You don't have to conduct a 36 week research in the blogging industry to understand how big it has grown over the past year. Today there are millions of blogs on every topic imaginable and the numbers keep climbing up every hour. However, in the midst of blogosphere's rapid growth, a major issue was born: Blog Traffic Generation.
Blog Traffic Misconception
Some bloggers say that there are so many blogs out there today that it seems there isn't enough traffic for everyone ...I beg to differ. Why? Because, if a reader subscribes to one blog, it doesn't mean he won't do the same for another.
As long as the reader gets something out of reading your web journal-he'll keep coming back. That's the only thing you need to keep in mind when you're feeling jealous of sites like Copyblogger, Zen Habits and John Chow.
3 Blog Traffic Generation Scenarios That Never Fail
1. Guest Posts
Doing guest posts on other people's blogs (that are bigger or equal to your blog in size) is the best blog traffic generation method out there. This method alone has generated 10-15% of my blog's all time traffic.
In addition, people who come to your blog from another website are more likely to subscribe, because they are likely to trust you to a much greater extent. It all goes back to building trust, authority and social proof: people are more likely to trust you if someone else have told them that you're cool.
2. Link Bait
Coming up with link bait content is another great way to generate tons of blog traffic. This strategy is extremely beneficial to you because it not only generates huge instantaneous traffic but also motivates people to link to your blog and thus improving your SEO and Link Building campaign.
3. Reciprocal Blog Relationships
To tell you the truth, I just made that term up to make this strategy sound cool, but it doesn't change the fact that it works like a charm...
Do some research and find other bloggers in your niche you can connect with. Set up some reciprocal links and constantly do guest posts for one another. You should also link to each other's "hot" posts and thus creating a win-win reciprocal blog relationship.
You can easily find people who blog about the same stuff as you do by doing any of the things mentioned below:
• Run a search in Google
• Set up daily Google alerts for keywords related to your niche
• Search the DMOZ directory for websites that have been submitted in your category
• Run a Twitter search and connect with people who are tweeting about the things related to your niche
• Run a Facebook Groups/Fan Pages search and connect with people in that community
• Run a YouTube search for videos in your category and connect with the authors of those videos
Don't Forget The 80-20 Rule
Always keep in mind the famous 80-20 rule: 80% of your traffic is going to come from 20% of your efforts, which means that none of these strategies will be effective to the same extent-some will work better then others.
Test these scenarios out and see which ones bring you the most blog traffic. Cut the least effective and focus on what works-that way you won't waste effort on stuff that doesn't really pay off and generate more traffic in less time.
Which Blog Traffic Generation Scenarios Play Out The Best For You? Leave a Comment!

Blog traffic generation is an art. If you wish to learn more about how to use SEO and Social Media to generate blog traffic visit: www.IgorHelpsYouSucceed.com
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/3-blog-traffic-generation-secrets-that-always-work-1351585.html
Article Tags: blog traffic, blog traffic generation, blog traffic secrets, traffic generation secrets

Internet traffic is the life of any website, and the fact is that good traffic is not always easy to obtain. However, there are some easy and effective ways for getting quality traffic to your website. You have to be patient and you're going to have to put some time and effort into it.

* Get your own domain name. Be sure to choose a short and easy to remember domain name that is suitable for your business. People will never forget catchy domain names.

* Submit your website to search engines. This is one of the first steps towards increasing your website traffic. Don't wait for the search engines to find your site, go ahead and submit it to them. Visits by the search engine robots are a key way to boost website traffic.

* Add your website address to your own email or blog signature. This way each time you send an email or write in a blog you'll promote your own website.

* Ask your visitors to bookmark your website. They may see your website listed in their bookmarks and visit again.

* Ask your visitors to sign your guest book. When people sign your guestbook you may get valuable feedback or constructive criticism on how to improve your web site.

Update your website. Your website should always be up and running. Maintain a clean design and check for broken links, images and pages. If visitors always find what they want and need, they will definitely be coming back. Plus, search engine robots love a website with changing content.

