This post is being submitted as a contribution to the Tips & Tricks blog writing project happening over at Daily Blog Tips.

If you’re looking for blogging tips, there are all sorts of them floating around the blogosphere. Some tips are targeted for everyone, while others may only target a small group of bloggers, but the general consensus is that content is king and will earn you the most readers. This is obviously an indisputable fact, but no matter how good your content is, it won’t do you any good if potential readers don’t know you exist. Here are a few tips for new bloggers to use to help readers discover your website:

  1. Link To Others When They Do Good Work/Send Trackbacks – To me, this is the most important and most rewarding way to help people find your blog. This can be done in a couple of ways:
      a) Some choose to do it on a more personal level and dedicate individual posts to highlight the work of another blogger within their niche. This way has the added benefit of better indexed with a better ranking by search engines and also allows users to comment on your individual post and strike up a discussion.
      b) The other method is to throw up a post with several links that go all over the place, such as “Daily Links” or “Weekly Links”. This method is much less personal, will not index well with search engines due to a lack of focus on keywords, and will probably not incite many comments because it usually won’t have a focused subject. The upside is that it will require a lot less work and allow you to share more “link love” than the first method.

    No matter which of the two methods you use (or a combination of both), make sure your blog does not become an echo chamber. Contribute to each link in your post by adding your thoughts and opinions to the link. Once your post is ready to publish, send a trackback to each post that you link to. If you are linking to a smaller blog, the author will more than likely notice and check out your website. If it’s a larger blog, the authors probably won’t notice, but those sites will often display trackbacks and you will often get clicks from their readers who want to see others reactions to the post.

  2. Leave Worthwhile Comments On Other Websites - Another popular way to help people find your blog is by participating in some discussions on other blogs within your niche. Make sure that you go for quality when leaving a comment, as this shows you know what you are talking about and can get the author and other readers attention. You’ll also make a good impression if you track your comments and follow up (if necessary). I recommend using Co.mments, but CoComment is also another popular comment tracking service.
  3. Offer to Guest Write For Other Bloggers – What better way to show off your writing skills than to guest blog on other blogs in your niche that have a lot of subscribers?   If your post is well written, yet unique and written in your own voice, readers will respond and pick up your feed.
  4. Participate In A Writing Project – There are several sites around the blogosphere that regularly run a writing project (usually monthly or bi-monthly). I recommend contributing a post to each writing project you run across. Typically when the project is complete, this will generate a load of back links by people that are picking their favorite contributions. You will also get a few extra links from people that create a post with every post contributed to the writing project.

These 4 tips were designed as free and easy ways to get people to find your website. Its important to note, however, that no matter how good you are at getting people to find your blog, people won’t stay unless the content is good. Therefore, you will want to have a decent amount of content written before you start your campaigning. Also, if you are really confident in your blog, there are other highly effective options that are not free, such as advertising with Google AdWords, Text Link Ads, or running a contest on your blog with prizes.