Chris Bower's Tips on Blog Traffic

By Anthony Levensalor

Monday, September 26, 2005 at 06:30 AM

I was trolling around the usuals this morning, Ron Brynaert's Why Are We Back In Iraq?, and Mike Rogers' Blogactive (both in the links below), as well as MyDD. And I came across a an article by Chris Bowers on Blog Traffic, something of an essay by someone who's been there, and I went into it a little skeptical, but I saw a number of salient points in the article, and anyone who runs a blog really ought to spend a moment checking it out.

Meanwhile, this quote really stood out for me:

3-3. Traffic generated via links from larger blogs almost always doesn't last. After two days, your traffic spike will die down and, in all likelihood, every single new person who came to visit your blog will not return unless prompted with another link from a front-page blog. MyDD has been linked on the front page of either Atrios or Dailykos on at least one hundred occasions. If even 1% of the people who came through those links had become regular readers, our traffic would now be close to Eschaton's. It isn't. People come for the one post, but they don't stay. Like I said before, you need to get people to come in through the front door.

If a tryer thing were ever written, I have not seen it. WTW has been linked by BuzzFlash, RawStory, BreakForNews, PrisonPlanet, InforWars, Smirking Chimp, BartCop, MyDD, Air America Radio, Democratic Underground, you name it. And the spurts of traffic from one good story never last.

It is absolutely true that you do need those bigger blogs to notice and help you on your way, of course, by linking you when appropriate to raise awareness about your site. Or is it? Isn't the blogosphere supposed to be the king of Grassroots media? Smaller bloggers need to make their own way when it comes to getting their traffic up.

In any event, I'd like to hear your thoughts on his post, so go have a look and lemme know.

Love ya guys,
~A!