This time it will be an experimental post, because it is, actually, a simple blog comment on 3 Resons Why Blog Commenting Is Important by Alex from howtospoter.com.

The reason why I’m publishing the comment on my blog is that it was considered a spam by Alex’s spam-proof system :) This must be some mistake.. But I find this case a very good idea for this post.

Besides, my readers know that I speak about web traffic and web promotion. Excellent promotion demands risks and unusual attempts to do something new, where you’ll be the first one… Isn’t this case a good and unusual way of web promotion? :)

My Spammed Comment on Alex’s Blog

Make sure you have read Alex’s post before reading the following comment:

Alex has already reported via Twitter that it really could be his spam filter issue.

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Video Dessert: «Laughing Baby»

Do you enjoy ripping newspaper like this little baby? :) I couldn’t stand his laughter – very relaxing video.

I’d like to introduce this video about the importance of play in our blogger lifes. I’ve seen this video before I started this website and now I think it’s time to correlate it with what I’m doing – with blogging. And yeah.. this topic relates to website traffic, because the better way you blog, the greater is your website traffic.

What was Stuart Brown talking about?

I’ll highlight only those phrases, that I think are important ones, because I’ve understood them.. yeah. I’m not that expert to get the gist of every single word he said. I’ll highlight phrases and will express my opinion on how they could possibly be related to blogging.

«Social play: if you want to belong, you need social play»

Smart one. But what could be a social play in blogging? May be contests, competitions? Polls? May be.. But all of them are virtual. Isn’t there any other way?

Blogging is mostly a single player game. You are sitting alone at home.. Social play – is a multiplayer game, so you need at least 2 players to play it in reality. You and someone else.. Seems like it’s a deadlock seeking a way to play blogging in reality. So, back to virtual variant.

«Polar bear playing with husky»

I don’t know why, but it reminded me of the quarrel with ExtremeJohn. It was a 100% play. Guess now who was a polar bear :)

So, it wasn’t a fighting till death. As to me – it was a pure play, nothing serious.

Did it work? Oh yeah.. just look at the people reactions. Though most of them are negative ones, I believe that everyone enjoyed the whole situation. It was fun, no one would deny that. And it was about emotions.

«Play born by curiosity»

Just like when you reveal your blog stats or your online income to people, that are curious about it. I wonder.. what could be the “play” factor here? The “showing” itself?

«Imaginative play»

Well, this one’s easy! You can play with your readers making them imagine something. Money.. the easiest example. A clear dream of something.. etc.

«Chaotic play»

Not a single idea about this one. I can only guess..

Chaotic play in our real life is when kids are running at the yard or else – screaming and playing with each other. I think this could be an example of chaotic play. But what about blogging? Any ideas?

«Nothing lights up the brain like play»

Awesome words. So true..

The bad news is that I can name only one blogger, that I know, who lighted up my brain – his name is Jordan Cooper from NotaProBlog.com. Yeap.. he’s comedian, he plays with those things about blogging, that supposed to be unplayable.. serious. And he’s doing it good.

I bet that being a comedian is not the only option to light up the brain in blogging. You’re your own magician. So.. creating something playful on your posts could, actually, light up your readers brains. Have you tried anything like that?

«Life without play»

Now imagine your life without any signs of play. It’s dipression.. No fantasy, no colorful pictures, no laughing, no passion etc

Would it become as boring as I think? I bet it will.

What do you think of “PLAY” in blogging?

What about blogging? What signs of play do you do on your blog? Any?

For example, I’m using that birdy on the top. It speaks tips and various stuff about blogging, that is supposed to help you :) I could, actually, tweet those phrases, but I’ve decided to make some fun out of it. I hope I did.

I’m now running a contest – “Become a M.I.C.“, which, as I think, is much more interesting, than usual commenting with a boring purpose to get some external links.

As you also can see, I use a lot of funny images. I don’t put any, that I think are not fun.. :)

Have you tried something yet? Did it work for you?

It’s 2010 now! It’s time to get real website traffic to your website or blog, or even better, if you have a blog as a “plus” to your website.

