Getting your Blog Known

I figured that since this blog is very new, and I’m doing all these things to get it known by other services, I might as well post a quick list of things to do when starting a new blog to get the word spread about your blog.

Setup ya Pings!
Well the biggest way to get traffic to your site almost immediately, is by setting up your blog to ping the various blog pinging services. These sites all do different things, but with one thing in common: they get your blog known! I have a huge list of sites that my blog pings, you don’t have to have a huge list.. In fact if you have WordPress or use FeedBurner’s ping feature, you should be all set for most blogs. But if you are a fanatic and just GOTTA ping them all.. Then check out this list of urls to ping.

Setup ya Sitemap!
While this wont get instant traffic, and might not even affect it at all, it is still a good idea to have a Google Sitemap created. While you can download a program to crawl your site for you, if you just have a blog (like this site) you’d be better off with a plugin rather than crawling it yourself. My StartXchange Forum is powered by e-Blah! with a sitemap generator script - within hours of generating a new sitemap and pinging Google, Googlebot shows up. Do the same with your blog! If you have a WordPress blog, checkout this Sitemap Generator Plugin.

Advertise your Blog
So I may be a little biased, as a traffic exchange owner, but I think advertising your blog in a blog traffic exchange is the best way to get some semi instant traffic. I say semi instant because your site has to be accepted by an administrator before it is shown. But the cool thing is you get to view other blogs and see what people are talking about, while earning traffic to your own blog. Win win situation huh? I wouldn’t go crazy with joining every traffic exchange or blog exchanges. I feel that using one good one is sufficient for a blog. However, by all means if you have the time check out other traffic exchanges to advertise with. I also recommend StartXchange (my exchange). While it isn’t blog specific, you can start surfing and your blog doesnt have to be reviewed first =P

Blog Directories
Another great way to get known is by adding your blog to blog directories. As of writing this, I’ve added to LS Blogs and Year Of The Blog. I’ll soon be adding more, and as I do I’ll list them on the right menu so check them out.

Interblog Linking
And finally, there is interblog linking. If you can get people to link to your blog in their blogrolls, then that is great! Also, if you link to other blogs and your blogging software sends out trackback pings, they’ll link to you for linking to them in your posts. And finally if you comment, many blogs will have your name link to your blog. Just don’t comment spam!

Thanks for reading my blog, I hope it has been very usefull, and I’d appreciate any links to my blog’s homepage or this page. Feel free to post a usefull comment!