Get Listed

Though most blog directories aren’t frequented often by humans, Search engine robots love them. Having your blog listed in as many relevant places as possible does nothing but help you show up when people search for the topic you write in.

There are literally hundreds of blog directories for any given niche. Finding the right directories can be a difficult task if you don’t have the right tools.  While I can’t cover all of these directories in this venue, there are a few places you can start when looking for directories related to your niche:

The Weblogs Compendium

The RSS Top 55

Search Engine Journal’s 20 Essential Directories list

There are many, many more places to look, but the previous three resources should get you well on your way to getting both a bunch of free inbound links and better traffic quickly.

Harness the Power of Community

Blog directory sites were once simple lists of blogs in different topical groups, but no more.  Communities have grown around blogging.  Sites like BlogCatalog bring thousands of bloggers together with similar interests together every day and this type of community drives traffic and creates exposure.

Once your blog is listed, you have the choice of joining groups of blogs in your niche and can send announcements to other members of those groups when you post a new article. The chances of getting traffic increases exponentially when you have a large number of friends, as they will help promote your blog for you, as long as you help promote theirs.

As a community site, BlogCatalog also has a discussion forum.  posting in this forum often will also generate traffic to your blog for little more than a few minutes of your time on any given day.  It’s far too valuable a resource not to use.

MyBlogLog is another community of bloggers much like BlogCatalog and can be just as beneficial in building traffic and returning readers (Assuming it stays alive through budget cuts), but each of these resources must be actively used to have maximum effect.

A lot of people obsess over Google page rank.  While I don’t believe that page rank has any bearing whatsoever on the quality of a blog or website, it is the measure by which advertisers judge how much to pay you, and in the case of payed blog services like Pay Per Post, it’s the measure of how much money you’re able to earn per assignment.

While researching my series on increasing traffic, I’ve come across a slew of blog posts and other information on improving your Google page rank.  the best of these so far has been this post by CallCenterVet on BlogCatalog.  The information is solid and, if you’re just itching to increase your PR, it’s worth it to take it to heart.