I’m going to speak about the most important factors, that generate website traffic today. If you’ve been looking for the most compact article about the modern ways of getting website traffic in 2010, then you’re at the right place. Be sure, that after the information from this post, the only left thing for you would be to start the action.

Let me ask you… what means “website traffic”? How do you imagine that? It’s important, because you can’t start getting website traffic, if you don’t know, what you are trying to get. Take 1 minute to think about it. Really. When you’re done, just go on reading.

So, What Means Website Traffic?

I hope, that you have the answer. Let’s compare. My answer is “you”. What was yours?

Anyways, “website traffic” really means “you”, because there’s nobody else, who can turn on the PC or laptop. It’s you, who looks for the information on the Internet; who votes for someone or something; who buys journals or some food, using PayPal; who sells products; who comments on blogs or on Facebook; who asks somebody to help at “Yahoo! Answers”; who recommends to watch the movie and so on.

Getting Website Traffic Means Attracting Other People.

That’s why it’s so important to understand, that website traffic means you and the other people like you. It’s not a click, nor a number of “views”, nor “5 stars” for the video, nor 1534 “unique visitors”. You’re dealing with real people like you. Remember to ask yourself “Would I like it?” before you show or offer something on the Internet.

I hope that was clear enough for the compact introduction. Let’s get on further.

Design of Your Website or Blog

Do not overdo with design of your website. There are 5 must-be-done things with your website design, that will help you to get more website traffic.

1. Try to make your website or blog navigation as easy, as possible. The deepest page should be 3-4 clicks from your home page;
2. Try to make the look of your website as friendly, as Google’s home page;
3. Use Photoshop (or similar software) to make sizes of your website images as small, as possible, but don’t lose the quality. I’ve used to keep it around 8-30 KB and that’s OK. Mostly it’s 8-12 KB;
4. Don’t make your website or blog look like NASCAR. The fewer ads, the better.
5. Remember to keep your code clean, because it’s your website loading speed, which would crucially affect your search engine rankings in 2010;

Choosing Domain Name

Well.. The shorter, the better. It’s easy, right? No. As the Internet becomes more and more popular with each day, it’s getting harder to pick a domain name, that you like. So.. it takes a little bit of your thinking to find the appropriate name for your website.

Here are 3 tips how to choose :

• Think of your niche.
  Try to get the most important keywords from it. And invent your domain name. For example, you’re going to write about travelling. Your name is Paul. Very good! Make use of it. How about www.TravellingWithPaul.com ? Yes, that was the big one. Well.. what about www.PaulsTravel.com? Not bad.. work on it;
• Use numbers instead of words.
  Example – www.2createawebsite.com. Though it’s rather long, it’s simple at the same time;
• Don’t forget about dashes.
  If you’ve picked www.PaulTravel.com and it’s occupied, try this – www.Paul-Travel.com. Not too bad, isn’t it?

Remember also, that your domain name is the very important part of your Internet face. It’s not the only one part though. And note, that you have only 1 chance to choose the appropriate domain name.

Difference between .com, .org, .net, .edu etc.

There’s no big difference between them at all. Someone says, that search engines would better index .edu sites, or that backlinks from .edu sites pass more rankings to your website. Do you believe it? I don’t, because just think of it.. if that’s true, then what’s the point in .com or .net? There’s no logical explanation, nor physical evidence. The only difference between them is that they’re supposed to help in grouping the growing number of website names:

• .com stands for – commercial;
• .org – organisation;
• .net – network;
• .mil – military;
• .gov – government;
• .edu – education.

Building Backlinks – Get More Website Traffic

Sounds good. Let’s take a look at ways of getting traffic from other sites by building backlinks. Let’s classify these ways.

Submit Your Website or Blog to Search Engines… or Not?

This is in past, when you had to submit your website to search engines. Now it’s different. Search engines will find you by themeselves or through some of your backlinks from other sites. You, actually, can submit the URL of your website or blog to search engines like Google, Yahoo! or MSN (Bing). This would, probably, get your site indexed a little bit faster, but not much.

