Getting traffic to your blog?

Ditto. Find ways to partner with other sites - put a link to their site/blog on yours and vice versa. My paper has found that some of our best sports blogs receive the most visitors from the blog being linked on fan sites.

 

Link from individual stories on your Web site. For example, if you cover a prep basketball game with a stud recruit, have an info box that says, "For a recruiting update on Johnny Superstar, check out (name/link of blog here)."

And update often.

 

Considering the variable quality and vitriol on fan sites, I'd be careful there. Gotta be careful who your newspaper's good name is promoting.

 

The newspaper isn't necessarily linking to those fan sites, but you better believe fan sites post and link to sports blogs. Where do you think many of those "insider message boarders" get a lot of their "inside info?"

 

also use a different writing style in the blog. i hate this word, but be a little edgier.

or you can mix in commentary with news, like when peter preps prospect orally commits to LSU you add a few grafs about the meaningless-ness or oral commitments.

if your blog is all local all the time, i'd suggest incorporating photos that don't get into the paper.

ultimately i agree with the posters above who said to be consistent. you have to blog every day, preferably multiple times a day. miss a few days here and there and your blog will be relegated to oblivion. any blog readers read dozens, if not hundreds of blogs. give them a reason not to stop by yours and they won't.

 

A few links or even pics of a bikini-clad Jessica Biel wouldn't hurt either.

"Edgy" is a hell of a lot better than "sexy"
I absolutely HATE that buzz word.

 

Nothing wrong with sxy.

 

If your writers go on radio or TV, say yeah, we'll allow our writers on your show, but you have to promote our blog.

Use their our asses the same way we use yours. :-[

 

have to have fun with it. also, make sure it's a place where people can expect to find breaking news. that was a big part of mine gaining popularity, and then the local tv and radio folks started referencing it

interaction is good. people ask questions, make sure you answer them

i've gotten good response with mine. i get about 100 comments or so a day

 

We do a lot of photo and video galleries on our blogs, but we're a convergence media outlet, so we have those resources.

In fact, for a recent experience, our blogs were getting more hits on the web site than the news was getting.

 

If it's basketball, get insidehoops.com to quote it on their rumors page

If it's baseball, find big baseball sites

 

Find out as much about the sex lives of ESPN on-air personalities as possible.

And if that fails, two words: nip slips.

(OK, in all seriousness, here's what not to do: Don't forsake the quality of the blog as you search for traffic. Readers will find their way there if you give them something to read. Don't over-reach at first; know your niche.)