* Pay-Per-Click Campaigns (PPC). Almost all search engines offer some sort of Pay-Per-Click advertising. This is a great way to get targeted traffic to your website. Keep in mind that major search engines will charge more than smaller ones.

* Put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients. Ask yourself what search words they would use to find your types of services and implement them in your site.

*Print T-shirts. Order custom-made shirts and wear your web address on your back. Sponsor a local sports team who will wear them, or use them as promotional giveaways.

* Traffic Exchanges. Traffic exchanges offer a webmaster an instant, free way to get traffic to their website. The way most traffic exchanges work is pretty straightforward: I view your site, you view my site, the ratio of sites you view to your site views varies from site to site, usually 2:1 but keep in mind that some of the traffic those websites generate is very low quality, so you'll have to keep an eye for that.

• *Tell a Friend. Another great way to boost your traffic is by a Tell a Friend form or button that you can put on your website. This way your visitors can invite their friends and their friends, on and on. Your traffic will keep flowing if this happens.

* Give away stuff. Purchase things like key chains or mouse pads with your website name and URL on them and give them away to your visitors.

* Writing articles. Writing articles is a great, free way to promote your website, and can bring in a substantial number of targeted customers to your site, usually within a few days.

Link exchanges. Link exchanges are another way to get traffic, and the benefits are twofold. Not only do you get traffic from the linking website, you also get the added benefit of better search engine placement through link popularity. Again you have to look for quality websites.

* Buy web traffic. This is a more "hands-off" way to get traffic to your website. Pricing for quality, targeted web traffic can vary greatly from site to site, be sure to look for campaigns that offer targeting to your particular audience.

* Sponsoring. Although this more of real world approach, it is also a good way to promote you website, you can try; sponsoring a car, purchasing a billboard or printing out flyers.

* Copy winners. If there are sites in your topic area that already get lots of visitors, go to their website, and see what they do that is different from your website. If possible, mimic what they do to add the same value on your website.

* Free advertising sites. There are many websites, newsgroups, directories that will allow free publicity of your website. You can post ads there and promote your website.

* Test your website. Test your website frequently for ordering glitches, bad links, broken graphics, etc. Those types of errors will make your website look unprofessional. If your visitors can't order, navigate to where they want to go or see pictures of your product, they likely won't revisit or order.

1. Page Title � Google likes a good page name. If you look at the top ten listing for any search term you will see that the name of the page is often more important than the domain name. The page name is the unique factor that will prompt web surfers to click over to your site.

Most people don't spend their time sifting through the domain name and even the site description. Pick a good page name and it could make the difference in the order of your listing and whether or not you get that click.

2. Page Name � Yahoo seems to heavily favor the long page name route. I have had pages appear in the top ten searches with really long URLs. If the URL matches the exact search phrase that was typed into the search engine, I can usually get my page in the top 10 searches.

3. Content over SEO � Having good site content is a much better strategy than stuffing your pages with keywords. Too many keywords can get you penalized or banned from the search engines. Good site content will keep you in the engines and prompt people to make one way links to your website and internal pages.

4. Be useful � The most popular sites are consistently the ones that offer great tools, tips and advice. Offer free articles, web tools, how to advice, instructions, maps, phone numbers, insider tips etc. These are the things that will make your site sticky. You will become an important resource worthy of a bookmark and possibly backlinks.

5. Add a Blog � Blogs are a good way to get site traffic because your RSS feeds can be distributed all over the web with just a few site listings. You can increase your page rank by listing your website or your blog in the top blog search engines. This gives you another source of free traffic and links.

6. Content Structure � People don't read on the web, they scan. If you can keep this tip in mind and structure your website accordingly, you will get more visits for longer periods of time.

How do you make your site easy to scan?
� Use subheadings
� Bullets
� Indented text
� Bold text
� Numbered text
� Italics
� Different types of fonts
� Colors
� Small paragraphs etc.

