You put a lot of work into your blog. All that time looking through pages and pages of trend forecasts, creating style.com lookbooks, commenting on sites, and of course writing, has gotten you a blog you love. Your own. So how do you let us know you are out there? Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

1. Claim your blog on Technorati. I find this the easiest way to keep track of who is linking to me, and what they are saying. It’s the first thing I have done. This may not increase your traffic, I personally have not noticed any traffic coming from Technorati, but it’s a handy tool.

2. Get a third-party traffic counter. Google analytics is what I use for my blogs, it’s free, and amazing how comprehensive it is.

3. Use key words to tag your posts. This will help make your blog more search-engine friendly.

4. Be an active commenter. One way to help get the word out is to comment on other people’s blogs. A good chunk of my traffic comes from links from other fashion blogs, I got most of those links by developing relationships with other bloggers. It also adds to the sense of community by encouraging posts that inspire discussion.

7. Reveal as much as possible. The one thing that hooked me into fashion blogs, is that I felt that by reading them, it was like having a very fashionable friend who told me all her beauty secrets, only she was far away, and nobody else knew her, so it made her all the much more special. We all have something to give, and why not be as honest and authentic as possible? I guarantee you’ll shine though that way.

8. Use your own voice. You are charming and delightful. We want to know it.

5. If you are new, you don’t need to be jumping on the bandwagon. I know, I know, it’s hard not to talk about fashion week… it’s so exciting to see all the coverage come in. But if you want to make your blog stand out, it’s not going to do so by talking about the same thing every other person is talking about. Let the bigger blogs take care of the big news, take a moment to develop your own voice.

6. Invite guest bloggers. Ok, I haven’t done this before, because I interview so much, so in a way that’s inviting a guest blogger. I found it’s great to bring in the outside world onto your blog, it’s adds depth, and give your blog another perspective than just your own. I have found it’s opened my eyes in ways I never knew possible.

9. Make your blog visually appealing. I get compliments that my blog looks ‘professional’ actually, I’m a graphic designer, and if I can’t make something look professional, well… I’d be out of shoe and home. I know blogger has some good templates and use photos and block quotes to make it easy for the ADD blog reader to get a clue about what you are writing about. But don’t get carried away… too much is too much… just like Coco Chanel said, “before you leave the house, take one thing off”

10. Build your brand. With all the other networking tools out there, myspace, IQONs, flickr, facebook, stylemob, makeup alley, all of which I participate in it’s easier to build a presence if I stick to my brand.

Anyway, I hope this helps… this of course is a big topic, what are some ways you build your traffic base?

image via Face Hunter