Sure ways of getting traffic to your blog or website. Get regular, useful, relevant traffic, not spams and short-term traffic spikes.

1. Say ‘no’ to
unethical shortcuts, tricks and
irrelevant traffic

2. Good traffic, bad traffic…
It takes time to get good traffic. It
depends upon your theme and many
factors.
Good traffic consists of those who visit
you for info, advice and help, sharing
content, buying something, getting some
service.
On the other hand, bad traffic is from
spammers, link farms, selfish mutual
promoters

3. Write good content and with
good frequency
Nothing gets relevant traffic better
than posting good content regularly.
Write what is relevant to the main
theme of your blog / website.
Do not give big breaks. If going on
leave, write posts in advance and
schedule them for that period.

4. Write [also] for those who
search content
Always write with people in mind, not
search engines. However, sprinkle such
keywords in the text that are relevant to
your topic.
Put keywords in heading and sub-
headings.
Put alt tags on pictures. If that is a
botheration, give them good captions.

5. Engage with others
Comment on others’ blogs, reply to
comments on your blog.
Link website / blog with social network
accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and
Google+.
Engage with like-minded people and
friends on social networks.

6. Be known in the w.w.w.
w.w.w.
Submit your blog or website to
directories that have great authority. If it
is not yet on Google, submit it to them.
Submit to Dmoz and Technorati.
If you are an expert, contribute to other
experts’ / journals’ websites.

7. Promote yourself well
Promote well, not shamelessly.
Ping your new post. Two good pinging
sites are pingomatic and pingoat. Do not
over-ping.
Promote by letting people follow you or
subscribe to your posts.
Promote offline: tell friends about what
you posted today.

8. Let others recommend you
If your blog / website has good content
and you are taken as expert in your
area, people will recommend you on
their websites, blogs and other social
media platforms.
You can also get authority links by
posting quality content on others’ areas
by guest posting, writing good
comments and so on.

9. SEO and other ways
What we have said so far are basic rules
for getting useful and sustainable traffic.
If you are in a hurry to get useful traffic,
go for search engine optimisation
(SEO). It consists of tweaking the site
for better search optimisation, and
online / offline promotion.

10. Remember this:
If going for SEO, beware of ‘black-hat’ or
unethical SEO
Tricks and unethical ways of promoting
a website or blog hurt in the long run.
Such tricks may get you huge traffic in
the short run, but it will dry up
eventually. You will also be punished by
search engines.
Don’t comment for comment sake; this
can be viewed as spam.
More blogging advice on IndianTopBlogs dot com