7. Link Freely � Don't be afraid to link to other websites including your competitors. If you consistently link to websites with a high google pagerank, your page rank will also increase. Google determines your site worth by association. Associate with the best, and soon your website will be one of the best.

6 FREE WAYS TO DOUBLE YOUR BLOG TRAFFIC IN LESS THAN A WEEK:

Everyone want's traffic.You set up a blog with great content but,no one is visiting your blog,so what's the use of it.So, you need atleast a decent amount of traffic and what's great than getting that traffic for FREE?
So,here is the good list of 6 Free ways to get traffic to your blog.

1.SEARCH ENGINE:Yea! it brings lots of traffic to your blog.There are millions of people search in the search engines like Google,Yahoo,msn everyday.So,if your blog has so many good posts and is well indexed by google,etc..you will get a good amount of traffic via search engines.There are a few steps to look at if you want a decent amount of traffic from the search engines like "submitting your blog sitemap to google",yahoo to index you blog pages very quickly.And the other important one is adding meta tags to your blog.If you follow these two simple steps,then you will get a decent traffic(massive traffic if your content is good).

2.Submitting your blog to Blog Directories:You may know this before,submitting your blog to blog directories will bring you a good traffic.
Here is a good list of blog directories(there are so many directories,but the below one's will bring you a good traffic).Most of these blog directories ask you to register before you submit your blog.My suggestion is,create a new email address solely for this purpose so,your personal emails are not flooded with the emails sent by the blog administrators,etc.
You can find the Blog directories list here.

3.Participate in forums,groups,etc:Just go to google and enter your [major keyword + fourm] or [keyword+groups] and search.Suppose,your blog is about blogging,then search 'Blogging forum'.You will find some forums,groups related to your site.Register in the forums and post articles,etc with a link back to your blog(as a signature).Answer questions,clarify doubts and provide a link to your blog.But,Dont' SPAM.

4.Social Bookmarking:Social Bookmarking is another way to build good traffic to your website/blog.If you don't know what Social Bookmarking is
"Social Bookmarking is a practise of saving Bookmarks,tagging the posts with keywords in a website".Bookmarking means saving a specific website url(address) in your browser that you wish to visit later.There are so many Social Bookmarking sites like del.icio.us,digg,furl,technorati.
One good thing about these Social bookmarking sites is,you will get instant traffic.Just register with them,store your bookmarks,tags,.. and you are done,See your site meter blasting with traffic.

5.Submit Articles to Article Directories:Submitting articles to article directories is another effective way to build more traffic.By submitting to them,your articles get massive exposure and gain you more

Directories help locate websites within specific or definite categories. The difference between search engines and directories is that, directories feature only vetted websites, sites that have a certain standard and contain information of substance.

One of the aims of using directories is to boost traffic. To achieve this, one must choose to be featured in large, organized directories like Yahoo, DMOZ, and LookSmart. These will drive highly targeted traffic to you site (subject specific), increase significantly the link popularity, and Google PageRank.

To maximize exposure:

� Find a category that is most relevant to your website. The category and subcategories must totally fit the subject of your site and its purpose. For example, if your site is health related business the site must feature under health and not business. Only then, will surfers seeking health related websites access yours. Do a keyword search that is relevant to your site on the directory. The directory will throw up categories relevant to the key words. Choose one which is suited in all aspects.

� Coin a title and description that will boost traffic not reduce it. The title must be "dead on." It should include the most important key word and if possible begin with a letter towards the beginning of the alphabet. And, the 15-25 word description should succinctly summarize the purpose or functions of your site. While being descriptive and informative, try and weave in as many keywords pertaining to your site as possible.

� Purchase keywords from one of the pay-per-click search engines or directories.

� Make the website search engine friendly.

� Pay attention to text and image content. Heavy images reduce search engine visibility.

� Use back links on appropriate directories and trade or business listings. Check out the back links used by competitors.

� Add new content regularly. This encourages visitors and search engine spiders to return. Make sure the content is keyword rich.

