30 Fastest Ways to Build Blog Traffic in 2011

Let’s drastically revolutionize the way we blog in 2011. One of the most difficult challenges that bloggers are facing is how to build high quality blog traffic. Many of the tips below aren’t necessarily tips that are unique to this year. Rather this is a serious challenge for you to determine to use this new year to bring a fresh vitality to your online presence and to build blog traffic in ways that you have never done before.

The following are 30 of the most important weapons that you can use to quickly explode your blog traffic. They’re divided into three categories: amazing content, brilliant design, and commanding influence. Developing yourself and your blog in these three areas is the key to enjoying profound success and building the high quality blog traffic that so many of us are chasing after.

Blog Traffic Section #1
Amazing Content

• Write Creative Content: Don’t follow the same mold that everyone around you seems to follow. This is the year to break out and be different.
• Use List Posts: If done right, list posts can pack a tremendous amount of resources into one article. This is the driving power behind this very article.
• Proofread Your Articles: Misspelled words and glaring grammatical errors will drive people from returning to or sharing your site.
• Be an Entertainer: Laughter is one of the quickest ways to someone’s heart. “They’ll be standing in line for that old honky-tonk monkey shine!”
• Have Polls: Providing ways for your readers to interact on your site like polls, questions, or fun surveys is a terrific way to get people coming back for more.
• Create Exciting Post Titles: Make your headlines so compelling that they seemingly smack your readers in the face with a sudden compulsion to read.
• Add Power to Your Writing: As you revise your articles be sure to add the descriptive adverbs and adjectives that you learned in English class.
• Be Bold: Don’t simply try to provide great resources. Try to provide the best resources. And don’t be afraid to mention it’s the best in the headlines.
• Appeal to Large Audiences: Write material with which millions of people can relate.  Stay in your niche, of course, but reach out as far as you can.
• Keep it Simple: Don’t be overly complicated with your material. Don’t make your readers work to figure out what you’re trying to convey.

Blog Traffic Section #2
Brilliant Design

• Have a Beautiful Design: 2011 isn’t the year to have an ugly website. Deliver a powerful first impression and your blog traffic will skyrocket.
• Use Images in Your Posts: People are attracted to high quality graphics. Make your articles visually appealing and watch the blog traffic flow.
• Organize Your Sidebar: There are few things that tag your site as unprofessional as quickly as a cluttered sidebar. And that means less traffic.
• Optimize Your Post Footers: Related articles, subscription options, and social bookmarking icons allow users to browse and share your content.
• Choose a Nicer Font: Switch to a comfortable font and increase it’s size. Make it easy for readers to get through your articles and they’ll come back for more.
• Make Your Pages Load Faster: People don’t want to wait around. Install WP Super Cache. Enable Gzip. Accelerate your blog to accelerate your blog traffic.
• Use Post Excerpts: Using excerpts allow visitors the chance to see the topics of all your articles without a lot of scrolling.
• Reduce the Number of Ads: Nothing chases visitors away faster than a page loaded with ads. Feature your content and not your advertisements.
• Optimize for Search Engines: Take time to learn about powerful titles, descriptions, keywords, W3C validation, alt tags, and more.
• Inter-Link Your Articles: Linking to old articles in your new articles brings new life to those old articles and it helps users dig through your site.

Blog Traffic Section #3
Commanding Influence

• Guest Blog: Getting your work in front of new audiences is a great way to let people know who you are and to draw them into your blog.
• Respond to Comments and Emails: When you take the time to answer and engage your audience, people take notice. And then they invite their friends.
• Build Relationships: Relationships are key. Personally bringing value to people results in tweets, links, diggs and much more.
• Be Positive and Passionate: People are drawn toward genuinely positive leaders so express sincerity, excitement, and passion.
• Share Your Personality: Let your blog flow like a conversation between you and your readers. Infuse your personality into every article.
• Comment on other Blogs: Sometimes the best way to get people yo your site is to reach outside of your own blog and leave your mark on the world.
• Focus on Building Credibility: Be honest with people. Let your integrity shine throughout your online business. Don’t worry. People will take notice.
• Join Conversations on Social Media: Use social media for the exact thing it’s named for. Be social. Jump headlong into a conversation and meet new people.
• Focus on Others: Putting others needs before your own really goes a long way with people. People are attracted the giving people.
• Use Your Real Name: Don’t go out there branding a blog. Brand yourself and people will flock to whatever sites you operate.

Group Reflection

Quickly building blog traffic can be a difficult task. It can be hard working to build inbound links, thumbs up on Stumble Upon, shares on Twitter, bookmarks at Delicious, and diggs at Digg. We’ve got to work harder and smarter to build rapid, high-quality blog traffic.

So what are you doing to make a difference in the online world? What are you doing to attract some positive attention to you and your site in a way that actually draws in readers and increases blog traffic? What are you doing to set yourself apart?