In the past, I’ve had a few blogs and thought that traffic, money, exposure will all come once I had some content on my blog, but as you can guess I was wrong.

How could I possible get traffic without marketing my site, right?

After submitting my site to a few directories and a few search engines I waited…waited…and waited….but still no increase in traffic and money.

I used to promote my site whenever I felt like.

Until one day I thought to myself, hang on, this isn’t working for me. In order to develop a good blog I will need to continually and consistently promote my blog. So what I did was develop my own daily marketing schedule. From that point on, I’ve learned a lesson that no matter what you do, if you have the right idea for handling certain situations, you will always progress and succeed at what you’re willing to achieve.

Before I started this blog, I already made a detailed daily marketing schedule and have been following this marketing schedule from day one. Many people say content is king, although this is true I think marketing is just as important or better said I would say you need to find the right balance between marketing your blog and writing your content. Just think about this, what is the point of having a blog when nobody ever reads it?

I have created a kind of rough marketing schedule sketch so you get a idea of what I do to promote my blog. Most of the things I’ve listed here are always the minimum I do to market my blog, but if I have more time I’ll always do more things.

My daily marketing schedule below.

• Participate in 5 different forums-I personally think that this is an effective way of marketing because you get to learn from other people and you get a free back link for your blog. This mostly takes me around 20 minutes.
• Leave 10 comments on related blogs-Commenting is one of my favorite methods of promoting because I like reading other blogs and you get to leave comments with a free back link to your blog. Takes me around 30 minutes.
• Submit my blog to 10 different blog or web directories-Even though many people don’t consider this very effective any more. I still do submit my blog to as many seo friendly directories, because it helps you gain some back links and will benefit your seo rankings in the long term. Takes me about 30 minutes.
• Try to get a link exchange partner – I mostly do this to gain some nice back links. Takes around 10 minutes
• Post new fresh content- Ah, as they say content is king, probably the most important part of your blog. Without quality content you will get no traffic and that means no money. This mostly depends on how long and information rich the post is as this sometimes takes 30 minutes while other times it takes me 1 hour to write new posts.
• Read other related blogs- If I have time I mostly read other related blogs before I crawl into bed. I try to get ideas for some future posts and try to expand my knowledge. I mostly spend around 30 hour reading other blogs.
• Brainstorm-When I have a bit of time I like to relax in a peaceful environment and just brainstorm about some posts I’d like to write about. I mostly do this around bed time or when I feel lazy.
  
• Monetize my blog- Also a very important element of your blog. If I see that an advertising network isn’t doing well or isn’t earning much money, then I switch to another. I like to experiment until I find a good advertising network

These are the main things I do to promote my blog. Of course there are times I promote my blog with different methods, but I’ll make a post about that in the future.

The main reason I have a daily marketing plan is because it keeps me focused and motivated. I always know that I’ve got some work to do and that it’s got to be done. I’m pretty much sure that if I didn’t have a marketing schedule I would be playing games or doing something else, while I could be working on my blog.

So guys, do you have a daily marketing schedule as well? Why do you use one? Does it actually help you as well?

Related posts:

1. 7 Killer Ways To Get Free Targeted Traffic
2. 3 Easy Ways To Improve Google Pagerank

No matter how great your blog design is, or how great your content is, all blogs have 1 thing in common, they all need traffic to make money online.  Without traffic you will not succeed, your blog will be an incomplete puzzle.

Every webmaster wants his site to be a success and receive lots of traffic, right?

You need traffic to make money online…..You need traffic to make sales…..You need traffic to make your blog popular.

In my honest opinion, I personally find the first month when a blog is launched to be the hardest time to get traffic to a blog. Especially since the blog is new and doesn’t have much content visitors wont really be interested to come to your blog, even though my blog is now  almost 3 months old I’m still  trying my best to get decent traffic and so far I’m not doing too bad traffic wise, but could do better.

Because many bloggers face a problem to generate traffic to their blog I have decided to list some trusted ways that are sure to boost your traffic up.

1. Commenting on related blogs

This is and will always be an effective way to gain traffic to your blog. While reading other blogs I always leave a nice little comment. I have had over 70% of my traffic by commenting on other blogs.

When commenting on other blogs keep these things in mind

• Give good interesting feedback.
• Don´t spam
• Always try to comment first
• Keep it short and  attractive
• Make a long, but valuble comment

Let´s say you commented on a popular blog that gets 50,000 uniques per day. You are the first to comment on a post, so that will be an advantage as all the readers see your comment first. Out of those 20,000 readers, let´s say only 1% decides to read and click your link and go to your website, that will be 200 unique visitors to your blog. Imagine using this same technique on 5 blogs daily, that will be 1000 unique visitors to your blog in one day and you also get a free back link from those popular blogs. Pretty good isn’t it if your just starting your new blog, huh?

2. Guest Posting

Guest posting on other blogs is also pretty effective in terms of, authority credibility and gaining trust. You try to build a reputation for yourself and try to expand yourself in that certain niche. If you head over to some of the big players in the blogging industry you will notice all of them have a gust post page or write for us page.

Although guest posting can get you some good traffic, it can also blow your reputation. If you post on a massive blog with many established readers and post some crappy post, most of the readers wont even visit your blog. So if you´re willing to guest post on someone else’s blog, make sure you write some good and valuable content.

3. Start a contest

By starting a contest, visitors will most likely participate in that contest your holding because who doesnt like to win some free prizes? And if the contest involves some good prizes people will tell other people,  this is called word of mouth. Eventually everyone in your niche will notice and come over to your blog and participate.

4. Participating in forums

Forums are a great way to get some nice traffic to your blog as well. By helping other people out on forums and by being helpful and active in forums like, Digitalpoint, V7n, Sitepoint, WarriorForums, you will attract some nice attention and people will be interested in what you´ve got to say on your blog.

I actually created a thread in Digitalpoint forums and had 20 unique visiters every day for 3 days long. Not too bad if you ask me.

5. Social Bookmarking

If you have Twitter, Myspace, Digg, Facebook, Stumble Upon, or any other social media sites, it’s time to use it to your advantage. After posting new content on your site, try to always submit them to social bookmarking sites.  Send your post to every friend or person you got on your profile. This technique may not always be successful, but you are always sure to get a few people interested into reading your blog.

6. Video Marketing

This is an newly and uncommon way to promote your blog, but it is a very handy and effective. You know that if your video ends up being popular on Youtube you will hit the jackpot. More than 1 million people visit Youtube everyday and if your video reaches the first page on an popular niche, you are sure to receive a hell lot of traffic.

7. Article Marketing

Yes, a very popular way to drive a lot of traffic to your blog. If you can write a nice article and submit it to some article sites like Ezine articles, Go articles and Articles base, you are sure to get some good targeted traffic. If your article is top notch then some people will take your article and republish it on their own site, of course with your back link included then. So you will get more exposure to your site with a free back link as well.

I haven´t tried all the methods mentioned above yet, but ive tried the most.

Oke, how about I give you a little estimate of how much traffic you can get by following this little marketing schedule

• Comment on 10 popular blogs everyday
• Post at least 5 posts on 5 different forums everyday
• Guest post on 1 popular blog every week
• Submit 5 articles to article directories every week

If you follow this little schedule, i´m pretty sure you´ll be able to hit the 100 uniques per day mark or even more if you put more effort in.

So anyways how do you promote your site?  Which way brings in most traffic?

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