1. We can’t say enough what an awesome source of traffic Pinterest can be. Check out this post, which reminds us to pin older content too and be sure to add a Pin It button to your posts.

2. Twitter – Don’t just tweet your link once and forget about it. Think about time zones, and when different people might be on-line, write a few tweets per post and spread them out over the day.

3. Commenting on Other Blogs – This is a great way to build connections with the blogging community as well as drive traffic. It’s not a guarantee the bloggers you leave comments for will visit your site – but it does up the odds and raise awareness about your blog.

4. Set up a Facebook page for your blog. Fill your profile as robustly as possible, with links to your other social media sites, your Tumblr, Twitter etc. Publish your post links and create galleries of out-take images.

5. Submit your best post of the week to IFB’s Links A La Mode.

6. Use StumbleUpon’s discovery and social sharingtools to share your best posts and figure out what types of content people all over the world are reading, then apply it to your site.

7. Apply to or join a publishing network like Glam Media.

10. Post an Instagram or Twitter image “teaser” of an upcoming post, with a link to the post.

11. Reach out to one or more bloggers to have them contribute a guest post to your site, or pitch yourself as a guest post-er to one of your peers.

12. Make sure your blog is registered with Bloglovin’ so your site can be found and followed in this popular reader.

13. Twitter Part II: When you promote your post, “@” the brands you’re wearing or places you visited – anything that applies!

14. Use tags to organize your content within your site. For example, tag all your outfit posts with the same thing, then create a page at the top of your site that allows quick access to all those posts in one place. You can do the same for any repetitive content such as beauty, music, celebrity looks, etc!

15. Utilize Pinterest and share your blog posts with current and potential followers. Just make sure to use an eye-catching graphic to grab your follower’s attention.

16. Make sure your correct URL is everywhere it needs to be: Your Twitter profile, your Facebook fan page, your Instagram profile, Pinterest, and so on!

17. Promote your blog post on Tumblr with a colorful graphic or image. Just make sure the graphic links back to your original blog post!

19. Network within the IFB community! Reach out to other members and participate in the IFB Project each week.

20. Host a giveaway on your blog. This is a surefire way to attract readers, comments and followers, and increase site traffic. Read our best giveaway tips here.

Did we miss a tactic you use to bring more visitors to your blog? Share your best ideas in the comments!

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I’m sure you’ve all heard the term “RSS Feed” – and you probably use Google Reader, Bloglines or a similar feed reader to follow all the blogs you want to keep up with on a daily basis. Let’s face it, as much as we’d love to visit every blog we love everyday, there are just too many! So we turn to our feed readers… What does this mean to your blog? And to your site traffic?

We have a few quick tips to help you use your RSS feed to it’s full potential, without loosing traffic.

But first let’s start with the basis – what is an RSS feed?

• RSS = Really Simple Syndication. Without getting all technical on you, an RSS feed basically turns your blog posts into a file that can be read by a feed reader, allowing it to be easily distributed outside of your blog.
• Feed Reader (also called an RSS Reader or and aggregator) – This does just what it sounds like, it reads the RSS feeds. A Feed Reader can be on the web or on your desktop or mobile device – it collects updated from all the feeds you subscribe to in one simple place.

And now – IFB’s RSS Feed Tips for the Blogging Community:

• Make it easy to subscribe to your feed. Have an RSS logo near the top of your blog (you’ve seen them – the little orange and white squares? In fact, check out the right side of our navigation bar – it’s right there!)
• Consider using Feed Burner. Feed Burner lets you track how many followers your feed has – it also tracks when your posts get read, and when your readers click through. This is all valuable information you can use to optimize your posts.
• Share your photos. You have the option of leaving your images out of your feed – however, I think this works against you. When I’m browsing my reader I don’t pay attention to the posts without pictures. It might seem like it would encourage people to visit your blog, but I find it upsets the flow of my reading.
• Include extra links. Put your social share links right in the body of your posts – that way they can be easily tweeted from the Feed Reader and your readers followers have the chance to visit your site. Think about adding links to similar posts at the bottom too – giving people incentive you click over to the blog.
• Ask a question. This is a good way to encourage engagement with your readers. It can help get a good comment chain going, and RSS readers will be intrigued to click through to comment.
• Write snappy titles. This is a basic you should be doing anyway – but it holds true to RSS Feeds, the better the headline the more likely it is to get read!

 Do you subscribe to our RSS feed? Do you use a Feed Reader? Which one? What gets you to click out of your reader and over to a blog? Tell us in the comments!

[image by damon.garrett]

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As a blogger, do you ever wonder to yourself how a certain post (either yours or someone else’s) got so popular? There’s no universal secret to why certain posts are more successful than others. It often has to do with timeliness, but sometimes people just like things; they have a gut reaction that causes them to share, to comment and to talk.

The most popular post of all time on my personal blog (I’ve been posting for 3 years) was this post on a DIY project I did one weekend. It wasn’t especially good, but it was picked up and reposted by my ad network, The Huffington Post / Stylelist. Same goes for the second and third most read. So my reason is pretty obvious, but not everyone has a network that pulls their content that way. Sometimes all it takes is the right retweet, a properly shared link or a very timely topic to help a post shoot to the top of your rankings or go viral.

I wanted to know what the most popular posts from some of our favorite bloggers were, and if their authors could pinpoint a reason. Below you’ll see five very different experiences from five very different blogs. You’ll notice that spikes in traffic happen for many different reasons, non of which are out of your reach!

