I wrote a list of 101 ways to get traffic to your blog a while back. I decided to narrow that list down to the ten best ways I have found to get traffic to my blogs.

1. SEO

Without a doubt SEO has been my favorite way to get traffic to my blogs. The Google algorithm loves blogs, which makes SEO a very good way to get traffic to your blog.

2. Commenting

Leaving comments on blogs in related niches is a great way to get new targeted traffic to your blog. It is also an excellent way to build relationships with other bloggers which leads me to number 3…

3. Networking

Networking is possibly the single most important skill for making big money online. It is also a great way to build traffic to your blog.

4. Word of Mouth

Simply tell your friends and family about your blog and/or specific posts on your blog. You will be surprised by how much traffic that can generate.

5. Linkbait

Create posts that are designed to grab people’s attention. Controversial posts are often associated with linkbait, but there are plenty of other ways to create linkbait. 101 lists make for good linkbait and so do posts that are out of the ordinary in some way.

6. Link Out

Link liberally to other blogs in your posts. Many bloggers keep track of incoming links to their blog and will come check out your blog when you link to them. This can also help you get comments.

7. Stumbleupon/Digg

am a big fan of using stumbleupon for getting traffic to your blog. If you haven’t signed up for it you should. Stumbleupon is this blogs third best traffic source, behind retuning visitors, and Google.

8. List Posts

I have found that posts with lists (like this one) generate more traffic to your blog. They tend to get bookmarked and voted on more on social sites. The more list posts you write the more traffic you will get.

9. Blog Meme

Create a blog meme and tag other bloggers. Participating in blog memes has definitely increased my blog traffic. One blog meme in particular really helped this blog out and I never even participated in it.

10. Quality Content

Quality content is the key to keep people coming back for more. If you write posts that people enjoy reading, they will come back regularly to read your posts. Having regular readers is a great way to increase blog traffic.

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This seems to be asked daily, how do I choose the right niche for my blog? And once you pick you're niche, you're probably wondering "How do I get more traffic"?

The first step to get solid traffic to your blog is to choose the right niche.

There is no surefire way to pick a profitable niche. Even professional bloggers admit that they sometimes choose a niche that doesn’t get enough traffic or make enough money to make it worthwhile. So don’t worry if the first blog you start flops. Just try again. Perserverance is the key to success.

Here are 7 simple steps to choosing a niche that is right for you:

1. Make A List Of Your Passions

Write down all the things you are passionate about. If you aren’t passionate about the topic you write about, it will show! Passion is one of the biggest keys to keeping people interested in your blog (yourself included). This is the most important step in choosing a niche. If you don’t follow any of the other steps in this post, make sure you write about something you are passionate about.

Here is an Example List of Passions

1. Video Games

2. Photography

3. Internet Marketing

4. American Idol

5. Reality TV

6. Politics

7. Software Development

2. Make A List Of Things You Do Well

Write down all the things you do well. It is advisable to ask other people for input on this. Find out what other people think you are good at. They might mention things you haven’t thought of. You might also show the final list to your friends and family to get further input on the list.

An example list of things you do well:

1. Video Games

2. Cooking

3. Photography

4. Teaching

5. Sailing

3. Merge The First Two Lists

Take the lists you made in steps 1 and 2. Write down all the things that are in both list 1 and list 2. This will give you a good idea of things you can blog about as an expert. However, you don’t have to be an expert to blog about something. If you are really passionate about something, but aren’t good at it or are just learning about it, you can still blog about that topic from the perspective of someone trying to improve in that area.

4. Choose Your Favorite 3-5 Niches

Out of the list you compiled from step 3 (above), which ones are you MOST interested in blogging about? It doesn’t matter if other people write about it. It doesn’t matter if it’s extremely competitive. Just write down the top 3-5 things that YOU want to blog about. It’s okay if you are down to 1 niche at this point, but 3-5 would be better.

NOTE: At this point you have at least one niche you could start writing about. However, if you want to make money from your blog, you need to do more research.

5. Determine The Traffic Potential

There are a lot of ways to do keyword research and determine the traffic potential for a niche. To simplify things, you aren’t going to worry about competition, you are only going to concern yourself with demand.

Go the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool (which seems to be working again). Type in the primary keyword(s) for the niches you selected in step 4. Then you will come up with a list of keyword phrases and their search numbers for last month on Yahoo owned Search Engines.

Note: If Overture doesn’t work, try the free wordtracker keyword tool.

In my opinion, you really want to see more than 10,000 searches a month on Overture for the main keyword, otherwise it’s going to be really hard to get decent traffic to your blog.

On the contrary, you don't want to choose a niche that is oversaturated, meaning there is already thousands of other sites with the same content.

6. Determine The Blog’s Money Making Potential

Common sense might suggest to you that there are products to be sold to people looking for each of the things in our example, but is there a way to be sure?

Here is a quick and easy method you can use to help determine a blog’s money making potential. Go to Google or Yahoo and do a search for your primary keywords. The more advertisers you see paying for sponsored results (PPC) the better. If you don’t see anyone bidding on those keywords then it may be more difficult to monetize your blog but not necessarily impossible.

The sponsored results are the ads that show on Google and Yahoo at the very top and the right hand side of the Search Engine results, under the title “Sponsored Links” on Google and “Sponsor Results” on Yahoo.

7. Make Sure You Have Time For The Niche

Is the topic so broad that you just don’t have time to blog about it yourself?

For instance, if you choose basketball as your niche, do you really have enough time to cover ALL basketball news on your blog? If not, then you either need to:

A. Start a group blog with enough other people to cover the topic.

B. Narrow the focus of your blog. In our example, maybe basketball is too broad for you to cover. If so, you might choose to cover your favorite basketball team or write about funny basketball moments, etc.

There you have it, 7 steps to choosing a niche for your blog.