Check out my RSS Feed if you enjoy this post. See what I did there?

1) Write a post about your RSS Feed. Even if your grandma is the only one who reads your blog, don’t let people know that! Write a post about your RSS Feed, why it’s good to subscribe to it, and explain some of the benefits to your readers. For example, subscribing to your RSS Feed via email is a great way for users to read your blog on the go and on their portable devices. Make sure to remind them of this.

2) Make your RSS Feed icon visible. The first thing one may notice when they come to my blog is the large and obtrusive (but shiny) RSS Feed icon over to the right. There’s also the subscribe via email field under it, and it’s pretty welcoming if a reader likes a few of my posts. Take away that tiny text wrapped in <small> at the bottom of your blog saying “Please subscribe to my RSS Feed” – sorry, but no one will. You need something obvious and above the fold (before the user has to scroll down) for you to gain more RSS Readers.

3) Hold a contest. People will do almost anything for $10. A small cash prize for a random drawing of one of your RSS Subscribers is an extremely easy wait to increase your subscriber count (via e-mail). Have them subscribe to your RSS Feed, then comment on the post saying that they did. That way, you can check their email in the backend of your blog software, and compare it to their e-mail in at Feedburner – this leads us to the next tip.

4) USE FEEDBURNER. Anyone who is trying to promote their RSS Feed and doesn’t use Feedburner should be ashamed. Not only can you keep track of how many people are subscribed, but you can also keep an e-mail list, create buttons/widgets for your blog, and even easily organize and promote your podcast, if you have one. It is a necessity if you are running a blog. Sub-Tip: Use the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin to automatically convert all of your RSS Feeds on your site to your Feedburner one. This means that if someone is using a browser that detects your Wordpress RSS feed, instead of giving them access to that, it will give them your Feedburner one.

5) Gain a Twitter following. Twitter has a lot of bloggers, and I mean, a lot of bloggers. If you aren’t a Twitter user yet, sign up and follow some people. You’ll instantly see that they promote their blog like crazy, letting people know about their RSS feed, when they write a new post on their blog, and even set up an automatic DM (direct message) for people to check out their blog. If you want, check me out on Twitter, and I’ll make sure to follow you back if you let me know you came from my blog. Make sure to set up TwitterFeed on your blog (so when you write a new post it will tweet it) and search Google for “Automatic Twitter Follow Response” and write a short message welcoming your new follower and link them to your blog. When you use Twitter though, even out your personal life tweets to links on your blog – if your public timeline consists of only links and self promotion, you’ll have a hard time gaining new followers.

And that’s all folks, comment here if you have any questions or would like to add anything to this list. Good luck! [Image Via]

Though getting your site or content on Digg or Reddit is a great way to start, it’s not always possible. Write up a summary of your site and send it to these following sites. Each link will directly send you to their contact page:

1) KillerStartups: KillerStartups reviews 15+ sites a day, and displays basic information about your site and company to the world. Getting reviewed by them is a little tougher than some other sites, so make sure you have a “killer” site.

2) MakeUseOf: MakeUseOf is a large directory of web apps, with over 60,000 subscribed via e-mail or RSS. This can drive great amounts of traffic to your site, and is very beneficial in the long run.

3) FeedMyApp: Almost any Web 2.0 startup sent here will be published. Users can rate and comment on your site, and some good traffic is generated.

4) TechSnack: TechSnack is a blog type site listing new websites on the internet. They are pretty good about checking your submission out, so you should submit your app and see what happens.

5) Post on forums. Don’t be annoying and make it sound like a commercial, just casually tell them they may enjoy using your site and that they should check it out. Also, make sure to tell them to comment and critique it, so they will be inclined to actually check it out. There may be more of a chance of a “flame war” on some sites rather than others, but if you have already have a good reputation on a forum, you should be fine.

There are a million web directories and review services out there, but these are the ones that have worked for us in the past and helped out with new startups. Merely getting reviewed on one of the first four sites may spark other sites to review you, and in no time you will have 15-20 links to your site. Your users will be happy, the internet will be happy, and most importantly, you and your company will be happy as well.

If you know of a site that has worked better for you and I didn’t include, list it in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Seo Samurai, Advice, SEO, Tips, Startup, Exposure

Need some extra traffic on your blog? Besides paying for costly advertising, bribing your friends with successful sites for link exchanges, or just spamming uncontrollably (not recommended), one of the best methods to take advantage of is to create a Twitter and add a lot of friends. If you already have a personal Twitter, and want to keep your blog life different than you know, the “cool” one you have, then create one with a different name or just use the name of your blog.

With this new Twitter account, try and add or “follow” 5-10 new friends a day. If you add too many too quick, they may ban you, so be careful. You can find users and other Twitter-ers by stalking other people’s profiles and seeing who they are following. People on Twitter enjoy being followed people that they don’t know, because it isn’t as personal as Facebook or Myspace, where on those social networking services the users would just think you are a creepy person and would end up blocking you. Remember: it is okay to be straightforward in terms of a friendship on Twitter! Just don’t make things too awkward.

Anyways, after you have created a new account and received a new army of following and loyal friends, (100-200 should do), every time you write a new post on your blog post it on your Twitter. Use TinyUrl to make the url small so it can easily fit in your Tweet. Once you post this, almost all of your friends will receive this on their public timeline and if it seems interesting to them, then they will click back to your site improving your traffic drastically. This will increase your RSS feed subcsription, your comment count, and your loyal fanbase. Go ahead and follow me on Twitter and I will follow you back to get things started.

Even if you don’t have a blog, Twitter, in my opinion, is the best social network out there. It is fun, educational, and quite addicting. Let’s just hope they upgrade their servers, because if you already are a user, you know that they are down quite a bit.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, SEO Samurai, Facebook, Myspace, Social Network, Tweet, Traffic, Optimization, Blog, Blogging, RSS, SEO