1. Frequent content - you can skip the six ways below if you frequently update your site and by frequent I mean 3 plus times a day. This is hard and not for the faint of heart. Mostly the routine for gadget and tech sites, have a look at Gadgeteer, Mashable and Zedomax and you will see their aggressive content schedule. Many days they update 7 or more times. They’re constantly updating so Google is at their door day and night which is great for traffic, if you can update this many times a day, go for it and watch your traffic soar.

2. Press Releases - another good way to drive traffic to your site or blog is to create newsworthy events and then showcase them via a press release. My favorite is PR Log which is totally free and relatively easy to submit to, best part about this press release site is that they have analytics to accompany each release and over time you get to see how it’s doing in the search engines. As for how much traffic this method will bring depends on the news itself, if you deliver something viral – witness it take off like wildfire!

3. Email marketing – this method works if you build a list and in turn keep members regularly updated on what they signed up for. This could be anything from a weekly Q&A column, special offers, event notices, previous weeks blog articles and anything else members would be interested in receiving. As for how you build the list? That is another topic in and of itself, but one quick and easy way is to offer something of value for free in exchange for an email address. Or hold a giveaway which requires a newsletter subscription as part of entry to win the prize.

4. Article Marketing – preferred by many long term site owners, article marketing involves creating strategic articles that get placed on good article directories like Ezine Articles and link back to your site or blog. This creates two good things for your site, one is you get approval from another site which Google loves and two you get traffic from those who seek the information you have provided in the article. This is why it’s important to create articles that have information or entertainment people seek. How-to articles are fantastic for article marketing purposes, write many of these and over time you will be rewarded with targeted website traffic. The best kind!

5. SEO - search engine optimization is the practice of delivering traffic to your blog via Google, Yahoo or Bing. If you set up content that others are looking for via keyword and phrase rich terms, the search engine will display your page and in turn traffic. One of the best resources on SEO for site and blog owners comes from well known and established blow owner Darren Rowse. He goes into great detail on how to optimize articles for the search engines along with further resources on the topic. Give it a good read.

6. Twitter – the tweet is a force to be reckoned with. Imagine writing an article and @GuyKawasaki picks up on it. You better hold on for the avalanche of traffic this tweet will send to your site or blog. It happens all the time to unsuspecting site owners. The best thing about Twitter is the immediacy of it, it’s instant nature. You write an article, tweet it out and it’s instantly there for the whole world to see and retweet. Great source of traffic for site and blog owners if used properly.

7. Facebook - you can’t discount this social media gauntlet no matter what you think of it. Everyone and their mother is on Facebook, and not only are they on it, they spend a lot of time there. Talk about a captive audience. Best advice is to create a fan page or group for your site or blog and update regularly to keep fans coming back for more. It’s not easy, but if you succeed you will have found a great big pot of gold in the form of traffic to your site.

Keep in mind that if you’re a new site or blog owner, best practice is to pick one or two of the methods above and work it, till it yields result. You can then move on to a more advanced way such as email marketing. If you try all of them, you will burn out. I speak from experience. Article marketing via Ezine Articles is my recommended first choice for you if you just created a new site or blog, but this method takes time, anywhere from 3 to 6 months. The more articles you write, the less time it will take. So its up to you and your team.

QUESTIONS?

What questions do you have for me. I’ll do my best to answer or direct you to a good source.

1. Niche directory – whatever niche you’re blog is on, most likely there’s a niche directory out there for it. Seek these out via a Google search, with the following formula: niche + blog directory. For example, if you’re blog is on the topic of surfing you would type into Google the following: surfing + niche directory. Niche directories are usually good sources of relevant, good PR, one way backlinks.

2. Blog Directory – similar as the above method, but these tend to only accept blogs and cater to a variety of niches. Some of the more established blog directories on the web include; Blog Catalog, My Blog Log, Blog Flux, and of course DMOZ. Submit your new blog to each one and make sure you also link to the “blog profile page” from your site.

3. Guest Blogging – we’re big fans of guest posting, and have written extensively on the subject. One of the absolute best methods for getting in front of a relevant audience and as a bonus, securing the almighty backlink. How does this method work? Quite simple really. Find blogs in your area of specialty, send them an email via their contact form and pitch them on a guest article. They will either say yes or no, but always worth a good try.

4. Article marketing – this is an excellent method to get backlinks to a new blog and involves writing a series of articles, about 5 or so and submitting them to an article directory, such as Ezine Articles. First create an account, write your article in their dashboard and wait for approval. Ezines is nicely moderated, so they tend to keep junk out, which is a good thing and article approval takes anywhere from 3 days 7 days.

5. Social media – Some social networking and social media sites send juice back to our blogs, the key as mentioned above is relevancy. For example, if you run an internet marketing or affiliate blog, a good social media site for you would be Sphinn. But on the other hand if you run a shoe blog, Sphinn is a waste of time for you. So look for social media sites that complement your topic, become a regular active member and periodically submit your articles for a boost in the search engines.

My next blog project is on the uber popular teen boy band The Jonas Brothers. This trio of music awesomeness is a force in the music industry and their reach only grows bigger everyday.

I had been meaning to create one on the JoBros and finally got around to it, see blog details below.

Name: Jonas Weblog

WordPress Theme: Fresh News

Monetization Model: Adsesne, Ebay, CJ, Ticketmaster and Amazon

This blog is an Adsense and affiliate blog, which means you will want to drive traffic to the blog, via one of the three methods below:

1. Article Marketing – create an account on eZines and direct (about 10 articles) to the blog via the author resource box.

2. Links – build links with press releases, dofollow blog comments, guest posts, or directories.

3. Additional Fresh Content – hire someone on Digital Point Forums to write two or three articles a week on the blog.

This blog is perfect for the (marketing savvy webmaster) who wishes to have a side income from Adsense and affiliate marketing. Drive targeted traffic to the blog, then wait for the commission checks to roll in.

If you have any questions on this blog project, do not hesitate to contact me.