How to Start a Blog Day 9 - Grow Your Traffic Part 2

Welcome to Day 9!

Ok I know I have tossed a lot of info at you and in hindsight, I should have sent 1 email a week but I dive in head first to a new project!

Social media is a great way gain blog traffic BUT you are at the mercy of someone else's algorithm and changes. How do you beat that?

Email marketing.

Building your email list should happen from day one. I didn't know this and several years passed before I took my email list seriously. Also, do NOT use the RSS feature to send out your emails. Make sure to personalize them. You can use your email to promote products, gain traffic on your blog posts, and make money via affiliate links.

The best ways to learn to grow your list is via the Building an Effective Email List Course.

Other ways to build traffic

- _{Comment on posts on other blogs in your niche. Make sure your posts add to the conversion and do not be spammy!}
- _{Optimize your SEO. This is how search engines like Google find you and you gain search traffic. To learn more on SEO I suggest checking out the info from Learn to Blog Hangouts.}
- _{Add a link to your blog in your email signature, both personal and blog email.}
- _{Add a link to your blog in any forums you participate in.}
- _{Internal link. This means link to at least one of your other blog posts in each and every post. This will keep readers on your site longer.}
- _{Participate in Twitter Parties on your Blog Twitter Account}
- _{You can always run ads. I find Facebook or Pinterest ads the best way to gain traffic and you can do so for as little as $2 a day.}
- _{Use great pictures. You should have at least one great picture in your post that relates to your topic. I use stock photos from Deposit Photo for many of these but there are some great sites to gain free photos too such as Unsplash. Using stock photos allows me to make every post ‘Pinterest ready' to be shared.}

Have social share buttons on your blog to make it easy for your readers to share your content.

As you gain readers they will share your content and it's a spiral effect!

Tomorrow is the last day and I will be sharing a few more tips with you + my must have blogging tools!

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