Visitors (traffic) is the lifeblood of any blog because without it you will be writing in the wilderness 
In the past I thought getting traffic was a really hard thing to do but what I have found is that there are free and low cost traffic generation tips that any blogger can use – new or experienced. I have done my best to rank them in terms of how difficult they are based on a person being a complete beginner:
1. Blog Commenting (Level : easy – Cost : zero)
Find other blogs in your niche and leave a comment on the blog post. By leaving a comment and leaving your blog url it provides you with an opportunity to get visitors from that blog to you. Search the engines for other related blogs and post a relevant and worthy comment on all types of blogs from the new one to the very active one. What you have to remember is even new blogs have potential and it may not be ranked well now but that doesn’t mean it won’t change in the future. So go ahead and vary your blog comments to all types of blogs but make sure the blogs are relevant to your niche topic.
2. Guest Blogging (Level: easy but intermediate/advanced – Cost : Zero)
Guest blogging is an opportunity for you to write about what you know on other blogs. I set the level of this to easy because it is easy to do – you find another blog and you add a blog post! However, people looking for guest bloggers may want writers who are at an intermediate/advanced level in their blogging career. By getting yourself on other blogs your link gets a chance to go from that blog back to you. Again this brings visitors from that blog over to yours – especially if your posts are informative ones.
3. Article Marketing (Level : easy – Cost : Zero to low cost)
The classic way to generate traffic is to write articles or re-write your blog posts, make them longer and send them out as articles. There are plenty of free article directories (check the search engines) available and many of them will let you add your article for free but this can be time consuming. A better way is to use an article submission service like isnare.com, article marketer, submit your article. The cost varies but you are looking at anything from $20 upwards a month. The link in your bio/signature on each article is what will bring people back to your blog so spend time learning how to create a great bio so people want to click and see what your have to offer. When writing articles provide value all the time and if you are tempted to use private label right articles (PLR) make sure you change the title of the article completely and rewrite a large percentage of the article.
4. HubPages and Squidoo (Level : easy – Cost : Zero)
These two sites give you the opportunity to set up a one page informational site about a particular niche/topic. You can sign up for free and choose your subject and then add text, video, RSS feeds and more. You can also make yourself some money by adding Amazon products and other affiliate widgets. The main reason for setting these up though is so that you can link from them to you and bring visitors to your blog. Again, the more informative you make your page the more chance people will pay attention to what you have to say and will follow back to your blog. With so many different pages to read on these two sites people don’t have to waste their time looking at or reading rubbish so don’t skimp on time, spend time crafting a great page that people will love.
5. Blog Directory Submission (Level : easy – Cost : Zero to low cost)
Boring but necessary is all I can say about blog submissions. You submit your blog url to loads of different blog directories and add all your details to them. When people are on that directory searching for information and they find your blog they can come over and visit. Doing this is also important for backlinks to your blog so it really must not be ignored. The key is consistentency. Even if you only manage to submi
t to 5 a week it is better than zero! The ideal is to submit your blog to a large number of blog and website directories – we are talking 30-100 a week and that is too much for one person to do alone. One tool I use is called Directory Maximizer and for cents per domain (you can place an order for as little as $5) you can get them to submit your blog for you. http://www.directorysubmissionsites.com
6. Video Sharing Sites (Level intermediate – cost : low to moderate)
We all know Youtube, maybe are familiar with Viddler too but there are thousands of other video sharing sites on the net that you can use to bring traffic to your blog. Depending on your level of skills creating and uploading a video is easy only editing might take a little more skill. Plus with a webcam costing around $30 it can be easy to get started. As always the more you provide value and entertain the more chance of
people checking out what you do.
7. Audio Sharing Sites (Level : Beginner going into intermediate! Cost : low – you may need to buy headphones but thats it)
There are loads of sites that will let you upload your audio like podbean.com and other podcasting sites. The trouble is you need to know how to create an audio in the first place – of course I made a video about that too that you can watch here. How To Download & Install Audacity
Audacity is free to download and all you need is a headphone and microphone (which if you use Skype you will already have anyway) – you record, upload and you are done. To save you time you can record your blog posts, which will save you having to think of additional material to write about.
8. Press releases (Level intermediate – Cost : Free-High cost)
If you have something that you believe to be news worthy why not put together a press release and send it out via a press release submission site. This has the advantage – like article directories – of getting your news spread around the world that news websites/blogs will pick up and
publish. It also means that you again collect links that will all point back to your site. Costs vary from free to $500 or more.
A great site that I use that will save you time in sending out all this content is Willie Crawford & Cyndi Parker’s Easy Push Button Traffic
Using Easy Push Button Traffic saves you time by automating the process of multiple submissions with one click. So you can add an ar
ticle, a video/audio or even a press release once and it automatically gets submitted to a group of different sites. A real time saver!
