How to get like a bazillion hits on your blog

Just so you know, I'm testing a theory here -- the theory that writing an article about how to get like a bazillion hits on your blog will result in me getting like a bazillion hits on my blog. And since "bazillion" is "a very large indefinite number" (emphasis mine) I can rightfully lay claim to have already reached it.

If you're looking for a tutorial with a more specific and successful pedigree, I highly recommend The Other McCain's How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog -- not only because it's a damn good article by a guy who got a million hits on his blog in its first year, but because every time I link to him I get a Full Metal Jacket Reach Around (see the article) which itself brings in some small portion of a bazillion hits back to me.

But anyway ... where were we? ... tap, tap ... is this thing on? Oh, yeah, like a bazillion hits. As of this writing, KN@PPSTER's had 656,074 Sitemeter-counted visits, which at a conversion factor of 1.2 page views per visit (which seems about par for the course) translates to not quite (there's that "indefinite" fudge factor) 800,000 "hits." That's over the course of about five years, but I think things are starting to pick up. So, here's how I'm doing it.

- First, blog. If not several times a day, at least several times a week. The more you blog, the more readers you're going to have. Your regular readers will visit more often to see what's new, and the search engines will have more stuff to index, which means they'll send more people your way. More on that last bit below.

- Second, promote. Sign up with Technorati. Join Networked Blogs on Facebook. Google "free search engine submission" and use one of the services you find to make sure the search engines know you're there. When you blog something you expect will be of interest to your friends on the Obsessed With Plushies listserv or the Got A Model Train in Mom's Basement Yahoo! Group, send a a note. Plug your posts into the various social networks and bookmark services -- and make sure your readers can, too, by pasting the "Add This" gizmo into your blog template.

- Third, promote some more by interacting with other bloggers. Plug the ones you think are good, attack the ones you think suck, but link, link, link, and make sure those other bloggers know you're linking. If they don't link back, then by God ask them to link back. The worst they can say is "no" (okay, they can say worse things, but those worse things are all variants of "no").

Now, a note on the search engines. Like I said, the more content you have, the more people are going to see your site. It can be the gift that keeps on giving. Four years to the day after this post, I still get five or ten visits a day, every day, from it because junkies never stop trying to figure out how to get high and they've learned how to use Google.

I'm not going to tell you to game the search engines, but it never hurts to know what key words and phrases people are hot on. If working "free non-alcoholic beer" or "Lichtenstein cameltoe" or "live nude alpacas" into a post is feasible and if you think it will attract readers, knock yourself out (here's an online keyword suggestion tool for your convenience). Pictures of nekkid women (with a headline like "Pictures of Nekkid Women") and stuff like that may help, too.

And that, my friends, is how to get like a bazillion hits on your blog. Matter of fact, I see a very large, indefinite number of you heading this way right already.