Alot of bloggers waste too much time trying to drive traffic to their blogs, using old methods that may have once been effective, but either became less effective or useless nowadays.

On the other hand, there are few bloggers who are knowledgeable of how the blogosphere is developing, and apply the newest most effective methods of getting traffic to their blogs.

It is true that blogging has some daily and regular "basics" that should be done, in order for it to gain "traffic momentum". This doesn't deny the fact that there are some methods that need less work and give better results, hence the phrase "Marketing Smart, Not Hard!". I have listed down here 8 of the Most Effective Ways To Harvest Visitors To Your Blog In 2008:

1- Befriend A Couple Or Three Top Bloggers "Gurus"!

This one ain't that hard as some bloggers think. I have witnessed many new bloggers going that road and succeeding in a very short time (won't mention names though! ), and let me tell you, it is very rewarding!

Suppose your blog provides great content and all. You also bring fresh news and post useful and entertaining posts. You think it is enough to get you the subscribers and fame you want? Not really. Even if you were the first to talk about some certain news, or to reveal some new story/service to the public, another blog with authority and "its loyal circle of friends and subscribers" may repost your same topic, and have its link spread through hundreds of other blogs even though you wrote about that topic first. That is because most of the bloggers would prefer to linkback to someone known. They won't link back to someone they don't know in this scenario. So your hard work is rewarded very little.

You have to get your name known in the blogosphere, and that could be done no better than sticking your face around a couple or three of well known bloggers. Become an active commenter at their posts, and try to comment first. After your first topic related comment, comment again and try to drag them down some casual convo by asking interesting offtopic questions and getting them reply back to you, hence building rapport with them.

Become their no.1 Fan so that they remember you very well, and miss your comments whenever you don't show up! Also it is better to later keep in touch with them outside the comments area, via email or preferably messenger. Grow your relationship with them. Rewards are numerous! You will become well known to their visitors, and guru blogger will keep referring to your great content posts in future I will be writing a detailed post about Commenting Strategy in future.

2- Networking Via Social Communities!

Ok, so this one is among the usual "must do" tasks or habbits you should adopt no matter what level you are, unless you are:

John Chow

Jeremy Shoemoney

Darren Problogger

or other same level "guru" blogger! Keep posting and interacting with other people on relevant forums, social networks like Myspace, Facebook, news sites like Digg/Reddit as well as blog sites like Blogcatalog, 9rules/MyBloglog. These sites are always crowded and you would get great exposure from them by dropping your link here and there.

3- Guest Blogging!

Just like writing and submitting articles, but also comes with its own unique benefits. Guest blogging is a very effective strategy to make your name and blog well known. You get hired to write posts to blogs, and either get paid per post, share revenue….etc. whatever you and the hirer agree upon. You can offer guest blog posts in forums, or join a network like B5Media.com and start right away.

Guest blogging has many benefits, of which the most important is building a really deep relationship with visitors and subscribers of other blogs. This in turn, will bring subscribers and visitors to YOUR blog (assuming your deal includes mentioning your name with a link to your blog at the end of each post, which should be a MUST unless you are only looking for cash!).

4- LinkBaiting!

Linkbaiting is also one of the top methods that gain you visitors and improves your ranking in the Serps. A successful link bait post would get you numerous backlinks, in a relatively very short time and without you having to do much work.

Link baiting in simple terms means creating a post that lures "baits" visitors or other webmasters and bloggers to link to it, or to mention it in their sites. Linkbaiting is an art by itself and every now and then, a webmaster or a blogger comes up with a new linkbait idea that is relative to their blog and makes it a success story.

Types of Linkbait posts include:

- Top 10, 20, etc. Methods to bla.. bla.. bla! Or most stupid/ must read posts…. etc.

- Humorous cartoon picture/s displaying a joke or a story related to famous people in your niche. (Must be original).

- How to bla, bla, bla, .. in 3/4/5 easy steps.

- Mini game (maybe flash) related to blog's niche… (Must be original).