� Start and maintain a web log or blog. This can become an active way to boost traffic while simultaneously disseminating information.

� Market your website by printing its address on business cards, paper bags, packaging and so on. Distribute an e-zine or updates as newsletters regularly to customers and business associates.

� Consider paying search engines for improved listings and fast appraisal of your site.

� Direct content towards search engines by adopting cloaking technology.

� Run advertisements on related web sites and mailing lists.

� Adopt a reciprocal link program.

Maximize traffic by monitoring your traffic regularly. Analyze visitor movements and frequencies. Find out what is effective and what is redundant. Use cookies efficiently. Understand technology and use it to the maximum. Keep updated on new innovations and developments. Write down a workable website marketing strategy.

There are simple steps to victory: be different, make sure your website is refreshing and delivers what it promises; create a network of supporters; be honest in your business ventures; deliver on time at affordable costs; be a learner all your life, constantly innovate your website to keep stride with changing times; carve out an exclusive niche and diversify in directions that are relevant to your business module.

What would you be able to do with an almost unstoppable flow of free traffic to your blog every single day, without you having to slave away at social media, email marketing, article marketing and all that other SEO stuff that is just a huge time suck. If this describes you then read on..

Optimisation of a blog for the search engines is a tricky operation especially when the very versatility of Word Press can work against you. So what if I showed you just one simple Word Press plugin that could take care of all the chores that have in the past taken hours, days, weeks if not years of tweaks and tests to get right. This software is so powerful it should come with a warning!

Please allow me to introduce Jeff Johnson's Traffic Getting SEO plugin

You know it's serious when the creator trade marks the name, that's what Jeff has done with this plugin.

Now this is version 2, which means its a tried and tested piece of software that has evolved over time and takes into account the necessary changes that keeps it current for the eggheads that improve the "Science behind the search" at Google and Yahoo. However because this version is free it is only optimised to about 80% because Jeff has a professional version which is only available to his high end clients who paid big money to get access to that version.

This plugin was created by Jeff Johnson's training laboratory, and this gentleman is a powerhouse in the Internet Marketing arena who usually charges anywhere from $5000 and up for his very personal mentoring programs. When the doors open on these programs people scramble to get in and are willing to pay to do so. What that means is that anything Jeff Johnson pushes out from his training Laboratory for FREE is worth taking very very seriously.

So what does this very special plugin actually do?

In essence this plugin is designed to optimize your blog for more traffic, more leads, and ultimately to make you more money.

This software will assist you with installing a collection of Jeff's personally recommended word press plugins that will update your blog for Search Engine Optimisation. Once you've installed and activated it, you go to the settings page, enter some basic details and click one button to totally optimise and automatically configure each individual plugin with a set of Jeff's recommended search engine optimized settings.

Now these tweaks are by no means haphazard or sloppy, these tweaks are supported by years of tracking and testing that Jeff has made to optimise his entire blog empire. Jeff has also produced millionaires galore from his coaching programs and this plugins big brother is one reason people are prepared to pay large to get into those programs. It really is that good.

So if you are even remotely serious about your blog and you absolutely should be, you would be, well, STUPID to not go grab a copy right now.

In order to get your free copy go to my blog at www.truetrafficsecrets.com and watch the video I have made to demonstrate this plugin live on that blog site. Then below the video is a link to the plugin sign up page.

Now lets be clear here you have to sign up to Jeff Johnson's email list to get your copy of this very powerful tool. Its worth your email address and the 30 seconds of your time to do. Once you have signed up you will receive an email with your access instructions.

Once you have downloaded the plugin, activated and configured it for your blog, go and arm your blog statistics because you will see changes within a matter of days.

That's it your done.

This plugin is in my opinion a simple decision for anyone serious about traffic generation and their financial survival online.

