1. Link Related Posts - Often, when blog posts get pushed off the front page, they lose their popularity and languish in your blog archives. Unfortunately, most of your readers won’t take the time to read through all your old posts, so it’s up to you to promote them. A great way to do this is to link to old content whenever you post new content. This can help to prolong the life of older posts, and keeps you from having to write the same content over and over. If you use WordPress as your blogging platform, you can install the Related Posts plugin and WordPress will automatically link to posts of interest.
2. Rewrite or Edit Old Content – If you have blog posts that aren’t ranking well in Google, try updating and optimizing them with fresh keywords. Sometimes, all it takes is a new title to improve your blog post’s ranking. Alternatively, if you have older posts that do rank well, you can use them to link to newer posts that may be related.
3. Write a Series – If you want to blog in depth about a particular topic, consider writing a series of several articles. You can keep these as short as two or three or make them longer such as a 30 day challenge. Make sure to link to previous posts so that new readers can quickly get up-to-speed on what you are currently discussing.
4. Feature Your Best Posts – Create a list of your best posts and link to them either in your blog’s sidebar or on a “Featured Articles” page on your website. Here, you can link to 5-10 of your pillar articles that either you are most proud of or that have gotten the most traffic or comments.

Creating a profitable blog that has an active community base takes patience and persistence, but by linking to previous posts and engaging new readers, you can dramatically increase the number of visitors who become regulars.

1. Keyword Research – The Google Keyword Research tool and Wordtracker’s Free Keyword tool are great places to start for finding keywords that your visitors typing into Google. Blogs are great for targeting long-tail keywords that generate some traffic. If each article you write targets a different long-tail phrase, you can rank well for less competitive keywords and start building up traffic to your website.
2. Target Market Research – Like keyword research, understanding what your target audience expects on your blog is key to building readership and developing a core following of repeat readers. What types of content do your readers want to learn? Keep your blog focused around related topics and try not to stray too off-topic. If you aren’t sure if your readers would be interested in a particular topic, ask them.
3. Update Your Blog – If you want to rank well in search engines and build a loyal reader base, you must update your blog regularly. That doesn’t mean you have to update it daily, but ideally, you should update it at least once or twice a week at most. If you are shooting to make money with advertising revenue, often you must update your site several times a day to generate enough pageviews for decent payouts. Think about how your blog enhances your target market’s life – what can you provide that other sites don’t? Entertain them and keep things interesting, and readers will stick around.
4. Engage Readers – Whenever someone leaves a comment, adds a post to your discussion forum or sends you an email, try to respond. While this isn’t always possible, in the beginning stages of your blog, it adds credibility and that “personal” touch.
5. Join the Blogosphere Conversation - Initially, you should be spending at least a third of your blogging time reading and leaving comments on other blogs in your niche. By building relationships with key bloggers, you can fast track your blog’s success and generate considerable traffic in the process.
6. Use Social Media – Start building relationships and promoting your blog’s content on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, and others. Many bloggers also have social media accounts and are easy to connect with through social media, so if your email isn’t getting a response, try Twitter.

Above all else, recognize that it takes time to build a popular blog. It takes time to build up a critical mass of great posts, to build relationships with other bloggers in your niche, and to create an active readership base. Be patient and persistent, and eventually your results will pay off.

Leave Comments

Leaving quality comments that add to the community discussion on the top blogs within your niche area is one of the quickest ways to generate traffic to your blog. Use Google Blog Search or Technorati to find blogs within your niche area, then subscribe to their blogs. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with how these bloggers write and who generally participates in the blog discussion, join in.

Just a quick note here: don’t spam! And by spam, I mean comments like “I agree with your post. Check out my blog.” Find ways to actually contribute and add value to the discussion. Keep it short – if you prefer to write a lengthier response, you can do so on your blog.

Build Relationships

If you want to build a high traffic blog, seek out the influencers in your niche and build relationships with them. Participating in their blog or forum discussion is the first step. You can also write about their content on your blog and reach out to them by sending them a personal email introduction.

Bloggers prefer personal interaction, so don’t send a generic email that sounds like it could go out to 10,000 others. Rather, talk about the subjects they write about, reference a particular post you liked, or ask about something they might be interested in. Whatever you do, don’t give them a hard sell pitch.

Guest Posting

Many bloggers are in constant need of new content and welcome guest posts from other bloggers. One of the benefits of being a regular commenter on a high traffic blog is that you can network with other bloggers and set up mutually beneficial marketing agreements.

The general rule of thumb is to go where your target audience already is – and interact with them there. As you build rapport and trust, they will eventually follow you to your blog to continue the conversation.