Jessie Thorpe, Denimology

Anna Derkin, See Jane

Once it was announced that I was a finalist in Refinery29′s ‘Next Big Style Blogger Contest,’ in 2011, I received a ton of unexpected traffic to my site. It definitely was a wake-up call for my blog (and me) and it was definitely unnerving coming to the realization that it wasn’t just my family reading it anymore!  Of course, they were the original readers and they’re a tough crowd, so I still aim to please them with every post. The exposure that came from taking a chance and entering that contest inspires me  

Victoria McGinley, Vmac + Cheese

I can think of two examples of posts that got serious traffic. The first was actually a series of posts I put together before attending the Altitude Summit this past January. I dubbed it ‘Mini Alt Week’ and designed infographics using quotes from lots of bloggers that I reached out to ahead of time. The series offered tips, insights, and best practices into the world of blogging. I think it was successful for lots of reasons: 1. It provided major value to other bloggers (and even potential bloggers), 2. It was pleasing to look at (if I do say so myself!), not just huge blocks of text with no color or images, and 3. it had sharing power. So many people ended up linking to the series that week, both on Twitter, Facebook, or their own blogs! The other recent post I can think of was discussing my honest views of diving into the world of wedding planning. I never DREAMED the post would get the response it did (in fact, I worried it might even alienate people). But it was real. It was ME. Sometimes, I think putting yourself out there and being vulnerable can resonate with your community. It shows that you’re just like them, and can make you as relatable as you are in real life!

Jess Estrada, Fresh Jess

I did a post back in 2010 on feather hair extensions, right before they really took off and became a big trend. To this day, it’s seen over 400% more traffic than my second-highest traffic-driving post. I’m pretty sure that when you Google “featherlocks” my blog pops up in the top search results. It was my first time getting on the press page of a brand’s site (the salon & the feather extensions both included me) and seeing my blog next to Vogue & InStyle made me so happy! That post really kicked off a slough of fun brand campaigns and sponsorships for me.

Ashe Robinson, {putting the} Ash in Fashion

My most popular post, in terms of traffic, was inspired by a post by lifestyle/finance blogger Fabulously Broke in the City.  It was calledFinance & the Fashion Blogger: Things I Won’t Give Up to Save Money, but I slanted it with a fashion & beauty twist.  It was quoted in a post at The Consumer — completely out of context. Then others began to link to the post, with their own commentary– again, out of context. That day I received 6700 page views (about 10x my daily traffic!).  I received comments calling me a bitch, shallow, claiming that I must own a $500 purse for every outfit– one person even accused me of having a job! LAWD HELP ME I HAVE A JOB.  People COMPLETELY missed the point that a) I run a niche blog and b) took a post idea and applied it to my niche.   That much traffic actually sucked when people were coming to my site for the wrong reason; defending myself was useless.  I learned a lot from that post, and it definitely helped me develop a thicker skin as a result. (And by the end of the day, I just kept telling myself– and the computer– hey! thanks for all the traffic!)

We would love to hear about the highest traffic post you ever had! Go into your Google Analytics (or the analytics of your platform) and see what post has the most views. If you feel comfortable, share a link and some ideas of why you think it was so popular!

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By now we’re all getting pretty familiar with Pinterest, the surprisingly addictive image bookmarking site. If you haven’t gotten in on the action yet – check it out here. Lately, it seems that a new article shows up on our radar everyday touting the sites ability to drive traffic. This is true for business, but is it true for blogs? I did a little digging and came up with a few great tips to help increase traffic from Pinterest to your blog.

Here are IFB’s 6 Tips for Increasing Your Traffic from Pinterest

1. Get your own Pinterest account and start pinning your own blog images. Follow your favorite brands and bloggers and repin their pins too. Each time you repin something it shows up in the mini news-feed, giving you a little extra exposure. Just don’t get crazy with it, no one likes a Pinterest spammer.

2. Make sure your content is “pinable”.  You want to use large images – not too many attached together vertically, and no tiny images.

3. Consider adding a watermark with your blog URL to your original images, so that if they are pinned they can easily be traced back to you.

4. Give your pins short, catchy descriptions that include important keywords and tags (colors, items, etc.) so they will be found easily in a search.

5. Don’t forget your older content. Check out your blog archives for great images you’ve posted in the past and give them new life on Pinterest.

6. Add a “Pin-It” button to your posts. This is slightly more advanced and takes a little coding. But the first step is to visit www.pintrest.com/goodies and scroll down to “Pin It” Button for Websites. Fill in your blog URL and the image URL you’d like people to be able to pin from that post, copy the code it generates and paste at the very bottom of the HTML code of your post. (Blogger and WordPress both let you toggle between the HTML editor and the visual editor.) It is also possible to set the Pin It Button up to automatically appear in every post using the advanced code. Here’s a tutorial you can use to add the pin-it button to your blog!

Is Pinterest driving any traffic to your blog? What tricks do you use when pinning? Let us know in the comments!

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Every blogger is looking for the secret sauce. The perfect combination of great content, engaged readers and steady traffic. While we totally understand that blogging is more than a numbers game, everyone wants more eyes in front of their great content. And why shouldn’t you?! You spend hours crafting informative, useful and entertaining posts, people should know about it!

But getting traffic is a daunting task and there’s so much information in cyberspace about how to go about getting it. Organic traffic from search engines is a great (and often overlooked) way to get readers to your blog. Google, Yahoo and Bing  serve results to searchers looking for information and rank them according to relevance to what a searcher is looking for. By creating a useful post and optimizing it, your blog can appear at the top of the ranks and get the traffic your content deserves.

Here’s the IFB Primer on how to optimize your content and strut to the top of the Google ranks!

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