I've got a new tech blog but I'm new to paying for SEO and promotion. Been thinking about it but my budget is very low. So, what's the ideal way to promote a newly started blog? Directory submissions? High traffic links? What gives me the best return on investment?
Start producing quality content, and lots of it. Also, if you have some contacts with high ranking sites, a few quality inbound links will help speed up your success. Look at some popular blogs like BoagWorld or Cyprich to study their tactics and approach.
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I have started my blog about a month and half ago and was in the same situation like you are right now. In June, I posted 3 posts and got 1000 page views from 100 unique and July, so far 9000 page views from 500 unique users. Main change I made were 2. A: Start writing 1 post per day. B: Removed all the ads from my site. These 2 things gave my visitors an impression that I am not after making some quick buck from them and I am serious about my work. Other than that, I exchanged links and wrote couple of guest posts at other blogs. So far I have not done StumbleUpon, Digg and other similar sites and focusing on adding my site to different directories. My advice, take one thing at a time and work your way to gain at least basic traffic. There is no point of paying money to promote your site if you do not have enough content. I will promote my site (spend money) on Google, Yahoo! and MSN after 5-6 months when I'll have close to 300+ pages of content.
Thank you all for the advice. I'll try to acquire some patience. I currently have ~200 uniques per day and today I launched a partner site that has had ~300 uniques. Unfortunately I can't stand it when things don't develop, when they stand still. My tactics are to improve, build further, exchange links and get some decent PR backlinks while waiting for more pages to become indexed by Google. Sounds solid to me, but then I'm pretty much an amateur.
Make sure that you submit your blog posts to sites like digg.com, del.icio.us, reddit.com, blogmarks, Furl.net, and also stumble upon it (stumbleupon.com) It would help a lot and it is free.
You might consider building backlinks through article marketing... Growing a website is a slow but sure process. Just hang in there and be sure to do something everyday - over the long term you will succeed.
Some good advice, but social bookmarking is not the most proficient- you need TARGETED traffic to succeed in the long term.
Well, my Digg traffic is pretty targetted since it comes from the Apple category and Apple is my specific niche. What would you recommend then?
Btw, would paying for one of those "100 manual directory submissions" increase my traffic from Google? I mean, would I climb higher on the result pages? Currently like #27 for "iphone wallpapers".