I thought I’d write this post because every so often I receive comments about driving traffic to a blog or site.

I’m not so crazy about the term driving traffic, because when you’re stuck in traffic, the only vehicle you can control is your own. On the internet super highway, your blog is your vehicle and you attract visitors with content. You can’t force them to come (and please don’t trick them into coming), but if they happen upon your blog make it worth the trip so they will come back again.

There are many ways to attract traffic to a blog, but you must realize the only thing you can do with internet traffic is attract it in the form of writing quality content and place signs of direction. By signs of direction I mean letting other people know that your blog exists. It’s sort of like placing street signs and billboard ads.

A Few Traffic Attracting Methods

Search Engines: Early on in the freelance writing game, every time I created a site I would go to the major search engines and use their “Submit a site” form and wait for the search engines to find me. Over time I realized that was an unnecessary step because the search engines always found me sooner or later. With Google it was always sooner and the rest of the search engines later.

Submitting RSS Feeds: Back then I always submitted my brand new RSS feeds to RSS directories. The more directories the better, or so I thought. Now I don’t bother with that either. Since many of my sites use WordPress, I have my new entries pinged (not so warm and fuzzy about how it works, but I do it anyway). The ping services I use are:

• http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
• http://api.moreover.com/ping
• http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
• http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
• http://ping.bitacoras.com
• http://ping.feedburner.com
• http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
• http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
• http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
• http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
• http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
• http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
• http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
• http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
• http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
• http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
• http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

I don’t remember where I got this lists from, but I use it for each of my blogs. For WordPress bloggers, this list is inserted on the Writing page under the Settings menu option. Scroll down to Update Services and insert the list there. Don’t forget to save your changes.

Article Directories: I shared my opinion on article directories in my last post. I tried them early on in my online writing career but quickly discontinued the practice. Not only did I not like submitting free articles, but in my experience, it wasn’t worth the effort.

Social Networking: I find social networking such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit and the like a little too busy for my liking. Some people do extremely well with social networking and if that’s your thing, I encourage you to do what works for you. It just doesn’t work for me (one of my personality quirks).

Forums: This is a great way to let folks know you exist. The trick with forums is finding the right ones. Be careful because some forums are a free for all of negativity and not necessarily a good place to be. On occasion, however, I come across interesting forums when researching information or trying to solve a problem (usually a tech problem). They can be a wealth of information and a place to encourage quality traffic as long as your participation is real and helpful.

Blog Comments: Similar to forums, with the right blog and the right group of people it is a great way of encouraging readers to visit your blog. CommentLuv  enabled blogs, give commenters a link back to their latest blog post. I’ve found a wealth of information by clicking on the blog links of my commenters.

Quality Content: In my opinion, this is the best way to attract traffic to your blog. It’s not as quick as some of the methods listed above, but with quality content you’ll get repeat visitors and word of mouth visitors. Those are the best. With quality content, your readers will take care of the backlinking, social networking and forum posts for you.

One from the Vault: While I was writing this post, I decided to do a little search here on NJFM to see if I’ve written on the topic before, and lo and behold I had. So, I’ll quit yakking and link to last year’s post: Blogging, Writing Articles, Social Networking and Traffic

In reviewing my stats the other day, the question of backlinking came to mind. You see, back in mid September, 2010 I registered 5 new domain names.  It took me from September, 2010 to December, 2010 to finally set up the WordPress template and add content to the blogs.  I didn’t add much content to the blogs because I quickly realized I bit off more than I could chew at one time.  To save my sanity I decided to put the blogs on hold until later this year or early next year.

During the time of setting them up and writing content, I wrote a total of about 15 posts distributed unevenly among the 5 blogs (one blog has only 1 post while another only has 2).  None of them have enough content to keep anyone interested for too long.

A Little History

When I first started creating websites, I read what the gurus said.  They told me to learn SEO and to backlink.  So, I learned SEO and tried to backlink.  The only problem with backlinking was that I hated doing it.

I found it to be time consuming and not something that I did not like to do.  I liked to write and I liked creating websites but I found backlinking to be a royal pain. There were so many social websites and ways to backlink that I quickly became overwhelmed.  On top of that, I was spending too much time doing something that I didn’t enjoy instead of doing what I loved to do (started to sound like a job to me).

Over time I decided to stop the social network backlinking. Don’t get me wrong, I do some backlinking from time to time, but as a general practice I don’t.  I’d rather spend my time writing quality content and let the Internet do the rest.

Back to the 5 New Blogs

Since I decided to put the blogs on hold I did not backlink. I did not submit them to directories. I did not perform any marketing for these blogs

Imagine my surprise when I started to notice a steady stream of traffic to the blogs.  It started with an occasional hit, but now it there is daily traffic and the traffic is growing. Do you know what that means?  Yep, I’ve got to spend a little time adding content to these blogs.  After all, if visitors took the time to use a search engine to find my blogs, the least I could do is provide what they’re looking for, don’t ya think?

Why are These Blogs Gaining Traffic?