So you finally figured out how to get those visitors to your site, huh? Well, partner, it's not over. Now you've got to keep them there if you hope for your blog to be effective.
So, how do you keep your blog traffic? I knew you'd ask that...
1. Your Audience Is More Important Than Your Search Engine Rankings
Who knows what way the wind will blow in years to come. You may be able to do without traffic from Google one day - just like you're probably doing without traffic from Hotbot right now.
However, you'll never be able to do without your clients and prospects. If you could you wouldn't be in business, would you?
So pay attention to what your audience wants to hear. If you configure your blog correctly in the first place, you won't have to worry about a good ranking so much.
2. Don't Add to the Noise.
It's okay to be silent for short periods if you have nothing interesting to say. In the meantime, while you're keeping your lips tight, find something *really* interesting to say.
Of course, I believe that there's never nothing to say. But I'm a writer and not everyone thinks that way.
After the first six to eight weeks, post every day if it suits you and you have words of interest. But after that, if you can sense that your posts aren't full bodied and home brewed, it really is fine to make us go without for a few. We'll live. We won't think so, but trust us, we will.
Just make sure you have something darn near-earth shattering to share when you get back, so we will all sit up and take note... and realize that we missed you.
3. When You Do Talk, Do It Loud and Proud
(Even if you find out later you were Loud and Wrong)
It's considered impolite to behave like a Rock Star when you're having a business dinner, even if you are one.
But guess what? When you're blogging, you aren't at a business dinner. That's not to say that you must indulge in Rock Star behavior if it doesn't suit you..
You don't even have to be *a* star. But you definitely want to be noticed, maybe referenced, and hopefully linked. A great way to do that is to be different. The most unique thing about you is You. Inject your personality in all that you do online.
So if you have news, share it. Heck, if you have gossip share it, just always, always, always, link to your suspicions or sources. On the rare occasion that a high-profile blogger's information is totally off-base, they print a retraction. So don't be afraid to suppose. Just let us know whether you are sharing a rumor, hunch, a fact or opinion.
4. Do Unto the Blogosphere, and Make It Easy for Them to Do Unto You
When I have credible sources, I link to them. Even if I read something from the Google Blog, but know when I first saw it first at Micropersuasion, I'm still linking to Micropersuasion. That's all there is to it.
(And let me tell you - it's a Huge deal when Steve Rubel links to an article that you wrote even when it's not posted on your site - think about that the next time you're tempted not to link out because "they have enough traffic.")
For the majority of people, I realize, that situation may never be in consideration. Most of the people reading this have nothing to do with search engines, public relations, or internet marketing.
Well, I'm here to tell you that even if your business is timeshare resales, you should still link to your sources. You never know who is reading and who is going to link back. Especially if you're in a business niche where twenty visitors eventually means at least one sale, find out what the neighborhood is like in your part of the Blogosphere, look around, and play nice with the other kids.
5. Blog Like You Talk - But if You Talk "Funny" Get Someone Else to Blog with You
Nothing will scare your visitors away faster than landing in techno-babble by accident. I landed at a friend's site about search engines, and the first paragraph I saw said something about (a+n) times the square root of pi and I clicked out before I even remembered why I went there.
Don't get me wrong - if that's how you talk, keep it real. But if that's not the language your clients speak, you might want to either have an employee represent your company in the blog, or do a team blog that represents all the prominent voices.
6. Give Every Subscription Option Under the Sun
Most people paying online are going to use their credit card or debit card, by far. How crazy would you have to be to say, hm, 90% of people use credit cards, but the hell with that. If they want my binoculars, their only choice is to send me a $20 check by snail mail on Tuesday mornings.
In this same way, refusing to turn on your site feed, because most people are currently following you by email, makes absolutely no sense. Refusing to start an email list or offer subscriptions to your blog headlines, summaries or posts via email is equally nuts, particularly now that there are tools in place that will translate feeds to email for you.
Not serving as much of your audience as you can is turning down money, plain and simple.
Hopefully these tips will help keep visitors coming back to your blog. It's like the old adage said , it's easier (and cheaper) to keep your present customers than it is to constantly find new ones.
The same thing goes for your blog visitors.
Source: ArticlesFactory.com