Many first time bloggers assume that once they have their blog setup, all they have to do is put a few post on it to start getting all the benefits from blogging, including free search engine traffic and regular readers. While blogging has some added benefits compared to convensional website publishing, still it requires a lot of work to attract search engines to crawl the blog and build traffic.

Following are tips and tactics every blogger can use to get indexed and and other traffic building ideas. Some of them indirectly affect blog traffic but nevertheless important for the growth of any blog.

1. Ping blog services.
It may come to your surprise that one of the best thing about blogging is that many search engines will find your blog sooner rather than later. Having a list of popular services and sites to ping from your blog everytime you publish a new post is important. This alone has been proven to attract search engines to come to any blog.

Many pinged sites display recently updated blog on their site. Blog search engines will index blog posts automatically, make it available for search. Using proper tagging in Technorati or other blog search engines, your blog could be found by organic search engines (Google, Yahoo!) in a few short days.

2. Post comments on other blogs.
Another way to get inbound links is by posting comments on other existing blogs. Many of them by default hyperlink your username to point to the URL your specify. This can potentially leads click-through traffic from the readers and search engines. Pay attention to the nofollow attribute though, it may prevent SE robots from following.

If you decide to blog about other blogger’s post, use trackback.

3. Submit your blog and Atom/RSS feed to directories.
Once you have a few posts, submit the blog and the Atom/RSS feed to blog and feed search engines and/or directories. A great way to build one way inbound link quickly. Some directories require you to link back, of which it is up to you if you want to be listed or not.

There is no fully automated way to submit to certain search engines. Most directories only allow manual submission.

Note: Those are the fastest way a new blogger can get her blog found by search engines. Conceptually, like any other web site, you need to put your link visible to the robots. To do that, you need to place it in the path where the robots frequently cross. This is the secret to getting found by Google in 48 hours many marketers are raving about.

4. Write and syndicate articles.
As you build up some great content, you may want to reformat it into articles and submit them to article directories. Usually they allow you to put a resource box at the bottom of each article. Use this to your advantage by linking back to your blog.

Site publishers who decide to post your article not only will increase your exposure and traffic, but also link popularity.

If your article is really good, consider approaching authority sites in your industry. Let them publish your work. Write exclusively if necessary to get a link from them.

5. Promote, promote, promote.
Can’t think of ways to promote your blog? Here are some: tie a blog story with the latest press release you submit to press release network. At least promote your blog through it.

Substitute your current e-mail signature with your blog URL. Make it visible on your newly designed business card. Order some bumper stickers and share them with your friends and colleague. Tell your newsletter subscribers about your new blog. The list goes on.

Involve in community projects or start one related to your industry. Blog the progress on your blog and have people talk about it. Leverage word of mouth and viral marketing. If it is newsworthy, people will spread the news.

6. Make RSS/Atom feed subscription a priority.
Once people click back or close their browser, they may be gone forever, even if they like what they just read. By clearly making RSS/Atom feed subscription visible (and easy), you increase the chance they will subscribe to it and remain your readers for long time in the future.

7. Write interesting content.
Sooner or later people will find your blog. If you keep publishing great content, some will link to you in the blog, thus increase your link popularity. Great content improve stickiness. Combine this with no. 6 above and you have a lot of repeat visitors.

8. Post frequently.
Blogging is about regular update. It keeps bringing your readers back to your blog. Spiders returns more often to frequently updated sites. It builds your readership gradually, if not fast. Examine your traffic with your stat package closely. Asses what type of content they like and give them more.

If you post just once or twice a week, publish on or close to the day with the most traffic/ visits. Your stat package will tell you when it is up to the hour precision. Freshness can help building credibility when it comes to blogging.

9. Feature your best posts.
Blog software automatically archive blog posts, but unless visitors find you via search engines or take the time to search your site using the internal search function, chances are they won’t find your post. Take out some of your most popular posts (examine your traffic stats for clues) and directly link to them from the sidebar or static pages. My favorite method is to use WordPress’ static page feature.

This makes sure that search engines will find your best posts without having to dive into archives. Alternatively use an archive plug-in for indexability. Although I never have issues for indexability, you can help search engines crawl your site faster by making all the links available two or three clicks away from the homepage.

10. Use Technorati tags.
Technorati contributed about 3% of my total website traffic, thanks to tagging. If you decide to put extra effort to properly tag your blog posts, you can exposure your blog in the same pool of traffic as other popular blogs. Some readers will find you this way. This can help Google and Yahoo! bots find your blog/ site too, see no. 1 above.

11. Network with other fellow bloggers.
Blogging is about spreading news and starting conversation. Still, networking with other bloggers through e-mail, instant messenger, Skype, or other methods can help them notice your work. Not to mention the business venture that may occur from that. This is fun and addictive, so be forewarned.