Even if you only blog for fun, it’s always better if someone reads what you wrote, otherwise you’d get yourself a diary. But if you’re blogging for profit, then it’s even more important that people come to your blog, read your posts and share them with their friends.

Here’s one tip that will help you get more traffic to your blog: Be a Name Dropper.

I stumbled on this phenomena quite accidentally.  I had written a blog post about a charity event and I was overwhelmed by the number of hits I had the next day on a post I thought would go nowhere. Turns out a popular adult film star was one of the names I mentioned as being on the guest list. Instant traffic.

When you mention a specific name (first and last) in a blog post, you’re giving search engines a nice nugget to latch on to. Think about it. How many people search the names Bill Gates, Lindsay Lohan or Barrack Obama on a given day? Lots. Names are specific, unlike words such as celebrity, president or technology. When a person pops up in the news, thousands of people search that name to get more information and you could benefit from that traffic.

Couple of things:

The names you reference must be relevant to your subject matter. Don’t mention Paris Hilton on your tech blog unless she just invented a new iPhone app. Name dropping isn’t keyword stuffing.

Check Google and Twitter Trends to see who is being talked about at the moment. If it fits your blog, jump on it now, not tomorrow. Fame is fleeting and most will fall of the grid 24 hours later.

Don’t overlook evergreen names. Elvis has left the building but people still search his name everyday.

Try name dropping on one of your posts next week and see if this tactic can work for you.

This post is an entry to MelvinBlog’s Best Blog Marketing Tip contest where there are $2000 worth of prizes at stake.