10 Simple Ways To Build Traffic To Your Blog

Once you have a blog and you have a few posts on it, you’re going to want to bring lots of traffic to it. This is probably the biggest challenge any blogger will have. You could have the best looking blog out there, with the most gorgeous food pictures, but if it has no traffic, it might discourage you from continuing on.

Blog traffic is not built over night. It could take months or even years. My first year of blogging I did not get a lot of traffic, I did get some, but not much. In my second year of blogging, my blog blossomed. If I would have given up in that first year, I would have never known what could be. That’s why I say over and over again that food blogging really has to be a passion and a commitment, and it’s something you have to nurture and more importantly have fun doing it.

When you start out with your food blog, there are a few things you can do to speed up the process. In this article I’m going to list 10 simple things you can do to increase your blog traffic. This isn’t going to happen over night, but slowly you will start noticing an increase in your traffic and interest from others to come back and visit your blog.

1. Post frequently. I know this sounds simple, but commitment is going to be one of your biggest challenge. The reason you need to post frequently is because search engines and visitors like fresh content. Having said all that, do not sacrifice quantity for quality. I’m not saying post every day, but every other day, or every three days, whatever works for you, but keep the fresh new content coming at a steady pace. The more content you have, the more traffic you will get from search engines because you have a higher chance for ranking for a variety of keywords.
2. Submit your pictures/blog posts to websites relevant to your niche, in this case food porn sites, such as foodepix.com, foodgawker.com, etc. This is probably the easiest way to bring lots of visitors to your blog, however getting your pictures accepted to these sites is no small challenge.
3. Submit your blog to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Or simply use AdMe.com to submit your site to over 25 search engines for free. This is something that will take you 30 seconds. You’re not going to see results right away, but it will happen. For the longest time I didn’t see much traffic from bing and yahoo, but now I’m starting to notice a lot more, so again be patient, it will happen.
4. Submit your blog to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. I have received lots of traffic from StumbleUpon. Do not underestimate the power of these sites.
5. Install a social bookmarking plugin to make it easy for your readers to share your posts. This is probably the best thing you could do for your blog. You traffic could sky rocket if the right person shares your post and it goes viral. This is a must.
6. Build a Facebook fan page for your blog. Another must. I did not see a lot of traffic from Facebook but as you get more and more followers you will start to notice an increase. Facebook will probably be in your top 10 of referrals. Take advantage of it.
7. Submit your blog to the free directories like DMOZ. For the longest time I wondered why it’s important to list my blog with DMOZ. Well it’s very simple. The biggest search engines like google, yahoo, bing, take URL’s directly from DMOZ. For those who don’t know DMOZ is a Open Directory Project (ODP) which is a largest human edited directory. Web sites are listed in categories on this project. Each category is linked to relevant categories; the categories have a tree-like structure too. So do this, don’t put it off.
8. Make your food blog more search engine friendly by using SEO plug-ins such as Platinum SEO Pack. To read more about SEO and what it is, go here.
9. Leave quality comments on other food blogs, but make sure you don’t just spam and hope for the best. Commenting on other food blogs, creates backlinks to your blog, which is good for search engines.
10. Target long tail keywords like how to fry a turkey, or how to wrap an egg roll. These keywords have lower competition and it’s easier to rank high in search engines, which will result in more target traffic to your blog.

These are just 10 simple ways to build your traffic, but there are hundreds more. However, start small and build from there. Every little bit helps, and give it time, it will happen.