– Quiz posts. These are posts that have questions for visitors to answer, to determine if they are bla bla, or what type of bla bla they are or if they are a successful bla bla or a loser bla bla (replace bla bla with whatever topic you want!). This is the kind of stuff that fills chicks magazines, ala "chickbait" . Powerful stuff.

A4esl.org/c/qw.html and Founderweb.com/quiz_generator/index.shtml are two pages I came across, that help you generate your quiz.

Another better recommendation is Articulate Quizmaker. Articulate Quizmaker is a comprehensive yet easy-to-use quiz creator for making highly customized Flash-based quizzes, assessments and surveys without the need for difficult programming.

Gold Standard Trivia Pub Quiz Questions & Answers is an excellent resource for thousands of top-quality Trivia Quiz Questions & Answers. Great for pub quizzes & charity events and ready to use.

Once you have created your linkbait post, digg it, stumble it, reddit it…etc. or refer a couple of other webmasters/bloggers to it, or maybe mention it in a forum or two and just sit back and watch. It will do its magic.

5- Search Engine Optimization & Ranking!

SEO is not as hard as many people think. It is just about consistence and coming up with a simple posting plan and sticking to it. Here are my fav resources & tools when it comes to ranking in the SERPS:

– Titles of your posts: If you own a wordpress blog, first thing you have to do is go to the options tag, then enter permalinks. Once there, change your links from the default option to either date and name or custom in which you include the title of the post (postname) to display in the url extension. I only use the postname, so I enter: /%postname%/ in the custome structure. This is one of the most important things that help you rank in search engines, but unfortunately are overlooked by many bloggers.

- WordTracker or Keyword Elite: The two most powerful tools to research keywords and determine which keywords are easy to target, and use in your sites. Keyword Elite has extra features like Spying on PPC and Adwords Campaigns, knowing highest and lowest bids….etc. You can read about it in my Keyword Elite Post here

- SEO Elite: is really a rare piece of software that can get you a top 5 google ranking, in as little as under 30 days. You can read about SEO Elite here. SEO Elite works by getting you detailed info around your competitors, what keywords they use, where they use it, how many times, in titles or not, bold/italic, how many backlinks they have….etc. The theory is that if you did the same in your site, plus one or two extra things (it will help you do that), you will outrank them.

SEOElite also allows you to request link exchange from hundreds of these top raking sites with a click of a bottom. Literally saving you hundreds of hours! A MUST have tool if you ask me. If you don't already have it, I suggest grabbing it from here.

- Hittail: I'll be quoting this from an old post of mine:

Hittail is a free service that will analyze the search terms leading to your blog’s traffic, and spit out high quality keywords you should be focusing on that you might not have thought of. This can help you focus and optimize your future posts as you are already getting traffic for those keywords. This is called the “Long Tail” strategy. The concept is simple: Instead of competing with the big boys on the most wanted and searched for keywords, or trying to search for good keywords that have high no. of searches, yet not very much competition (also known as having a high “KEI” factor), why not quickly discover the little hidden keywords that if used, will already list your blog in the first page of the search results. When you use these keywords in future posts, you boost your traffic in a way that is similar to you discovering top keywords with high KEIs. How cool is that?

- Cloaking: This is a very controversial method of marketing that has been around for quite a long time. It is a very effective method but also an unethical black hat technique, so it is up to you to decide whether to use it or not.

In simple terms, cloaking is showing the search engines a top quality highly optimized pages with great content, while showing your visitors something else. Your pages will rank high, because you are giving search engines what they like, but really visitors will be redirected to the real site you intend to market which the serps won't know about. However there are very bad consequences if discovered, as search engines would instantly bann your site if they discover that you are cloaking.

A Cloaking software would generate you hundreds and thousands of pages, that are totally controlled by you, and you get to import as many keywords as you like to compete for. Each page generated will be optimized for a certain keyword. If you take your time to learn a bit of cloaking, it can by itself generate you very good traffic. But you have to be careful not to cloak on your main domain, but instead install the cloaking tool in another domain and make it redirect to your main site.

