One of the most important things your blog needs is traffic. Seriously, if no one is reading what you have to say, why are you even bothering? It's also true that you may not want to put a lot of money into your blog initially until you find out how popular it will be. You may not have the money to do more than set everything up and publish your first post. That's ok. You don't have to worry about laying out money that you don't have. There are several ways to drive traffic to your blog.
One of the first things you need to do is list your blog in some great blog directories. This is completely free and you'll find that it may become highly effective in getting your blog noticed and read. Lots of people visit these blog directories for the express purpose of finding new blogs in areas they're interested in.
Visit other blogs that your ideal traffic is reading. Narrow it down to a few high quality, high traffic blogs that have the traffic you want to attract. Add them in your RSS feed reader and make the time each day to read them. When you see a post that you can intelligently comment on, do so. Make sure it says something more than just "Awesome post!" Use your blog's URL in your signature to this blog. You'll be amazed at how much traffic you can pick up this way.
Another way to attract readers for free is to link to the posts of others. You might be sketchy about including links in your blog to other blogs, but typically, this works for you. Most blogs have a trackback function, which means that each post has a link to other posts that link into it. Yes, you might be leading people away from your blog and into someone else's but you'll also be opening the door for other blogs' readers to reach yours. Linking can often bring more traffic than commenting.
Believe it or not, submitting reviews on Amazon.com can get your blog quite a bit of attention. Books that you read may also be of interest to your bloggers. When they read your reviews, they may just click on your link and visit your blog.
These are just a few of the many free ways to get traffic to your blog. As soon as you try them out, you should be seeing quite a difference in the number of readers you attract.
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