by Helena Reimer

Created on: December 15, 2010   Last Updated: December 17, 2010

A blog is a great and inexpensive way to generate an online income. It can directly be used to sell products, display ads, or to generate traffic for other websites.

Setting up a blog is fast and easy, but being able to get more traffic to the blog is a challenge, and as a result, many bloggers give up. It is a lot of work to generate traffic, but it is not impossible when one chooses several methods and then sticks with them consistently.

Social Media and Social Bookmarking

Social media and social bookmarking sites are one of the most popular methods to get more traffic to a blog. These are sites such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Google Bookmarks and many others.

The key is to get lots of followers or friends on these sites so that whenever a new link to a blog page is added, the friends or followers will take the time to visit and vote the link up. The higher the link gets voted up, the more traffic it will receive.

Forums

Forums are another great way to generate free traffic, as they allow each poster to add a signature link that will show up underneath each post that the individual makes. The key is to sign up with a forum that is related to the topic of the blog, and then make several useful posts within that forum each day.

Link Exchange

Contacting webmasters or other bloggers, and asking for a link exchange can also be beneficial in generating traffic.

Article Marketing

Another popular method of getting more traffic to a blog is article marketing. Most article directories only require a short article which consists of 250 to 400 words, and in return they allow 2 links or more displayed underneath each article pointing back to the blog.

This is called back link building, and the more links that point to the blog, the better it will do in the search engines.

Some of the best article directories are EzineArticles, ArticlesBase and IdeaMarketers.

Writing Platforms

Writing platforms such as Hubpages, Xomba, Infobarrel and Squidoo are excellent ways to build back links and/or generate lots of free traffic to a blog. In addition to generating traffic, those writing platforms also allow users to earn money from their articles.

Video Marketing

Video marketing is also highly effective. Sites like Youtube, Google Videos, Yahoo Videos are excellent sites to get started with. Individuals can include the link directly in the video, as well as add it into the video description.

Consistence

Last but not least, and probably one of the most important things to keep in mind when generating more traffic to a blog is to be consistent. Posting only 1 video or 1 article will not be enough to generate any kind of traffic, but rather the above methods should be carried out on a regular basis in order for them to continue to drive traffic.

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