Increase Blog Traffic Through Backlinks

With so many millions of blogs out there, it's crucial to have a lot of reasons and ways to visit yours. There are gimmicks and products for sale that promise huge increases in traffic but these are not always trustworthy. For example, most involve redirects and junk blogs that might link your blog but that also leave the visitor feeling frustrated after arriving.

I'm no SEO expert, but I have been blogging for going on two years and I have been a serious student of SEO and traffic as far as my site is concerned. My stats are getting more impressive daily as I use strategies I've learned from trial and error and personal usage. When it comes to increasing traffic, I have found the single most important tactic to be backlinks.

Backlinks are, simply put, your URL on other blogs and sites. Backlinks take readers to your site. Whether they stay there depends on your content. But whether they like your content or not, they will not visit your site unless they can click there. I would estimate that of all my regular readers, only one or two percent of them came to my site directly (ie; by typing in my URL). The majority have come in from backlinks which I have tested and measured through analytics. More backlinks means more visitors and more visitors means more ad interest ... which we all know means: more pay for you!

So how can you increase you backlinks? There are many ways. One extremely helpful source is through this free pdf from Michelle MacPherson:

http://www.socialmediadaily.com/

I have learned and used many of her suggestions after I read that pdf. I highly recommend it and there is no charge for it.

Beyond that, there are a few ways I might accent. They are:

1. Guest posting when possible: In spreading your knowledge and entertainment value to your peer blogs, you are helping them with content and yourself through a backlink.
2. Updating your signature with your URL in your email and all your social networks. In doing this you show your "path" everytime someone reads something you email or post on a social network. It's easy to let these get out of date, so check them frequently.

and last:

1. Develop anchor text in your other sites that points to your blog. Use this anchor text when guest blogging or when creating your "taglines" on social media. Michelle explains a lot more about anchor text. Look into it when you have some time. It has brought me much traffic.

In conclusion, backlinks really are the "backbone" of a successful blog. They make you attractive to advertisers and they showcase your content. the number one thing is always content, but I would say a close second to that is always going to be: backlinks.

Guest Post Author: Damien Riley

Guest Post Blog: Postcards from the Funny Farm