Building relevant traffic for our blog is often the biggest challenge we face. One great way to generate links and traffic is to register your blog with popular blog directories.

WebsiteMagazine.com recently published a list of 30 popular blog directories. I’ve taken this list and turned it into a blog submission tracking spreadsheet that you can download and use to track your efforts in submitting your blog to the relevant blog directories on the list.

30 Popular Blog Directories

Use this list to generate additional traffic for your blog by

• Visiting each of these directories and
• Registering and claiming your blog.

Then use this document to track your efforts and any login information and other notes related to your submission. Keep in mind that not all directories are appropriate for all blogs. Some serve special niches which may not be appropriate for the focus of your blog. Also, check within your own industry to see if there are industry specific directories where you’ll want to pursue a listing for your blog.  

Many blog platforms provide the capability to “ping” or notify popular blog catalogues when you create new posts but a more hands-on effort on your part will ensure that you create a more targeted, focused listing that will pay off in more targeted, focused traffic to your blog.

So very cool. Want to know the journey taken by your latest and, no doubt, most brilliant blog posting? Check out The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits — to You from Wired Magazine…

Then check out the competition on Bloglines list of Top 1000 blogs. A great list which ranks the top blogs and their readership trends. Who’s number 1? Slashdot. The worst of the best? El Blog Salmon. The highest business focused blog? Fast Company at #19.

A fun list and not a bad primer for figuring out what it takes to be successful in the blog-o-sphere.

I started blogging in November 2003. I wrote 3 posts through the end of the year. I wrote 10 posts in 2004 with nothing after July of that year and didn’t post anything else for over a year, until November, 2005. Since then I’ve STARTED blogging, logging over 40 posts in that time. Other than registering with Technorati and getting listed in the Blogspot directory – my original blog was (still is) built using Blogger and fed to my web site – I haven’t done a whole lot of promotion for my blog. And, while I’ve seen an uptick in traffic because of my blog, I’m not seeing huge numbers coming through it; and that’s okay by me.

You might ask me, “Why?, you’re the ‘internet marketer’, right? How come you aren’t building any traffic?” The reason is simple, I don’t think I have enough to offer yet. I’m getting there. Some of what I’ve written, even I think, is pretty good. But there’s not enough and there’s not enough focus as of yet. If I’m to attract AND keep an audience, I need to have a message that appeals to and applies to them. I have to provide value consistently and I don’t think I’m there yet.

The question is not so much, “how do I build traffic?”, as it is, “what value do I provide the traffic I build?“. Believe me, if I, or you provide value via your web site, published works, products or however else you deliver what you do to your customers, you will build traffic. It’s called word-of-mouth or, on the web, viral. Borrowing from Field of Dreams; that movie’s catch-phrase was, “If you build it, they will come.” Turn it around. If they come, and you haven’t built it, not only will they leave but they’ll likely not return and tell everyone else not to bother going either.

Seth Godin, interestingly enough, posted this comment today on his blog:

…People never say, “how can I earn more traffic?” or “How can I rethink the core of what I’m offering so that it organically attracts people who want to see it?”…

I agree with Mr. Godin because that’s where I’m at … trying to figure out how to earn traffic. Because whatever you earn, you get to keep.