Generating Traffic

Just like starting a new buisness you can expect the same challenges in starting a site. Many users think their is some secret or shortcut to gaining traffic to their site ,but if it were that easy everyone would do it. Their are a few things you can do to get a good solid foundation to start with

Make sure the design of your site is not to bright or to dark where viewers can not read it. Use a nice neat readable font with the right colors that suits the type of visitors you will draw into your site. You probably don't want to have a pink site if your site is about football.

Make sure you have good navigation on your site. Viewers need to be able to find what they are looking for when they come to your site.

The most important thing is to have quality content on your site. No one wants to come to a site that does not have what they are looking for. How many times have you Google something only to be brought to some useless article that is not related to what you were looking for. You don't like it so don't do it to others either. If you post quality content that people will have a interest to read then you will get traffic.

You may want to buy a custom domain for your site because it will give your blog a higher value on search results. You don't often see a sub-domain (.blogspot) on the first pages of Google search.

Make sure your site is listed in the top search engines. If not you need to summit your site to search engines.

Be considerate to your viewers and make sure you site load speed is not to slow. Having to much content or to many flashy gadgets could result in viewers browsers crashing.  No one wants to come on a site and have to restart their browser because of it.

Look for community's with sites related to yours. Their are a lot of network blogs out there that could help you promote your blog.

Try doing link exchange with some other new blogs out there. It a pretty simple concept, just place their banner on your site and they will do the same. This helps both of you get traffic and backlinks to your sites.  Just make sure to choose the right sites to affiliate with. You don't want to be caught linking to or being linked to by a site that does not meet Google standards. We see many reports of users that have had their blogs falsely marked as spam from being affiliated to a real spam blog.

You can try using some traffic exchange sites if you do not have ads on your blog. This will help bring traffic to your blog although most of those people who come don't care about what your blog is or is about. They are simply browsing through a list of sites to have their site on the list as well. Just remember don't do this if you have ads on your blog or you will lose your ad privileges.

Under no circumstance should you ever spam your site links on someone else site or forums. You may gain a few visitors by doing so but you will do more harm then good. Google watches things like this and when someones site increases backlinks way to fast it comes off as backlink scalping or spam. Both of these are illegal in Google's eyes and will only cause you harm.

Last but not least (as rude as this may sound) STOP worrying about how to generate traffic so much. Having some concern for getting traffic to your blog is understandable and necessary, but when you start spending more time on getting traffic to your blog then you are on writing quality post then your only going to prolong the growth of your site. If you have quality content that viewers are interested in then your blog will grow provided that your blog layout and navigation is user friendly. If you try to bring views to a site that is not ready then likely they will not come back to your site again. On the other hand if a viewer finds your blog helpful and enjoys reading the content they might bookmark your site and even tell their friends through facebook or some other social community.  

Believe it or not Google does hear whats on the web and having your blog name or link on a social community site with good or bad comments can effect the disposition of your site.