be bombarded with articles regarding, say, Michael Phelps, stories of whom would generally be tagged as sports content. Unless, of course, the related article is a biz new/sports hybrid that talks about how the swimmer made a splash by purchasing a $1.7 million bachelor pad in downtown Baltimore. Makes you rue the day you chose oboe lessons over the backstroke, doesn’t it? We feel your pain.

How well does your blog perform? Are you receiving more hits than you can handle, or is it in danger of being vacuumed up by a black hole? We’d love to hear what you have to say about this topic in the comments section.

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