Chowrangi

Unless you are a saint or a secret agent, you are sure to have a burning desire to have people read your blog. This issue is so dear to bloggers that many sites have sprung up on the WWW just on this topic, and everyone claims to have that silver bullet on offer to attract the traffic to your blog, as flies attract to a honey pot, or boys attract to a girl in miniskirt on Tariq road.

My heart wants to say something to you.

“If you want to be in ecstasy, euphoria and utopia then blog.”

If you are interested in journalism, than blogging is not anything hostile, but its a grand way to sharpen your reporting and journalistic skills. Blogs are not something that would perhaps happen to journalism in future. They are something which have already been happened to the journalism. They are not the future of journalism, they are the present.

You always wanted to write that great blog post, which make you Ideal Blogger from Paradise? Well than there is no solution for your this illusion, but there are some guidelines which one could follow to be one hell of a blogger.

Well, let me repeat this umpteenth time, that content is the king. Select your topic with care and then enrich it with pertinent content. Readability, Credibility, digestibility and Memorability of your post would be more than possible if your post is brief. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said,” A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Any journalism is about people or its about community. journalism is about amplifying the conversations a society (community, people) has with itself. Journalism can best be understood as amplifying or accelerating something (cognition, attitudes, and/or behaviors) that are present in the society at large.

New media like blogging and social networking has give a new dimension to the journalism. The best achievement of this new media is that it has made a common person like me a journalist, who is read by, millions of people. Ok, make it some people.

For me, the most daunting part about blogging is what and how much to reveal about myself. If I am assertive about my liberal stand and candid about my daily lifestyle, I would run the risk of attacks by friends, occasional readers and may be psychopathic stalkers, I value. But if I am less so, the blog loses the edgy, honest and voyeuristic sparkle that are some ingredients of good blogging, so we have been told by gurus. Besides, what is the point of voicing my thoughts if I have to soften them? But any careless decision can result in dire consequences.

Comments on a blog post are a very beautiful thing, even if the comments are bitter. A bloggers feels much better if his/her blog posts receive comments. Almost all the bloggers, after posting, wistfully wish for the comments. Comments act like a life for the blogger. Comments expedite the blogging juices to a great extent.

Over the past months I have aggregated some traffic generating tips for blogs. They have accumulated from different sources, and some have also been popped up during online discussions. They are listed down below:

1 - KISS : Keep It Simple and Stupid. Blogs posts are meant to be light and for rapid digestion, so keep them clear of verbosity and complexity. Make them lively, interesting and attractive.

2- Add Value to your blog. Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value.

3- After every updation of your blog, try to send the updated links to aggregate and book marking sites.

4- A polemic blog is better than a non-polemic one.

If you are one of those bloggers who enjoying a huge reader base which is ever increasing, and you are quite frequently found on google search engine’s searches, and you have got a clout in the blogosphere plus, you are the one who drives the reader’s passion towards a specific objective, then you needn’t to be rude, aggressive, insulting to prove that you are something extraordinary.

Are comments to the posts in a specific blog are the yard stick to measure the popularity of that blog? Most of the people thing so. If the number of comments to a post are many, then that usually means that this blog is getting some traffic, and traffic means popularity. Its directly proportional. If a blog has more comments or traffic, it will be more popular.

But will it be authentic? What I mean is what if the blogger is commenting on his own post in large numbers, or what if he has hired couple of guys to comment like hell on his post, or worst the blogger writes or purchase a software which does the commenting.

Very very few of the bloggers blog just for themselves. Almost all blog to get read. To get read, visitors are required. So what could be the ways to attract traffic to the blogs. This is the question, whose answer is yet to be delivered absolutely.

World Wide Web (WWW) is full with the sites which offer tips and techniques regarding the boost of blog traffic. You would find infinite number of experts offering their proven methodology to enhance blog traffic. There are many self-proclaimed consultants who ensures you a handsome flow of traffic in exchange of a hefty consultant fee. These clownish consultants would wax long and boring with inane anecdotes.