What kind of steps can I take to build my audience?

The thing about blogs -- or any social networking tool for that matter -- is that they don't work in a vacuum. If you go to a networking event and then stand in a corner, a few people may find you. If you put on a name badge and make your way through the crowd trying to meet other people, you'll be a lot more successful. So, one thing you might want to do is try some email marketing to attract people to tips that they can easily find on your blog, or try posting a survey in LinkedIn, or sponsor a sweepstakes (cheap plug: Ennect Sweeps is inexpensive to do this with), or plan a free event that people can attend. My point: don't stand in a corner. Reach out! There are lots of inexpensive "traditional" marketing tools that you can use to do this.
(Full disclaimer: I work for Ennect.)

I agree with Brian. On-page SEO is important, but not the main event. Focus on good page titles, relevant headlines ( tags), and engaging copy. As Brian points out, the first two elements are half the battle as far as SEO, plus they help your readers navigate. Meta tags are of little relevance to search these days, although be sure the description is appealing (but brief), as it is often displayed in search results: you want the searcher to click through based on the description.

Building content that leads to links from trusted sites is the thing to focus on. That will take time, so expect to see traffic build slowly. Do not work out a lot of spurious cross-links that are designed to drive traffic, as the search engines do a pretty good job of discerning real links from the fake ones. They may even reduce your rankings.

Using forums such as Focus.com and LinkedIn.com is good, too. However, I would not do what so many bloggers do on these sites: post a discussion that is just a teaser to get you to their blog. Few things annoy me as much as clicking on a promising discussion topic and getting what is essentially an ad for their blog.

Rather, I would participate in such forums without such shameless self promotion. If you're an expert, contribute to the discussion and establish your credentials. Then, I think it's fine to put in a subtle plug that hints that there's more great thinking at your site.

David King
http://blog.fulcrum-mktg.com

;-)

In my manners if you want something out of nothing than you should NEVER use free services. Think about it, if discussing about trust than clients want to see how much you have invested in to gain something. No freebee's will give ya what you need. Don't think that waiting is all way's going to go forward in your expectations.

Do what I'd say but I'll explain it when I'll receive your e-mail. mr.jurjans@gmail.com,

There are some things that I'd explain to you about what techniques are important to use in order to get something moving for you. Give more info about what your goals are.

Think about it.

David makes a great point at the end of his response - "I would participate in such forums without such shameless self promotion. If you're an expert, contribute to the discussion and establish your credentials. Then, I think it's fine to put in a subtle plug that hints that there's more great thinking at your site."

Build relationships with people you feel would benefit from your blog. Become a member of their community. Build your audience by adding value to communities and by helping others get what they want. At the bottom of posts, add a subtle link to your site.

The advice already given here is very good. I'll share some additonal tips that have worked well for me and several of the analysts I know.

First and foremost: participating in social media is more about having a conversation than about publishing your own posts. Watch

For example, how are you balancing your effort between posting to your blog and posting comments to other blogs within your topic area (real estate)? At least 20-30% of your effort is best directed at posting thoughtful comments on other people's blogs. Find the blogs you yourself enjoy reading. Choose a combination of top ranked and mid-ranked blogs within your topical area. Then comment regularly on each. On occasion, write a post on your blog that simply expands on a post someone else has written.

In addition to your stable of preferred blogs, use Google blog search to keep track of news articles and blog conversations touching on your primary keywords. Comment on these as close to publication time as possible.

Use a social media tool to track all your posted comments and alert you when additional comments have been added after yours. Examples include coComment, Disqus and Backtype.

Another important method of promoting you and your blog is Twitter. I'm getting around 20% of my traffic to my newest blog from Twitter, whereas Google organic searches drive much of the traffic to my more established blogs and sites, where there's a big volume of pages, words and data.

At minimum, link to your blog posts from Twitter. Preferably write an additional insight and point to each post.

Finally, if you are primarily interested in driving local traffic to your blog, be sure to use geotagging -- tag photos, Google maps and even text-only posts with city, state, zip code. Flick'r lets you geotag your photos.

You ought to be more proactive, in person and online. You can Tweet about your articles. You can post them to linkedin. You can include a link in your signature file. You can email your articles to people.

If you are posting and hope they come, good luck.