Note, that there are no more different search engines, as many websites scream, offering you to submit to 1000s of search engines only for 5,95$. There was a time, when the number of search engines was huge, but most of them now are parts of Yahoo!, MSN or Google, others are simply dead.

Submitting to Directories

There are 2 general types of web directories:

• Website directories, that still accept sites;
• Website directories, that are dead or not updated.

There are also 4 secondary types of them:

• Paid directories;
• Free directories;
• Directories, that want you to put a reciprocal link to your site;
• Combined directories, that relate to one of the above type only, or two of them, or all of them.

And, finally, there are 3 sorts of web directories:

• Website directory – check out this list of top website directories;
• Blog directory (for blogs only) – begin from these 50+ blog directories;
• RSS directory (for blogs only) – start submitting your blog from these 30+ RSS directories;

The most important are only 2 of all of them by today – DMOZ directory and Yahoo! directory. At the very moment, I’ve submitted my site to both of them a month ago or so. Still no answer. But… I didn’t put any reciprocal link from them, nor pay for submission. May be that’s the reason, may be not. Anyway, I’ll try to resubmit in 2-3 months. I guess, that it’s hard, but it’s worth it. Will speak about it later.

Submitting Articles to Article Directories

I’d recommend to use only 1-3 article directories, because all of them want you to submit the unique content. How do you suppose to do that with 50 article directories?

Anyways, you’ll get very nice amount of traffic from article directories. They rank higher, than your site, when you begin or in the process of growing. So, it’s easier to reach the top of search engines to drive visitors to your own website or blog.

Submit Your Posts to Social Bookmarking Sites

Begin from this list of 70+ do follow and nofollow social bookmarking sites.

There are 2 crucial rules, submitting to social bookmarkers:

• Submit posts, stories, articles with the unique titles and descriptions. Otherwise, you’ll be penalised by search engines;
• Choose the right category for your submission, because this affects on your visitors, that you get.

Getting Website Traffic Commenting on Blogs

I’d recommend to comment on “do follow” Blogs with CommentLuv enabled, if you’re hunting for a big number of backlinks. This way you’ll get a constant and continual website traffic, but not too targeted, because if you comment a lot, then, probably, your comments are short and barely visible.

To get targeted website traffic commenting on blogs, think of your comments. Leave comments, if you really feel, that you’re able to add something valuable or to refute some fact from the commented post.

Decide for yourself what traffic you need.

Backlinks from Social Media Profiles

For example, you’ve registered on Twitter. Put a link to your website in your profile! It should be like this – http://www.example.com . The more, the better. You, actually, could just run through all social media websites you know just to register, in order to put a free backlink. Believe me, all of them will be indexed as an external links to your website.

My result of getting backlinks from social media profiles at Google.

Use Trackbacks

Yes, trackbacking is another way to get backlinks to your website.

How to get a good trackback?

Trackback is a blog feature. In most cases if your blog is powered by WordPress, then you can enable this feature in the admin panel.

If you link to another blog, then that blog can accept your trackback, which means, that you get a backlink to your post. This way of getting traffic is even better, than commenting. Though the trackback link usually appears near comments, visitors understand, that the author trusts this link. This affects readers opinion about your blog, which increases a chance, that they would follow the link and, moreover, would subscribe to your blog or come back later.

Learn SEO to Get More Traffic from Search Engines

SEO is the abbreviation of the phrase “Search Engine Optimization”. Today it’s so popular, that there’s no problems at all, if you wish to improve your SEO skills, because there are thousands or even millions of blogs, that could explain how and why to do this or that.

Why the traffic from search engines is so valuable?

Try to track what you’re doing, when you’re looking for some answers or showcases. Of course, you’re going to Google and type several words, that you think are associated with your problem. Then you follow some of the results, and if that was relevant to your question, you feel satisfied and, probably, you bookmark this site or put it to your favorites. This is the power of SEO, because those sites, that are in the top of search queries, would be most likely followed by you and the others.

Make your aim #1 to get to the top of Google with your keyphrases. In order to do that, learn SEO.