9. Writing And Giving Away Free Ebooks (Level : Easy/intermediate – Cost Free/Low cost)
If you want to get traffic to your site then write yourself a few free ebooks and give them away. There are loads of free ebook directories you can add them too. You can also make yourself some money by adding a link to an affiliate product inside your free ebook. Don’t fill it wit
h links but have a main advert (with image if possible) at the beginning and again at the end of the free ebook, and maybe link a few times in your content.
If you put 10 ebooks out there it is easy to build up an income of $10 a day from each one – as long as you are dedicated about getting it out to all the different sites. I talk about this and provide much more detail (including a list of free directories) in my eCourse called The “How To” Infopreneur which is all about writing “how to” booklets. Remember you don’t have to write a long ebook – you could write a short report, a booklet, a white paper or any other kind of
document.
10. Forum signatures (Level : Easy – Cost : Free)
Still a great way to get noticed. Join a forum that is relevant to your niche and go in there and help people – really help them! You can add your domain in your signature, which will get people naturally curious to take a look, especially if you have just helped them sort out something they couldn’t. Even though not everyone comments there are a bunch of people who will read forum posts plus you will be found in the search engines too for anyone looking for answers. I don’t do this as much as I used to because it is time consuming if you are a member of too many. You might want to limit your time by getting known in a few good ones rather than being a member of 10 or 12 not very active ones.
11. Social Networking & micro blogging (Level : Easy but time consuming – Cost Zero)
Get yourself on social sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and similar ones and start contributing. Where you can add blog posts and leave a link back to your main blog. Share great content with people – not just your own content but anything you think might be of interest to people – because then they will come to see you as a great source of information, not just someone trying to promote their stuff. I like to acutally be social on social sites and will mention family stuff or ask questions about life in general.
12. Social Bookmarking – (Level : Easy but time consuming – Cost Zero)
This includes sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, Technorati, Delicious, Onlywire and places where you can store a collection of links that include things you find of interest. You can get a large amount of traffic from these sites, even as a new blogger and my favourite is Stumbleupon. I don’t tend to do the social thing on these sites much although I think if I did it would be a great investment of time because you meet people with the same interest and share information.
I hope this list of 12 different free and low cost ways to generate traffic to your blog has been helpful. All you need now is to set yourself a plan, make the decision to do something from this list every single day so you are using a combination of different techniques. Once your blog is up there really is nothing more to do except keeping writing and keep doing activities that will draw people to you.
If you have ever been on any of the major social networking sites like Facebook, when you joined you probably went round every day adding loads of people as your friend until one day you notice more and more people connecting with you and you no longer had to go in search of people on a regular basis.
The same can be said of your traffic, you will always be looking for it but the better you get at making it come to you then less work you have to do to find it. Always remember – consistency and commitment - the two winning words when it comes to traffic generation for your blog.
If you have any great low cost or free ways to generate traffic feel free to add a comment about it.
Two More To Add!
I wrote this post because I was on Blog Carnival and someone is running a carnival on how to get traffic to blogs, so I thought what a brilliant idea for a post – then I only went and missed them off the list 
So number 13 (unlucky for some!) is Blog Carnival
Blog Carnival – not easy for the beginner! Takes a little bit of figuring out at times but is worth adding your blog posts too. You visit the site and find a carnival on a particular topic then click on the submit button to add your blog post. If your post is great content and you are chosen to be part of the carnival your link is posted to the blog of whoever is hosting it. Submitting your own blog post is easier than running a carnival but both are traffic worthy. Here’s a post on it
Yahoo and Google groups - Great places to let people know about what you are doing, just don’t send out spam links to your blog but instead become part of the community. As trust grows you can let them know what you have just written a blog post about and get visitors that way. They are easy to join and free to use so why not make full use of them.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post. I like the way you’ve broken it down by difficulty level and cost…that’s a nice way to frame the discussion, especially for folks just starting out.
One thing to be aware of, in #3 you mention Article Marketer; they have stopped doing business under that name, and are now two separate companies: ContentCrooner.com and DistributeYourArticles.com. Both still offer widespread content distribution, and are good options for article marketing.
Carol Palmatier´s last blog ..Because Social Change is Beautifully Designed
Thanks Carol. I forgot about Article Marketer changing . I was a member and logged in one day to find a completely different site – ContentCrooner! I will log that in mental bank for next time
You’re welcome…the change took a lot of authors by surprise. Full disclosure — I used to work for the partners at Article Marketer, and am doing some project work with Content Crooner. You’ve got my email; if anyone has questions about the new companies I’m happy to get them some answers. Take care!
Carol Palmatier´s last blog ..Because Social Change is Beautifully Designed
All really great tips and tricks to build backlinks, authority, and exposure. Sometimes you can be overwhelmed by having to do all these things, and it’s best to create a daily, weekly, and monthly list of items you need to get done to keep you on track.
Front Row Tickets´s last blog ..Cheap Killswitch Engage Tickets