4 of 11

Write now Article Tools

Generating traffic to your blog is nice in that it brings people into the conversation, and lets you share your ideas with more and more people. Generating traffic for your blog is an absolute necessity if you intent to make any money by blogging. While there are many ways to generate traffic to your blog, there are some specific methods that have proven to be reliable over time:

* Commenting on other related blogs. By commenting on other blogs, you do several things. First, you add to the overall conversation about your topic. Second, you provide a link back to your own blog. Finally, you generate interest from that blog's host, who will more than likely check out your blog. If that blogger likes your blog, you may get mentioned in a blog post, or even added to their blogroll.

* Social bookmarking sites. There are a variety of social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com, del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon.com. Certain social bookmarking sites seem to work better with certain types of blogs. For example, if you blog fits neatly into one of the broad categories on Digg.com, you might have quite a bit of success there. On the other hand, if your topic doesn't quite fit into Digg.com's categories, you might have better luck with StumbleUpon.com. The best way to decide which fits your blog best is to write an exceptionally good article, and then test both sites out to see which generates the most traffic.

* Social networking sites. Sites like facebook.com and myspace.com have great potential as sources of traffic for your blog. To use them to drive traffic to your blog, you need to design your profile in such a way that other people who are interested in your topic will find your page. Once they find your page, you can provide them with links to your blog.

* Article directories. These sites, such as Helium.com, AssociatedContent.com, eHow.com and eZineArticles.com all give you ways to link back to your own web site. Some of these sites even have the potential to make you money on the articles themselves. The key is to submit articles that are related to the topic of your blog and to design your "about me" page in such a way that it drives others to your blog.

* Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO refers to the process whereby you design your blog so that the various search engines, such as google.com and yahoo.com, can find your blog. SEO helps the search engines to find the keywords and topics your blog relates to, and send search-related traffic your way.

There are other possibilities, as well. You can use youtube.com videos and a profile at that web site to generate traffic to your blog. The same holds true for photos at flickr.com. As a last resort, you can always pay for traffic through Google AdWords or a similar program.

Learn more about this author, John W. Paulus.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about How to generate traffic to your blog?
We want to hear your view. Write now!