Im looking for some advise. Thinking of starting my own blog, for a bit of fun and to cover my other hosting commitment costs elsewhere or more through ad revenue.
Next, I need some general advise about blogs. Im a seasoned developer, so I dont need some crappy html builder like geocities or blogger.
However is it beneficial to be part of blogger or another network? Does it help increase hits and popularity being part of the community or doesnt it matter where I host?
If it doesnt matter, id prefer to host elsewhere, where im not so restricted. But if one of these sites is going to help drive the masses it may be worth it.
Finally any advise from bloggers currently out there? Any way to drive the traffic? Can I get regular people coming back month after month? How do I draw them in? RSS feeds? What else could I do to make this blog a popular one instead of a waste of hosting space?
Please feel free to give any constructive opinions, thanks peeps.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code, fix one bug, compile it again ... 101 little bugs in the code
There are no magic answers for high traffic blogs - just great content and a lot of hard work.
Personally I'd recommend hosting it yourself if you can and using a Blog platform such as Wordpress to build the site. That way, once you get the traffic, it's associated with your domain rather than a third party making it much more valuable. Wordpress is also very search engine friendly.
Tips for increasing traffic (and I'm sure other posters will add more).
1. Create new content. Google loves content and users love good content.
2. Make your content topical, interesting and written to encourage comments
3. Try and post new content at least twice a week if not more
4. Use social bookmarking. Digg, Stumble, Technorati and Fark your best posts
5. Get listed in the best directories. DMOZ, Yahoo, CanLinks etc.
6. Use tools such as Feedburner to promote and drive traffic from your RSS feeds
7. Promote yourself, let people know what you are doing
8. Contribute to other blogs and forums (like this one!)
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks