7 Best Ways To Monetize Your Blog Effectively

How to monetize a blog and start making some real money online?

We all know that there are so many ways to money from blogging, but most of them are outdated and won’t work now.

So I won’t be sharing them here, instead, I’ll give you some real ways to make money from blogging. Let’s get into it.

1. Google AdSense

Hands down, Google AdSense is still the most effective way to monetize a blog. But it can give you decent money once your blog start getting massive traffic.

Let’s say you are getting 1,000 visits a day, you can easily expect 200$ to 300$ a month by leveraging your blog traffic. Place your GA ads wisely to get more clicks. After all, it’s all about more clicks = more money!

Note: If you don’t have Google Adsense account approved, then you can try Infolinks as it is a best Google Adsense alternative.

2. Banner ads

If you are not interested in placing Google AdSense ads on your blog, showing banner ads is the finest way to make more money. Use Buy sell ads services to post your blog details. If your blog is receiving potential traffic, you will get many opportunities from other people to place their ads on your sites. You can contact to some big brands in your niche for direct advertisement. It’s one of the profitable method to earn from blogging.

3. Product reviews

I know few people who are making $100 to $500 just by publishing 2 to 3 product reviews a month on their blogs. Posting product reviews is the effective way to make money from a site. If your website has loyal readership it works like a charm. You can charge $100 to $500 per review depending on your site.

4. Blog services

If you are a beginner and have a passion towards selling your skills, this is definitely for you. You can sell your writing services, logo services, theme creation or plugin generation services on your blogs to make money.

The good thing about this monetization model is, you don’t need huge traffic to make more money. But you do need quality exposure from the RIGHT people to take your services. The more clients you have the more money you can generate each and every month.

5. Affiliate marketing

Want to make money even while you sleep? Affiliate marketing is the right choice for you then. But you do need to have some skills to sell others products on your sites. Remember no one likes to buy stuff from strangers. So according to me if you have an email list of hungry people you can make lots of money from affiliate marketing. Patience is the real key in making more money from affiliate marketing.

• How to make money from Shareasale Affiliate program?
• How to Increase Affiliate Sales Without Increasing Your Traffic?

6. Sell your own products

If nothing works for you to make money online, sell your own products. It can range from selling eBooks, information products, plugins, themes etc. It totally depends on your skills. Figure out where you are good at. Are you a better writer, developer or speaker? Launch your products after analyzing your skills to maximize your revenue.

7. Build an Email List

One of the best ways to make money online is to build an email list.

Email list is the way to go if you want to make decent income from your blogging efforts. Money is in the list. If you are not building an email list, you are definitely losing money on the table. Start building an email list from day one of your blogging career.

If you are wondering how to get more email subscribers, this is for you. We will discuss the effective ways to grow your email list. Let’s dive in.

1. Drive more traffic: No matter how good your offer is, you won’t get more email subscribers without driving quality traffic to your sites. The more traffic you have the faster you can grow your email list, it’s as simple as that. Use guest posts, blog comments, PPC ads etc. to drive more traffic to your blogs or landing pages.
2. Offer a freebie: If you want to quickly build an email list, give away something for free. Online readers don’t sign up to your sites just because you are building a list. They want a reason to subscribe to any newsletter. So find out your target audience and write specific reports or eBooks for them. You can also give away videos, podcasts etc. The tip here is to make sure your freebie is something worth reading.
3. Use a best autoresponder: I use and recommend GetResponse. If you are serious about building an email list, use services like GetResponse, AWeber, Mad Mimi etc. Because email list is a business and every business needs investment. I hope you are getting me.
4. Use landing pages:Blog pages are a big distraction in general. If you want more conversions on your email lists, try using landing pages. Landing pages give less distraction to the users and they often get more conversion rates. You can use the tools like OptimizePress, Thrive Landing Pages etc. to build landing pages.
5. Use effective call to actions: Don’t use the words like “subscribe” “get free updates” etc. on your websites. People are just fed up of seeing them. Use effective call to actions like “Get your freebie now” “download your report” etc. to easily convince your visitors to subscribing to your mailing lists. Be creative while creating call to actions.
6. Use social media sites:Social media is the powerful way to get more email leads. Social media is only growing bigger and bigger. If you are not spending quality time on engaging with others on social media, you are definitely losing many people visiting your sites. Create Facebook fan pages, be active on twitter and get in touch with other people on G+ to grow your network.
7. Pro tip to making money online: Before using any monetization model from above, always be sure to test every model one after the other. Don’t try to monetize your blog using all the methods that you come across online. You won’t make even a penny if you focus on every monetization method.

So what are your thoughts on monetizing a blog or website in 2016 and beyond? What are the proven methods that helped you to make money online? Please share your thoughts in the comments

Thank you to Ankit Singla the source of today's article

Time to Explore Affiliate Marketing - 17 Articles to Read Before You Start

Okay, so firstly remember that it is marketing, first and foremost

We’ll be covering some of the nuances of affiliate marketing quite a bit on MonetizePros, sharing some ideas for better monetizing an existing traffic base with these strategies. But before we dive in to some of the specifics of this approach, we thought we’d share some of the best articles and blog posts out there on the topic to lay a foundation for the monetization tutorials. If you’re brand new to affiliate marketing, you may wish to read our primer: What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Working your way through all of the articles below will take you quite a while, but you’ll end up with a complete understanding of the mechanics, opportunity, and challenges associated with monetizing a site via affiliate marketing. (By the way, if you’re enjoying this article, you may want to subscribe to our free newsletter; we’ll send monetization tips straight to your inbox each day.)

Affiliate Marketing Basics

If you’re just starting out in affiliate marketing, it will probably be helpful to understand exactly how the whole process works: who does what and when money is made (these are also good explanations for the more experienced affiliate marketers):

1. How Does Affiliate Marketing Work? Affiliorama has one of the best answers to this complex and common questions, explaining just how the affiliate marketing ecosystem runs.
2. How Affiliate Marketing Works – A Step By Step Visual. Rae Hoffman has a great visual explanation for how the affiliate marketing process works, from the initial signup to the paycheck delivery.
3. A (Short) History of Affiliate Marketing. This feature from Skimlinks highlights the history of affiliate marketing, starting back before the days of the internet.
4. Affiliate Marketing 101: Learning the Lingo. This article on Affiliorama gives a good rundown of the jargon you’ll come across in the affiliate industry.

Getting Started

Every successful affiliate marketer started at some point with little more than an idea and a domain name. Getting off the ground with that initial property and making that first conversion is a big deal, and a big challenge. Here’s some reading to help in that regard:

5. How to Build Your First Online Asset in 48 Hours. Sean Ogle shares a detailed, 11-step guide for getting off the ground and putting up that first affiliate website.
6. What to Do When “All of the Good Ideas are Already Taken”. Pat Flynn has some great insights into a common frustration and challenge of affiliate marketers. (Be sure to read the comments here as well; there are some great insights there as well.)
7. Finding a (Good) Niche In Affiliate Marketing. Rae Hoffman shares an answer to a common question: how do you go about finding a good niche for an affiliate marketing site?

Affiliate Marketing Scams

To some, affiliate marketing has a clearly negative connotation as a sleazy way to make money online.

8. The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam. The title of this one says it all. Be sure to also check out Sorry, affiliate marketing actually isn’t a (big, ugly) scam for a counterpoint to some of the issues raised here.
9. Affiliate Marketing with Integrity (A Conversation with Pat Flynn). This one is actually a video (about eight minutes long) that provides some interesting insights into how Pat Flynn became a successful affiliate marketer.
10. Avoiding Affiliate Marketing Scams. Rae also has some great insights on how to avoid getting scammed when starting off in affiliate marketing, as well as her suggested reading list.
11. 

Insights From Affiliate Marketers

The affiliate marketing industry is somewhat unique in the transparency of many of its members. There’s a general willingness to share experiences, including both successes and failures. Below are some of the most in-depth and useful interviews and tutorials put together by affiliate marketers who put in the hard work to build up a profitable affiliate operation (in some cases, more than once):

11. Extra Money Answer. Shawn Collins has authored a fantastic multi-part series detailing his affiliate marketing success story.
12. Pat Flynn Income Reports. Pat Flynn is a successful affiliate marketer who also happens to be one of the most transparent. Each month (sometimes a bit delayed) he published a detailed accounting of his business, explaining what factors were responsible for his wins and losses.
13. The Rise of Ngo. This multi-part series from Charles Ngo is one of the most honest, in-depth accounting of an affiliate marketer’s successes and failures. Getting through all eight parts will take you a while, but is worth the time.
14. An Interview with Super Affiliate Richard Bonner. Tyler Cruz and Richard Bonner offer up some candid thoughts on the volatility of the industry, a love / hate relationship with Facebook, and what a day in the life of a successful affiliate marketer looks like.

 Other Affiliate Marketing Reading

Below are a few additional articles that don’t fall into any of the previous categories but can be valuable reads for aspiring affiliate marketers:

15. 25 Affiliate Marketing Questions Answered. This piece gives honest answers to common questions, from “can I get rich with affiliate marketing” to “why do affiliates typically fail” to “how can I knock competing affiliates out of my traffic source.”
16. Largest Affiliate Networks. It’s difficult to come up with a list of the “best” affiliate networks out there since each site will be so unique in what types of offers and solutions work. But this list at least highlights some of the biggest players in the space. (Note however that the Google Affiliates program is no longer operational.)
17. Affiliate Marketing on Facebook. Affiliorama has some good insights on using Facebook in affiliate marketing campaigns, including a step-by-step guide for setting up ads.

Bottom Line

Affiliate marketing remains a huge industry in 2014, and remains a viable career opportunity for those who are able to crack the code. It’s also an enormous challenge; breaking in and getting up to a critical mass of revenue takes a lot of hard work and a willingness to fail.

Source -  Michael Johnston

WHY BLOGGERS FAIL

According to one source, there are more than 164 million blogs…

Most of these blogs get less than 1,000 visitors per month, and the harsh reality is, the majority of those blogs are, for lack of a better word, failures.

What’s unfortunate is, in that group of people, I’m betting there’s someone just like you….

…Someone who believed pumping out good content will generate the leads and sales they need to run a profitable business.

…Someone who believed a journalist or Google would notice their hard work—and reward them with an endless supply of traffic that converts.

…Someone who put the work in, and things just didn’t pan out.

The question is “WHY!?!”

And most important, how can you BEAT THE ODDS?

http://socialtriggers.com/why-bloggers-fail/

Why do bloggers (and the blogs they create) fail?

And more important, how do “some” people beat the odds…

…and build blogs that help them build HUGE businesses?

The answer lies in:

The Psychology Behind Why Blogs Fail

I’ll be straight up with you because I know you expect nothing less.

Most people who start blogs dream about their blog soaring to Everest-level subscriber numbers.

(Who doesn’t want to make a splash?)

And they’re willing to do the work, too. They’re not looking for handouts, they want to earn their success.

(Sound familiar?)

So, what happens?

It turns out that most people who start blogs quit within the first 3 months.

Why?

It’s simple. When people start blogs, they do the wrong things.

And the problem is, when they spend time on all those things they find something strange happens:

They’ll waste their first 3 months, and they’ll have NOTHING to show for it other than a bunch of social media logins, passwords, and the belief that “I’ll be ready to go, when I just finish this one thing…”

But they’ll have NO RESULTS.

And that lack of results will demotivate the MOST AMBITIOUS individual.

(I’ve been there…)

It’s human psychology.

(The more time you spend working on something without a reward, the harder it is to continue doing it).

And that’s why, I believe, most bloggers fail.

They start their blog with good intentions, but fall off the beaten path because they waste time on pointless drivel that doesn’t deliver what they really want: more traffic… more leads… more sales.

It’s sad, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

So I have a question for you:

Are you worried that the same thing will happen to you?

Are you scared that you’ll waste your time on the pointless drivel “fake blogging experts” shill as “advice?”

Or worse, maybe the same has already happened to you… and you’re tired of it?

If you said “Heck, YES!” you’re in luck.

Here’s why:

In my Free Ebook: How to Get 5,000 Subscribers, I’ll show you how to build a profitable blog (including the “behind the scenes” strategies that allowed me to attract more than 200,000 (yes, 200,000) subscribers).

I’m going reveal the “time-wasting things” that cause well-deserving bloggers like you to fail.

The “time-wasting things” that cause you to get no results… demotivated… and eventually cause you to burn out and quit.

And what’s better is, when you eliminate these time-wasters from your blogging schedule, I believe YOU CAN BEAT THE ODDS.

Ready?

Let’s jump in.

Time-Waster #1: Creating Too Much Content

When I asked bloggers, “How do you spend time on your blog?”, they said “I spend about 80-90% of my time on creating content.”

This makes ZERO sense.

Here’s the deal: When you run a blog that has a few readers, adding more content doesn’t help you get more readers. The math just doesn’t work.

Let’s say you have 100 readers. What are the chances that one of those people will love your content so much that they tell ALL of their friends about it? 1%? 2%? If that?

Whatever it is, it’s low, and at that rate, you might get 1 new loyal reader. Going from 100 readers to 101 readers isn’t how you build a blog readership.

To build a blog readership, you’ve got to go from 100 readers… to 500 readers. Then, from 500 readers to 700 readers, and so on.

How do you do it? The secret lies in your ability to promote the content you already have, because if you’ve got something that was only seen by 100 people, chances are there are at least 10,000 or 100,000 other people in the world that can benefit from what you wrote.

So, I’m giving you permission…

“You don’t have to create content, day in, and day out. You just have to work on getting the content you already have… in the hands of more people.”

How does that feel? Good? Great? AWESOME? Here’s how some of my other disciples felt when they learned this:

Derek’s advice to blog less and promote more was earth-shattering and such a relief because it completely eliminated my blog stress and gave me peace and time and space back in my business to do what I love to do, which is coach people.” – Nicole Burley, Certified Health Coach and Life Coach, creator of NicoleBurley.com

“My biggest struggle coming into the course was that I was writing frequently, but never really connecting with my followers… Now that I have taken the course, I feel that I have a game plan for each post.” Craig Koniver, MD, Organic Medicine Physician, creator of OrganicMedicineNow.com

Now that leads me to the NEXT big time-waster.

Time-Waster #2: Promoting Content The Wrong Way

This always cracks me up…

When I talk to people, and I ask them “How do you currently try to get your name out there?”

Here’s what they say:

“Okay, so I publish an article, then I share it on Twitter, Facebook, and my other social media networks.”

And I’m like, “Okay, and then what?”

“Umm… I sometimes tweet out my article a few times because not all my followers see it the first time.”

And again, I’m like “And…?”

“I sometimes ask one of my friends to share it on their Twitter, too.”

And again, “And…”

And that’s when they fall flat.

“Well, I don’t know what else to do. So I write more content.”

(Does this sound familiar? Fess up :-P)

[Face Palm]

Newsflash: Sharing your content to your small (and inactive) social media accounts ISN’T PROMOTION. And doing it regularly is often a waste of time

You’ll NEVER build a blog that fuels your business by following that method of promotion.

Now what really grinds my gears, is right about now, people always say “Okay, what do I do then, smarty pants?”

But it’s not about promotion tactics. You’ve got to understand what good promotion is, and how it works… first.

So, here’s what you need to know:

The easiest way to get readers for your blog is to convince another blog that has readers to send readers your way.

That’s it.

(Notice how I didn’t say share it on Twitter).

What you MUST do is convince people who have readers… to send you readers.

The question is “How?” And that leads me to the NEXT big time-waster.

Time-Waster #3: Creating a “Me Too” Blog

If you want other bloggers to send their readers your way, you’ve got to create a blog that warrants it.

And the sad truth is, most blogs out there don’t warrant it.

Most blogs, in fact, are what I call “Me Too” blogs. They say the same things as everyone else… and nobody cares.

The problem, again, is just human psychology. What blends in gets ignored, what stands out gets remembered. It’s that simple. And every second you spend working on a “me too” blog is a second wasted.

The question is, “How can YOU stand out when there’s more than 164 million blogs?”

I go into detail about this in my online training “Start Your Blog Right,” but the SECRET behind standing out today is as simple as “GETTING REAL SPECIFIC” with what your blog stands for.

Don’t write about fitness. Write about fitness for 45+ year-olds who want to do cross-fit.

Or, as a personal example, when I wanted to break into the marketing space (one of the most crowded blog spaces on the net), I didn’t just write about marketing. I focused in on how to leverage proven psychological principles to improve conversion rates.

You might think, “well, won’t that pigeon hole me into a small audience?”

And the answer is, “Yes,” but there’s no reason why you can’t expand out of that once you OWN your topic.

It might seem a bit silly, but look at it like this: What’s more rememberable? “I’m a marketing expert” or “I show you how to use psychology to increase your blog conversions.”

The latter obviously :-P.

And if you’re worried that this won’t work, just take a look at what some of my disciples said:

“Derek was great in helping me focus on specific leadership topics, and blogging about action steps that my readers could benefit from. Leadership is SUCH a vague & broad concept to begin with, and Derek helped me feel like I wasn’t nailing jello to the wall anymore!” Maya Mathias, creator of InventiveLinks.com

“Due to Derek, I have narrowed my focus of my business to web designers… I credit Derek for helping me find the need to focus my business like a LASER instead of the shotgun approach. It is making all the difference in the world.” – Gene Hammett, creator of CoreElevation.com

Is there such a thing as getting too specific?

Absolutely.

There has to be an audience for what you’re writing about.

But the fact remains: what blends in gets ignored. What stands out gets remembered.

Here’s What You Need To Do Next…

Now that I walked you through the psychology behind why blogs fail, and the big 3 time-wasters that cause that failure, you’ve got ONE goal:

You need to get some results… FAST.

I mentioned this earlier, but when you work on something for too long without seeing a reward, you get demotivated, and you don’t want that to happen.

So, what can you do to get some results fast?

Well, remember when I said:

The easiest way to get readers for your blog is to convince another blog that has readers to send readers your way.

Do that.

How do you get started?

First you must figure out what sites you’d like to send you some traffic.

So, for homework, I want you to leave a comment on this blog post. Here’s what you should include in your comment:

First, I want you to list your 1 DREAM website that you would LOVE to get a link from. (Notice I said “dream” website. Shoot for the stars!)

Second, I want you to list 3 other websites that you would also LOVE to get a link from. Don’t pick the biggest websites in the world, but instead, pick some smaller sites that you think would do your brand well.

In both scenarios, explain WHY you think this website will help you. This is important, and if you skip this step, the exercise is pointless. :-).

Now, download this FREE Ebook.

Original source - Social triggers

Why Blogs Fail To Get Traffic

The days of easy Google traffic are over and I hear the complaints all the time.

How can I attract more traffic? Will Google ever notice my blog posts?

Well the answer is YES, you can attract great traffic and yes Google WILL notice.

Well…sort of. Someday.

In this post I’d like to address a couple problems holding you back from getting more traffic.

I’ll help you look at blog traffic in a different light.

As usual, feel free to comment.

Traffic terms

Here are some useful terms before we get going.

• Traffic = Online visitors to your site
• Returning traffic = People who come back to your site 2 or more times
• Target audience = People who will take action on your messages
• Online graveyard = Where thousands of traffic-less blogs end up every day 

Ok, “online graveyard” is one I made up 

To find the solution to a lack of blog traffic I’d like to look at two problems I commonly see. These problems prevent bloggers from attracting returning traffic and building it into a target audience. That’s something you need after a bit of time. You need people to take action.

Problem 1: We only look at the numbers

I feel like a lot is wrong with the whole “gimme more traffic” world nowadays.

The first problem is we see traffic as just a number.

75,000 pageviews a month, 60% returning visitors, 140 entrances, etc.

It’s a number we all obviously want to increase and if you run a huge blog your traffic number probably looks great. Go ahead, brag about it.

But as a new blogger your traffic number can be really depressing. It’s growing, and needs time.

It’s risky to focus on this number too much. Why? Because you may start to compare it to what you think it should be. You’ll probably feel it’s not enough.

And if you feel like it’s not enough, your blogging will suffer.

You’ll get desperate to create more content and will stop enjoy the little gains in your work. You might even decide to stop blogging.

So what’s the solution?

I’m no Seth Godin traffic expert, but I think I have something that could save you from the traffic blues.

Try viewing your traffic as a actual person, or group of people. That’s all traffic is afterall, right?

It’s sort of like the old “glass half empty or half full” adage. You’ve got to look at your traffic count as half-full of awesome readers who you get to interact with.

It’s awesome if anyone reads your blog. Even just…6 people a day.

If you take these 6 people for granted they’ll probably vanish. But if you take them seriously they’ll probably turn into 6 more.

Here’s what you can do:

• Respond to every single comment at your blog and on guest posts
• Thank people for tweets and retweets
• Be available to answer questions over email

By giving your entire attention to just a few readers you will secure them as fans. Then, they’ll be more likely to recruit others.

They’ll comment, and people will notice. They’ll share your work to a couple hundred others!!

It’s all about starting small and appreciating the small gains.

One loyal reader who shares your blog is worth more than 1000 one-off visits in your @googleanalytics stats #blog #traffic #progress

— Greg Narayan (@gregnarayan) January 16, 2013

Problem 2: Not enough self-promotion (80/20 rule)

This next problem comes with a fancy rule, a proven one.

The second problem I see among blogs is a lack of self-promotion.

Bloggers assume that just by pumping out content either a lot of people or Google or maybe both will notice them.

Trust me, people won’t notice. Google won’t either, unless you can get a lot of actually people to notice first.

The result is often just a lot of under-appreciated blog posts 

Sound like your blog at all?

The DearBlogger launch
When I launched DearBlogger I had three posts up. The first was a basic Welcome Post. It served it’s purpose to explain the site and that’s about it. The other two posts were equally as basic. They were helpful though and conveyed my mission to be a blogging answers community.

You know where all my other posts were? They were all over the darn web. I used them to drive a mammoth amount of traffic towards my blog, all in about two weeks.

I did important Google things, like building backlinks and earning some social stats.

It was sort of a gamble; I had to hope when people arrived they liked my three standing posts. But it paid off.

And it’s paying off as I write this.

So, what’s your strategy?

How much time do you spend building content on your blog? 50% of your time?

Any more would be crazy!

You should spend at least 80% (4/5s) of your efforts as a new blogger away from your blog. This is of course assuming things like design are working well enough at your blog.

Assuming they are, you’ve got to get out there.

More marketing off your blog + less content on your blog =

• More comments per post
• More klout
• More authority (at least a perception of it)
• More excitement for your next post!

I’m not the only one blabbering like this either. Check out Derek Halpern’s post on Why Blogs Fail.

And of course I’ll note that my bounce rate eBook has tips on scaling blog growth too. Like turning 100 visitors into 10,000 visitors kind of growth.

The web's a big place. If 100 people like what you're doing, why wouldn't 10,000? #blogtraffic #newpost

— Greg Narayan (@gregnarayan) January 22, 2013

List of traffic generation strategies

I figured now would be the time for an living list of traffic generation strategies. By “living” I mean I’d like you to add to it in the comments.

Guest posting is my favorite so it’s first, but the rest are in no particular order.

1. Guest post on major blogs:
   Big traffic hubs exist in any niche in the form of established blogs. The concept is simple: write guest posts for them and meet a new audience. Making your guest posts really stand out nowadays is the tricky part. Put the time in though, this one is well worth it if you want more traffic.
2. Encourage shares at your blog:
   I like asking readers for a bit help here and there. By encouraging readers to share your work you’ll create more social proof and find more like-minded readers too.
3. Build your Google+:
   With Google Authorship looming, a stronger G+ profile will most-likely rank you higher in Search. Read my guide to Google+ for more.
4. Twitter mining: 
   Twitter will always be a good source of blog traffic but not everyone does it right. First you should make your bio awesome, and brief. Then, go find like-minded tweeters. Engage them or offer a retweet. I’ve actually met a lot of long-term blog readers directly on Twitter.
5. Organic traffic from Google: 
   Yes, the holy grail of blogging. Organic traffic from Google will keep your business going and at some point, you’ll fail without it. I recommend using Keyword Tool by Google to create posts with “Google Titles” (aka permalinks) that are heavily searched. This naturally helps posts rank based on trend frequency. Even if your posts don’t hit the Google top 10, they’ll get clicks lurking in the 20s and even 30s. Google is a big place, ya know.
6. Write a niche-narrow eBook: 
   Writing an eBook positions you as an expert. Being an expert is a crucial step to getting returning traffic, and people can willingly share your eBook to new readers.
7. Create video content on YouTube
   My recent focus has been building pillar content on YouTube. The kind of evergreen videos like this someone will always want to watch. Getting on YouTube opens the floodgates to a whole new audience and is a great way to diversify your online promotional efforts.
8. Do a live demo
   Know anyone that owns a bar, restaurant, or a bit of open presentation space? Post an invite to your Facebook friends, create a PowerPoint, and set up a live demo of how to blog. You’d be surprised how many will turn out and the word of mouth that results will be phenomenal!
9. Mention other bloggers
   Even as a small blogger, you can link back to other websites you admire. If they notice and like your work, they’ll probably throw you a link too. This kind of cross promotion is what blogging is all about!
10. Build another website
    Have some spare time and a diverse set of interests? Create a new website and leverage the strength of your existing one alongside of it. When Dear Blogger was brand new I linked to it from my other blogs and the result was much quicker traffic growth.
11. Post blog timely comments
    In my earlier days of guest posting some comments from ProBlogger were the largest source of traffic at Dear Blogger. Get comments in early, at the top of a list, and make them sassy. People will click the name to see who done said that!
12. Write for article directories
    Writing for sites like Ezine, Squidoo, and GoArticles can boost your traffic stats. These sites let you build your writing portfolio and offer a couple links back to your blog. The top authors per niche get LOTS of attention and probably get offered paid blogging opportunities too.
13. Email a celebrity about a blog partnership:
    I even emailed Seth Godin at one point asking for a blog partnership. I’m going to save that topic/email for another post though. This was a crazy-creative-moment that I think we bloggers can learn a lot from.

So what do you think? If I missed your favorite traffic gen strategy just drop a comment and let us know. Again, think “avoid online graveyard” people.

How to fail at getting traffic

I thought we’d end with some traffic-gen strategies you should avoid.

a. Begging for links: You’ll lose a lot of respect
b. Twitter mass following: You end up following nonsense robo-accounts
c. Facebook spam: Usually irrelevant
d. Comment spam: Totally pointless (thank god for Akismet)
e. Forum spam: Will get you swiftly banned
f. Content over-stuffing: Mass producing articles won’t magically bring the traffic

If you’ve tried any of these don’t worry, I probably have too. But realize that these activities may actually harm your image and send people away from your site.

Healthy traffic: Where will it get you?

Increasing traffic levels will open doors for you as a blogger or online entrepreneur. You can do virtually anything with it.

You can do a couple things straight away to get more traffic:

1. Set up your Google Analytics profile and see how your website is currently doing.
2. If your bounce rate in Analytics is too high (over 20% is high) grab your free copy of my bounce rate eBook.

More traffic comes from small adjustments today, that pay off the next time Google hits the Search “refresh button”. It’s a moment we bloggers and SEOs look forward to 

I’d really love to hear how you work to find more traffic. Grey-hat, white-hat, red-hat, whatever. I think if we bounce off some ideas here we may actually develop a new traffic gen strategy or two.

Post a quick comment and help us avoid the ol’ blog graveyard.
Thank you to Greg Narayan today's SOURCE