5 Free Ways to Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Blog

Every blog owner wants one thing—traffic. Without it your blog is an isolated and unprofitable space on the Internet. Thankfully there are many free ways to generate targeted traffic to your blog. Here’s a list of some of the most effective methods.

Commenting on Similar Blogs. This is a great way to funnel targeted traffic to your own blog. Do a search for blogs on the same topic as yours and begin making helpful, thought provoking comments. In the comment form where it says “name” put the name of your blog. Enter your email address and the URL for your blog. Once the community gets to know and trust you as an authority they’ll begin checking out your own blog for information on your topic.

Answer Questions on Yahoo Answers. Another effective way to drive free traffic to your blog and classify yourself as an authority on your topic is to answer user’s questions on Yahoo Answers. Make your answers informative and helpful but, if possible, leave out a tiny piece of the puzzle. Tell them for a more thorough explanation they can visit your blog. In the resource section place a link to a blog post on your blog that deals with (or close to) that topic.

Submit Articles to Ezine Articles. Ezine Articles has incredible ranking power within Google. Do some keyword research to find phrases related to your blog’s topic that have low competition but get enough searches to make it worth your while. Write an informative article on that topic using your keyword phrase within the title of your article, a couple of times in the body and once at the end of the closing paragraph. In the author bio box create a compelling bio and link to your blog using your blog’s main keyword phrase as the anchor (linking) text.

Participate in Blog Carnivals. Blog carnivals are events held on a specific date where entrants write a blog post based on a specific topic and submit a link to that blog post to the blog owner hosting the carnival. On the specified date the blog owner will link to all the entrants’ blog posts from their blog and will drive free, targeted traffic to your posts. This is also a great way to get free backlinks.

Create a Widget for Your Blog. Visit Widgetbox and create a custom widget for your blog. Place this widget in the sidebar of your blog and encourage visitors to copy this widget to place on their own blogs. The widget will act as a link from their blog or website to yours and drive traffic.

By using these methods and creating interesting and helpful content you'll gain new visitors to your blog every day and keep them coming back for more.