Ways to Make Your Traffic Come Back

This is the most interesting part :) OK, you’re already getting traffic. But if you analyze it, you, probably, can see, that there is a huge bounce rate around 70-90%. This is no good. You must make it different. Make another aim for you to decrease your website’s bounce rate, which would help you to grow your audience.

15 tips to make your traffic come back:

• Make your RSS feed buttons visible;
• Publish a new post as often, as possible;
• Create contests and think of good rewards;
• Don’t make posts or articles too big;
• Use images;
• Use CommentLuv for your comments;
• Make your blog do follow;
• Track your most popular posts and use it for your future posts;
• Make “Tops” of your posts, articles or podcasts;
• Refresh your old posts and mention that in your latest posts;
• Make your pages full of things to click. People love it;
• Make your website or blog look alive;
• Differ from others to make your traffic love you*;
• Try to express your thoughts simple;
• Be the first in everything**;

*What means to be different from others?

That’s your key to success. If everyone screams, that they could help – scream, that you can show. If everyone speaks about how cool is using Feedburner – write a post about Feedburner minuses etc.

**How to be the first, if there are so many competitors?

It’s not that hard, as it may seem, because it’s about understanding the meaning of being the first. You can be the first with your own way of expression. If you’re late with some news, look at the news from the original side and bomb it out. You’ll be the first.

For example, Robert Pattinson is being awarded for something. Ok.. you’re not the first one, who announced it. Not a problem. Write about his top 10 latest awards, including this one. People would, probably, be interested in this kind of info, because he’s currently being discussed in news. See? That’s way simple.

Paid Ways to Get Website Traffic – Worth It or Not?

Though it’s still popular today to buy traffic, I won’t ever recommend you to do that, unless you’re working online just in order to sell big stuff.

This is about your reputation. So, if you’re niche is about travelling or blogging, then don’t use this method. Would you like it, if you’d knew, that you were bought…? Disgusting, isn’t it?

There are tons of free ways. The only thing you have to do is to think a little about your own way through all of the known ways.

What Web Traffic Do You Need?

This is as important, as knowing the meaning of website traffic. So, let’s look at the main types of web traffic:

Social Media Traffic – Those are people, who surf through sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Propeller etc. They submit your stuff, if they like it. They comment, they ask. Mostly, these people are curious about all latest trends in social media.

Silent Readers – This group of people are those, who just read something, that they are interested in. Don’t expect them to comment on your blog. “Silent readers” come from search engines. Most of them won’t subscribe to your website or blog, but they would bookmark it or put to favorites if your post or article is what they want.

Traffic from Banners – Or in other words, paid traffic. This type of website traffic is risky. From one hand, you’re the guy with money for them. From the other hand, you have some default respect, which could become a wall against your personality. So, think twice before buying places for your ads (banners).

Real World Traffic – The precious one. They come to your site directly. They’ve heard about you from their friends or from the news. You have a high default respect from them.

Bad Traffic – They’ve heard some bad things about you. Their opinion about you is below the normal level. But still.. they are your website traffic. So, when they come, be ready to change their mind. That’s not easy though.

Return Traffic – You can easily call this type of traffic – your readers. There is a big chance, that they will subscribe to your blog, because they’re on the way to get used to visit your blog.

Think of your own ways of converting one type of website traffic to another.

New Ways of Getting Traffic

Of course, most of the known ways can bring you some constant amount of visitors. But.. you know, the Internet and its social media is crazy today. Each and every day there’s a new way for anything. I look for 2010 and I’m so excited about what will happen with the usual ways of getting traffic. So.. follow the trends. Look for extraordinary ways of getting traffic. Because if you’re the discoverer, you’ll get the best award for it.

For example, I’ve recently discovered for myself, that a simple button “I like it” at Google Reader could bring some nice number of visitors, which means that the more subscriptions I have, the more traffic I can attract just by clicking the single button “I like it”. Check it out yourself and find out how it works.

The Conclusion

Well.. I hope you’ve loved this article. I’ve reviewed all of the most important aspects of getting website traffic for the beginning of 2010, and I hope, that you’ve found for yourself something useful here.

If you’d like to add something, make sure to leave a respond below.

