How to Increase blog Traffic?

[bawitback]

Hello Racketboy, I'm curious on how you started off your blog. I know you had blogger, or something then moved your server. I'm working on a game blog, (special attack) which I know your familiar with, but don't have many readers or subscribers. I've enrolled my blog into Technorati, and many other blog directories. I was thinking about ordering a domain (possibly special-attack.com) will that help? If so, can you recommend any services that are reliable? I'm using WordPress for my entries. Any other tips on how I can increase traffic to my blog?

btw thanks for adding my entry on your link dump.

[racketboy]

Yeah, you're blog is still strong on my Bloglines subscriptions

Personally, I started my blog simply because there were not any RSS feeds availible for classic gaming news. I was a moderator and very active news poster at SegaXtreme. I suggested that they set up a way to turn their news page into an RSS feed. The system admins didn't think it was worth the effort, so I decided to start up a little blog of my own to post classic gaming news.

I started out pretty slow a couple years ago with a free Blogger.com account and I have to admit my posts kinda sucked back then. I got some fairly good traffic by having links to my blog in my signatures in all the message boards I participated in.

Nearly a year into it I was lucky to get 200 visits a day. Over a year ago I started selling my modchips and that helped bring some traffic in from shoppers. People liked what they saw and the RSS subscriptions started trickling in.

However, the thing that REALLY got me a boost in traffic was concentrating on writing some longer pieces that I knew would get some more widespread attention. I researched some topics and came up with some articles like my "Games That Nobody Played - But You Should" and "Games That Pushed The Limits". These stories got linked to on Digg.com, Slashdot, Joystiq, Kotuku and more. Once my site was on there, other smaller blogs linked to those articles as well. Once you get a lot of people linking to you, Google starts to shine in your favor. By far the majority of my daily traffic comes from Google.

Getting your own domain may help, but if you are really thinking about getting a domain, I would definately do it before you get a bunch of links. I regret not doing it sooner as I built up a lot of links to my old addresses that are pretty hard to get switched over (unless you can convice all the linking site owners to change their links).

I still use Blogger as my blogging tool as converting all my old posts to a new database is more than I want to deal with. Blogger has its limitations, but I've learned a lot about customizing templates and finding temporary solutions to making "categories" and such. Since Google bought out Blogger, I'm hoping they add more features to compete with Wordpress.

I would also suggest Feedburner to manage your feed. It helps you keep track of your subscribers better and handles feed traffic instead of your own server. Its been rock-solid for me.

I would also recommend building relationships with related bloggers. You've already started with me As you can probably tell, I tend to link more often to the bloggers I enjoy and build relationships with. They tend to do the same with me. I like to link to "indie" bloggers more than the big ones like Joystiq etc.

Hope that helps!

[bawitback]

Yeah, you're blog is still strong on my Bloglines subscriptions

Personally, I started my blog simply because there were not any RSS feeds availible for classic gaming news. I was a moderator and very active news poster at SegaXtreme. I suggested that they set up a way to turn their news page into an RSS feed. The system admins didn't think it was worth the effort, so I decided to start up a little blog of my own to post classic gaming news.

I started out pretty slow a couple years ago with a free Blogger.com account and I have to admit my posts kinda sucked back then. I got some fairly good traffic by having links to my blog in my signatures in all the message boards I participated in.

Nearly a year into it I was lucky to get 200 visits a day. Over a year ago I started selling my modchips and that helped bring some traffic in from shoppers. People liked what they saw and the RSS subscriptions started trickling in.

However, the thing that REALLY got me a boost in traffic was concentrating on writing some longer pieces that I knew would get some more widespread attention. I researched some topics and came up with some articles like my "Games That Nobody Played - But You Should" and "Games That Pushed The Limits". These stories got linked to on Digg.com, Slashdot, Joystiq, Kotuku and more. Once my site was on there, other smaller blogs linked to those articles as well. Once you get a lot of people linking to you, Google starts to shine in your favor. By far the majority of my daily traffic comes from Google.

Getting your own domain may help, but if you are really thinking about getting a domain, I would definately do it before you get a bunch of links. I regret not doing it sooner as I built up a lot of links to my old addresses that are pretty hard to get switched over (unless you can convice all the linking site owners to change their links).

I still use Blogger as my blogging tool as converting all my old posts to a new database is more than I want to deal with. Blogger has its limitations, but I've learned a lot about customizing templates and finding temporary solutions to making "categories" and such. Since Google bought out Blogger, I'm hoping they add more features to compete with Wordpress.

I would also suggest Feedburner to manage your feed. It helps you keep track of your subscribers better and handles feed traffic instead of your own server. Its been rock-solid for me.

I would also recommend building relationships with related bloggers. You've already started with me As you can probably tell, I tend to link more often to the bloggers I enjoy and build relationships with. They tend to do the same with me. I like to link to "indie" bloggers more than the big ones like Joystiq etc.

Hope that helps!

Thanks alot for taking your time to give me all this information. Its greatly appreciated.

Yeah. Your blog inspired me to write long entries, one entry I've written was on "Gamecubes Rare and Overlooked games". But when I switched servers, It got deleted (along with my other long entries) I felt pretty bad. When I started again March 6 (Server Crashed) from scratch I decided to only type small entries, afraid of losing all my work. But I believe I understand my mistake (with moving everything) and will write long entries as I've done in the past. I'll just backup my database more often .

I'll look into Feedburner too. Thanks again Racketboy.

[Mozgus]

Hello Racketboy, I'm curious on how you started off your blog. I know you had blogger, or something then moved your server. I'm working on a game blog, (special attack) which I know your familiar with, but don't have many readers or subscribers. I've enrolled my blog into Technorati, and many other blog directories. I was thinking about ordering a domain (possibly special-attack.com) will that help? If so, can you recommend any services that are reliable? I'm using WordPress for my entries. Any other tips on how I can increase traffic to my blog?

btw thanks for adding my entry on your link dump.

Hint: Do away with the scanlines on your background. Your site rapes my LCD when I scroll down. I feel a seizure coming...

[CurulleanCat]

Hint: Do away with the scanlines on your background. Your site rapes my LCD when I scroll down. I feel a seizure coming...

Oh gawd, I agree.

[bawitback]

Okay, my friend recommended me Misk [link] which includes domain names for $10 /y. Should I purchase a domain for my blog? right now i'm using funpic to host (free, no ads, no spyware, ect) what do you think?