Dave, I have an executive placement, coaching and consulting business in the Chicago market. In an effort to market and brand myself better I have launched a blog, but I’m unclear what I need to do to get more traffic and exposure to my blog. What do you suggest?

Let me spend some time answering your question because it’s one of the top queries I get from other bloggers, particularly after listening to one of my BlogSmart! workshops…

First off, the core answer is actually pretty easy: the best way to generate traffic for your blog is to reframe the question. Instead of asking “how to I get more visitors to my site?” you need to be asking the question “how do I become part of the blogosphere discussion?”

Bloggers that don’t get this crucial point end up being tiny islands in a very big ocean. Some of them can gain a readership by being phenomenally good or astonishingly prolific, but that’s a very tough path to travel and for most ends up being…