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PS. Here’s another amazing article to get more web traffic in 2010. You’ll find there some kick-ass methods, that are used today.

No, no, no… Don’t think, that this is another affiliate program. No.. This is another social bookmarking site, but not “another” at the same time. You can submit anything, that relates to blogging, and be sure – lots of people will see that.

This is strange, but I really would like to share some reasons why I think, that Blog Engage is fantastic for promoting your stuff.

Blog Engage community is rather young

Do you know what does it mean? Remember Digg.com, when it was just beginning? Those, who joined Digg at that stage, are now “Supreme Diggers“, and what they do sees almost everybody. That is, what you need, when you start your blogging or something else, that needs a lot of promotion.

Nice green-blue design

Don’t get me wrong, but I like it. Somehow.. it relaxes and makes you act. Two different things in one. Amazing, isn’t it? :)

Blog Engage community is sociable

I’ve never seen anything like this before. Ok.. my experience isn’t that big, but still.. I feel that, this is one of the best places to get some extra traffic to your website.

Your activity at BlogEngage.com equals your promotion

The more you vote, the more you add friends, the more you comment, the more you get those precious views of your own website. Though this system is almost everywhere, it has tremendous strength within the Blog Engage community. So be active, get more visitors. I’d say, that this is fair. Don’t you think that?

Adsense revenue sharing opportunity

I really hope, that this feature will be developed. Read about it.

By the way, sharing Adsense revenue is very clever promotional way to attract new visitors. You should note that and use some similar method for you.

My own proof as a reason

Don’t laugh. I’m just starting :) You can see from the archives how long I’ve been blogging. Did you have anything like this by the end of your 1st month of your blogging?

So.. from this screenshot you can see, that Blogengage.com is on the 3rd place. I should also tell you, that I’ve joined it a week ago. Not bad, huh? I believe, that it is.

So try it, if you still haven’t.

Now you don’t have to tweet about your new posts. Feedburner will do that for you.

Yesterday, it was announced on adsenseforfeeds.blogspot.com.

Great idea. But.. I don’t think, that it should help a lot. It’s just another news, that made too much shout about it.

Moreover, I’d say, that this is a pure promotion of Feedburner. Why not Twitter? Do you think, that Twitter needs to be promoted? Today it is the most popular chat-service. What’s the point of spending money on another way of promotion? It’s better to earn money. It’s better to make your name work for you at this stage.

Why am I talking about it? I just wanted to pay your attention on how the “Giants” promote themselves. This is a great source to learn from. So do it :) All those common ways are helpful, but they are still common ones. And day by day the get older. That means, that maybe tomorrow they will be useless.

How do you, actually, end your stories, explanations or tutorials? Is it like “that’s it..”, or “next time we’ll talk about the exact steps..”, or “I’ve got nothing else to say”?

The answers are given too early
Today I’ve realized the reason, why almost everyone writes so boringly and usually. Their stories and articles are as usual, as my PC mouse. Yeap.. I know exactly what’s in the end not because I read it, but because the real answer is given somewhere at the beginning. And it keeps repeating until the end of the story. So what’s the point of the full story?

I wonder what’s in the end?!
Yes.. This is the reason, why we love movies, soccer and fightings. I guess, that the same structure of your story(content) would make your readers wait until the end no matter what.

Using this method
You should know exactly what’s in the end of what you’re trying to say. Take a deep breath and delay giving your answers right now. Keep in mind, that the reason, that you have readers is that they want to know something. And they are here, because they guess, that you, probably, have the answers.

As attractive as MCdonald’s “Big Mac”
Let your audience know about your “secrets” or “answers”. Let them know, that you’re going to share it. Show some outlines like a movie trailer.

Desire to come back
Do not make another usual structure for you content/story/video/post/article. Try something new:
1) Give one half of your “answer” in the beginning. End up with the second part of the “answer”.
2) Make the current story as an introduction. Leave the full “outcome” for the next time.
3) Give answers asking several new and logical questions. As a result, your audience would feel, that only you know the answers.

Of course, it’s up to your imagination, how to act.