Blogging is all the rage in the media. Business magazines continually report that blogging can increase visitors to your website and increase sales for your business. So it is no wonder that there are now millions of blogs with millions of bloggers trying to jump on the bandwagon called blogging. Does this describe you? You’re probably wondering why you’ve been blogging for some time now without much success. Read on for the answer.

Think about this: there are millions of blogs but only a few hundred or so drive any significant amount of traffic. Those blogs are doing something right; you’re doing something wrong.

To understand why some blogs work while others don’t you should study the popular blogs to see what they do. Have a look at the following sample of blogs that are heavily read and reach a lot of readers. Try to spot common themes between them:

1. http://www.business-opportunities.biz
2. http://www.calacanis.com
3. http://microsoft.weblogsinc.com
4. http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/weblog.php

Here’s what these blogs do right and what you should do to emulate them:

1. They freely link to other websites and other blogs. So many people are afraid to link elsewhere from their blog because they don’t want to redirect their readers elsewhere; they want to keep their readers on their own blog. The big boys aren’t afraid and they have plenty of links. Here’s what happens; when you link to other blogs and websites those people will find out about it. When they find out about it, they will have a look at your blog. When they look at your blog they may decide to link to it. Slowly, you’ll get more links to your blog which will bring you more traffic. And, when you get more links you’ll also get more search engine traffic. Don’t ask for links; give and you shall receive.

2. They use descriptive words in the anchor text of their links. When you link to other blogs, use descriptive text in the link. This is called the “anchor text.” If you scroll down to the bottom of this article you will see that I use “sales leads” as descriptive text in the link to my website. This is because search engines will associate the descriptive text with what the website is about and will help in search engine results for that keyword. Search engines need to find your blog so help them find other blogs and other blogs will then help them find you. This is another example of “give and you shall receive.” You do it for others and they will do it for you.

3. They write about news, current events, other businesses, other people, other blogs, and other websites. The biggest mistake that new bloggers make is that they only write about themselves and their businesses. You may think that you are the most important person in the world (rightfully so) and that your business is the most important business in the world (and it should be to you), but others don’t see it that way. Stop writing so much about yourself. Nobody wants to hear it. Writing about yourself is the best way to bore people. You can write about yourself but keep it to less than a quarter of the time.

4. They write interesting topics with an interesting point of view. I think this is self explanatory. This is the best way to have loyal visitors.

5. They blog often. Most of the top bloggers post a blog once or twice a day. Their readers know that they can visit the blog each and every day and find something new. You have to condition yourself to do the same.

This is what the top bloggers do and this is what you, too, should do if you want your blog to generate traffic.

My name is Tino Buntic, creator of TradePals, providing sales leads to business professionals across the country. I also have a business blog which I use to promote my website. Feel free to link to my website or blog and I will reciprocate.

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