I have been trying to figure out what the best way to bring more traffic to this blog, as well as others that I write, might be. I continue to try several things, with differing results. Some thing seem to bring in quite a bit of traffic, while others haven’t produced nearly as well as they have been billed. I’ll give you 3 that I have been working with, either here or elsewhere, as well as my assessment of each.

Entre Card–EntreCard is certainly a popular element popping up on many blogs today, and provides a way to exchange traffic, browse blogs, and get to know different blogs and bloggers. This has been a steady producer of traffic whenever I have the time to sit and browse through blogs. That luxury is becoming more and more scarce by the time I read the blogs that I like, and then finish all the writing I want to do. Overall, this is a great program, and you should sign up and give it a try. You should be warned that most traffic generation will be reciprocal in nature, so you will have to look at a lot of blogs. I haven’t had a lot of luck with building a readership from this yet, but this blog is still new.  One big drawback I have seen is that many people only stay on the site long enough to click your EntreCard widget, and then move on.  They don’t actually read what you are writing.  I wish EntreCard users would prove me wrong here by leaving a brief comment on this post!

Blog Catalog–This has been one of the greatest tools that I have used across all my blogs. Blog Catalog provides a way for bloggers to truly network. It is easy to find bloggers with similar interests, and interact with them. For one of my blogs in particular, I have hooked up with a lot of bloggers with a similar mindset, and have been able to develop good blogging relationships, and a pretty good amount of readers. If you have a blog, it is a good idea to join up with Blog Catalog, and get networked with other bloggers.

Blog Rush–This has not produced like I thought it would, but I haven’t tried to use it too much. After beginning to write this review, I went and signed into my account (which I haven’t done since setting it up) and found that I have had several visitors from there. The trick, it appears, is to make sure and write a very catchy title. That makes sense since it is the only thing that appears on the widget when your feed is broadcast on the network.  I am going to give this a bit more time, and effort, just to see if it can be productive.  I think I will spend a little time over at their site, and see if there is something I am missing!

I know there are a lot more ways to generate traffic, and I will cover more of them later.  However, these 3 will get you started if you need to get some traffic to your site pretty quickly.