Great ideas Deb! Thanks for sharing them - traffic is good!!

Thank you, Deb, for the response! It gives me more to think about as well as more to do. *grin* I will really be thinking on this.

One way to drive free traffic to your blog is to start article marketing. You might want to get a free trial of WordPress to see which primary keywords are popular search terms for your target audience. Once you know the search terms, write short 300-500 word articles with a few of the search terms in the body of the article and submit the articles to article directories like ezinearticles.com.

This does several things for you:

It gives you exposure. When you submit articles, others can link them to their blogs and websites. The stipulation is that the entire article must stay intact and they must credit you for the article.

It positions you as an authority. Writing articles helps others see you as an expert in your field. People tend to follow experts, so if you can provide good information and tips in your articles, people will probably go to your blog to see what you have to say.

It drives traffic to your website. As I stated above, if people are interested in knowing more about you, they'll click on the link in your bio box and hop on over to your site.

You might want to add an autoresponder series to get people to sign up for your list. The only way people will visit your blog is if you let the world know you're there. You can also send out a press release. There are companies online who will do this for you and get you a lot of exposure.

I hope this helps.

Deb

Do you focus on one particular area of what you are doing for your blogs, sigs, etc.? Or do you have a separate blog, sig, area for each one? i.e. I have consulting, book, publishing company. So there are 3 areas that aren't necessarily intertwined and yet they can be.

I've been using a stat counter from statcounter.com on my blog. It was pretty straightforward to set up, and they send out fascinating reports.
Has blogging helped me to sell more? Not yet, although I have only recently started to think about it in that way and started putting some pretty consciously applied articles about my niche area (career and life consulting) into my content. Stuff that people can use in addition to the little discussions about my life in general. The thing that has helped me to increase the traffic on it has been to participate in several strategic forums where the address is in my signature, and that seems to draw people in.
My website is set up and people come to it, but they do not convert to paying clients very often, so there is more work to do there too. I have a newsletter that I have been inconsistent in utilizing, however that is starting to change too.
Can we please have another six hours or so added to the week? That way I might just be able to get a few more things added in!

I am really looking forward to what folks have to say about these thought provoking questions Sue!