Every blogger wants one thing: to be read. My hunch is that of all the millions of bloggers who try blogging, and give it up, most give up because they can't find readers. They feel that if they can't get traffic to their blog, what's the point?

If you're in this position, DON'T give up. Keep blogging. It's easy to get traffic and loyal readers.

Here are five ways to get traffic. All the methods work together, but Method 5 is the most important. The more of these methods you use, the more traffic you will get.

=> Method 1: Maximize the built-in RSS features of your blog

Your blog comes with built-in RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This means that it's easy for others not only to subscribe to your blog, but also to syndicate links to your latest blog postings on their own sites.

You can make your RSS feeds (news feeds) a lot more effective by adding additional functionality to them, for free, at the FeedBurner Web site. FeebBurner will burn your feeds with components which make it easier for other blogs and sites to link to you.

=> Method 2: Get a link from another Web site

The search engine spiders (indexers) navigate around the Web using links. This means that the more links to your site, the easier you make their job. Get at least one link from another site to your new blog. Our next three methods make getting links easy.

=> Method 3: Write a couple of articles

Every Web site and every blog is hungry for content. If you set out to deliver content, you can't go wrong. You'll get lots of traffic every day, and the traffic flood will start as soon as you post your first article.

There are many sites which accept articles. Webmasters search these sites looking for content for their sites. Aim to write at least an article a week to build the links to your blog.

=> Method 4: Leave comments on others' blogs

A blog is a conversation. If you agree with an item on someone's blog, or have an additional insight, leave a comment. Since commenters are asked to leave a Web URL, and their email address, this gives you a link back to your site. Note: this doesn't always work to get you a link, for various reasons, BUT it's still a way for other bloggers to realize that you exist, and perhaps to link to you.

When you leave a comment, make the comment count -- don't just write: "I agree". Write "I agree, because the same thing happened to me when (tell the story here)." All bloggers need content, and when you provide them with content, they will repay you -- usually with a link.

=> Method 5: Blog! The more content, the more visitors

A couple of months ago, I started an experiment to see whether a new blog that I developed could get some traffic, completely on its own. I did nothing to promote the blog, I just wrote content, posting to the blog two times a week.

Would the blog get traffic, I wondered? How much traffic? Amazingly, this little blog that I've done nothing to promote -- other than create content for it -- gets 50 unique visitors a day after a few weeks.

Content is the most vital aspect of blogging -- without regular posting to your blog, there's nothing for your visitors to see or to read. Of course, you don't have to WRITE content. You can create a photo blog, or a podcast (an audio) blog, or even a vlog (a video blog). The more content you create, the more traffic you will get.

Good luck. Try these five methods -- you'll get traffic beyond your dreams before you know it.

Copyright 2006 Angela Booth