Attracting traffic to your blog is one of the most important tasks of every blogger. No matter how valuable your blog’s content are, when no one reads it, the information are wasted. Also, your attempt to monetize your blog will yield earnings only when you attract sufficient number of traffic to your blog. Traffic is therefore an important aspect of your blogging that you should invest your time and resources on.When I was new to blogging, I’ve spent most of my time reading articles on how to drive traffic to my blog. Most of the articles that I’ve read talks about optimizing your blog for search engines because they constitute 80% of traffic sources. Since then, I’ve worked hard to improve my search engine ranking. I managed to rank on top of some few keywords related to my blog but it was short lived. Unfortunately, position on certain keywords or keyphrases on search engines changes from time to time. It’s also possible that you’re on top of the search engine today for a certain keyword but tomorrow, you’re on the 100th place. This usually happens when other bloggers who have better page ranking decide to optimize the same keyword or keyphrases that you have been optimizing on your blog. Another problem with search engine optimization is that most popular keywords and keyphrases have long been optimized by other blogs with better page rank so it’ll be a difficult task to be in competition with them.

Today’s post talks about alternatives to search engines in attracting traffic to your blog. You might want to read my previous post on proven effective ways to drive traffic to your blog and traffic referrals from BlogCatalog - tips to new bloggers for more information on ways to drive traffic to your blog.Aside from getting traffic to your blog from search engines, here are a few sources that will surely bring your blog a lot of traffic.

  • Social Networking - Social networking websites such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook are great sources of traffic for your blog if you can tap into these vast network. All you need to do is create an account. Gather as much friend as possible. Join their forums and activities. Then promote your blog. I’ve previously written an article on free social networking online that you can read. It includes link to various social networking websites.
  • StumbleUpon.com - Once your blog got stumbled upon, expect a hype in the traffic of your blog. I’ve experienced a couple of times an increase on my blog traffic everytime someone stumbles my blog. Even better when you get stumbled by the top stumblers of StumbleUpon. This has inspired me to ask the top stumblers of StumbleUpon what they’re looking for to stumble and how bloggers can improve their chances of getting stumbled by them. What’s the best part of StumbleUpon as a source of traffic to your blog is its long lasting effect.
  • Digg, Delicious and Reddit - Making it on the front page of Digg, Delicious or Reddit would mean tremendous traffic. This can only happen when your post gets voted by the users of these websites. Unfortunately, the competition to be on top of Digg or Delicious or Reddit is tough but it’s possible.
  • BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog, and Bumpzee - So far, among these three websites, BlogCatalog has given me the highest traffic from their referrals. I’ve made a post on how you can maximize the traffic referrals from BlogCatalog, I’d recommend you to read it. MyBlogLog is also another great place to promote your blog and get traffic to your blog. Bumpzee another emerging website that offers services similar to BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog can also drive traffic to your blog. In order to get the most benefits from these three websites, you need to become a member and actively participate in their activities.
  • Make Your Comments DOFOLLOW - Yes, by simply making link on your comments ‘DOFOLLOW’ you’ll be able to increase traffic to your blog mostly from repeat visits. Most templates have a default ‘NOFOLLOW’ attributes on their comments to discourage spamming. If your blog is relatively new, I would recommend you to make your comments ‘DOFOLLOW’ but I’ll also advise you to moderate all your comments. This will make sure that no spammers will abuse it. I’ve made a post on how to remove NOFOLLOW attributes on your Blogger templates.


    • There you have it. I’d like to hear your own suggestions. It’ll be useful if you can share your ideas through the comments so we can learn from each other. Remember that links on my comments are made DOFOLLOW. Leave a comment now and get a link love to your blog.Thank you for your time. Cheers!

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