If you are already into cloaking, then you must have heard of Search Engine Cloaker. This is a top cloaking tool used by many with great results compared to other tools. Worth trying? You decide.

- Giving away Free Scripts: Again, this is a very good method of getting your link spread throughout as much websites as possible. If you can code, then develop little scripts that have your links in them, and distribute them offering them for free to other webmasters that are looking for it.

A simple example of that is creating templates or blogs themes that have your website's link at the bottom, and giving them out for free.

6- Join Blog Traffic-Exchanges Services!

These services work on the same principle of the regular traffic exchange sites out there. Blog Traffic Exchanges are simply websites which operate on a reciprocal basis of viewing ratio. You manually surf other blogs in the network and in return, get your blog viewed by other bloggers. You earn credits for each blog you visit, which will be exchanged for a reciprocal visit to your blog. These services are good if you are a new blogger and want to gain some exposure.

Some of these sites are:

- Blog Explosion

-BlogMad

- Blog Soldiers

- Blog Advance

7- Paid Advertising!

Paid advertising still remains the quickest way to gain traffic and visitors, without you having to do anything other than chunk out a few bucks (in some cases they may not be a few bucks ) to the service you chose to advertise in. However, the problem remains as to which site/service to choose as there are literally thousands of thousands of them.

Still Pay Per Clicks (PPC) and Adwords advertising rank high in terms of paid advertising, but due to the huge competition there, and unless you know what you are doing and have the right tools, it is a VERY DANGEROUS zone to venture in that will suck your pockets dry. I personally think there are better alternatives out there.

I really recommend the following, and think they are enough to get you some good results:

- Text-Link-Ads: I'm sure alot of you have heard of this site. Many bloggers are monetizing their blogs by selling text-link-ads links on them. This is a well reputed site that can really bring you results. You can either be a publisher or as in this case, an advertiser. You can buy links at: sidebars, posts footer (with your chosen keyword and description). You get to research and chose exactly which blogs or niches you want your links displaying at.

They also give away $100 in FREE links to new advertisers. If you are not an advertiser already, you can sign up from here:

- PayPerPost: is one of the top services in terms of exposure by selling bloggers reviews on advertisers' blogs/services. You get to set the minimum requirements of the blog you want reviewing your blog/service, and give them the details of the review you want.

8- Broadcast Yourself Youtube Video Marketing!

Now I won't talk about the regular video marketing, in which you create a short video and with your link in it and uploading it to sites like youtube and the such. If you own a Vblog or a podcast, you can take full advantage of video marketing in another form.

A not so new idea, but that has taken a new form is to Broadcast Yourself & Name at Video Sites like Youtube! Come up with a series of short clips related to your niche. Make it interesting (funny /intriguing/sexy/addictive…etc.) and publish either daily, each 3 days or once a week. It can be either in the form of a reality tv clips or "acting" with scenario already there. Upload them to video sites and publish them in your vblog.

Go to Youtube and other video sites, and you will find lots of youtube celebrities who are infact no more than regular people whom have come up with their own youtube shows, from the comfort of their homes, and have hit celebrity status! This is because branding your name in such sites (especially youtube) these days, is so much becoming equivalent to being a tv show star! Also tv media still seems to be obsessed with youtube news. This needs some little creativity.

A very useful tool to help you upload your videos to multiple video sites, is:

Video Upload Pro

Introducing VideoUploadPro . With this amazing new software, you can easily upload your videos to multiple video sharing sites, and drive more and more responsive targeted traffic to your websites. The most amazing thing with Video Upload Pro , is that you can get this done automatically while you are sleeping! You can read more about Video Upload Pro from here, or grab it from here.

So there you have it. In future posts I'll discuss some of the must have wordpress plugins (for wordpress blogs owners) that would make your task of gaining more visitors easier. As for now, all you have to do is stick to a daily action plan to accomplish each one of them. You don't have to work all in one day. Little by little would give you the results you want. Feel free to share your comments

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