The only reason these blogs are gaining traffic is because of content quality and my attempts at SEO  (I say attempts because who really knows everything there is to know about SEO?).  What else can it be?  No tricks, no formulas just plain old writing.

Let me go on the record and say: I’m not telling you not to backlink.  Backlinking has its advantages. There are many bloggers that have successfully used backlinks and wouldn’t think of doing it any other way.

What I’m saying is that as a general rule, I don’t do it.  If I did, my sites would probably gain more traffic and faster.  Unfortunately, I’m not willing to put in the backlinking effort.  I’d rather wait until my articles/blogs are naturally backlinked.

The way I look at it is if you write quality articles and employ simple SEO, the backlinking will take care of itself.  I’m in this online writing thing for the long haul.  If it takes a little longer for my sites to get noticed, so be it.  While they’re waiting to get noticed, I’m spending my time doing what I like to do, writing (and smelling an occasional rose).

I prefaced my response by saying that I’m probably not the best person to ask about networking, advertising and getting the word out. But, I did say that I would post the question here because I have a great group of knowledgeable readers that can answer the question better than I.

My Thoughts on Social Networking

Social Networking is a great tool for getting the word out if you know how to work it right and do it often. There are some freelance writers who are very successful at it and earn a lot of money as a result. I’m not one of those writers.

I like to write, I like to earn money, I like to meet solid interesting people and I enjoy sharing what I have learned with other writers. No hidden agenda (I’d make a lousy politician).

If They Really Want it They’ll Find it

I’m old fashioned and believe that quality will be discovered over time. A few people found this blog because they were looking for information and found it; no media blitz, no flooding the social networking sites, no paid advertising. I probably could have a larger reader base if I went on a social networking blitz and paid for advertising, but I’m not sure I really want to do that.

In my experience, posts that have been Stumbled get a huge influx of traffic for a short period of time and then die off. The momentary high is nice, but it takes work to sustain it. Then there are those pieces that have been submitted to Digg, Reddit and Mixx. Their traffic is steadier, but it’s a steady trickle, nothing too impressive. I think it takes time and constant effort to make Digg, Reddit, Mixx and the like truly work.

Product, Service or Just Plain Talk

Since I’m not selling a product or service (and really offer nothing but freelance writing talk), I guess my thoughts differ from someone who has a product to sell. Maybe if I had invested money in creating a product and wanted to get it out to the general public to help recoup my expenses, I might view everything differently. Since my expenses are extremely low and easy to recoup, I don’t have that type of urgency.

Bringing it Back to the Point

Forgive me; I got a little side tracked. The original questions were:

• How do I network with other freelance writers?

• How do I quickly spread the news about my new blog?

Here’s what I came up with and I welcome additions to this list:

Networking with other freelance writers:

1. Join Freelance Writing Groups. I recently received a LinkedIn invitation from Robin Margolis to join her recently created group Freelance Writers Working For Internet Content Mills. If you haven’t done so already, check it out. Robin has assembled a group of high-quality writers and artists from various backgrounds who share their experience and expertise in an attempt to help fellow writers become more successful in their online writing endeavors.
2. Check out a few forums. I say this with bated breadth. Understand the caliber of forums before you enter. Forums, if run correctly, can be a great source of information. If not run correctly it can be a breeding ground for strong opinions, bickering and negativity.
3. Contact freelance writers directly. Most online writers have links to either a website, blog or email address. If you find someone you respect or would like to contact, do so. That’s a fine way to start a networking relationship.
4. Follow a few worthwhile blogs. I’ve found that the most popular blogs are not always the most worthwhile blogs (I tend to like underdogs). Check out Master Dayton , Write Moms, My Online Income and Freelance Home Writer just to name a few.
5. Here’s a link I found on  networking effectively. There are at least 5 more tips there

How to quickly get the word out if you have a new blog/site:

1. Write free articles for places like Ezine Articles
2. Write guest posts
3. Add meaningful comments on blogs that offer linkbacks
4. Use Google AdWords
5. Submit to search engines
6. Use Social Networking sites
7. Write a press release
8. Try blog carnivals (I’m not too familiar with blog carnivals, but I understand some folks have been successful with them).
9. Check out these sites for more tips: Seth Godin’s 56 Tips on How to Get Traffic and SEOmoz.org’s  21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

These lists are a great start and are by no means all encompassing. I’d like to hear how some of you guys network and gain traffic.

Over time, I acquiesced and signed up. I checked out a few Twitter services and set up Tweet Later, automated my RSS feed through Twitter and maybe a couple of other things. I even spent a little time playing with my TwitWall. However, after the Twitter novelty wore off, I realized that I’m not a Twitterer.

I did tweet a time or two, but I just couldn’t keep up. I guess I’m too old fashioned. Too many conversations going on at one time overwhelms me (it’s like being at a loud party with everyone talking and no one listening).

The other aspect to Twitter that I couldn’t warm up to is the constant updates and need to update. Some tweets are very informative and some, well some are just plain unnecessary. I mean, some folks tweet about going to take a shower or walking to the store or even drinking a glass of milk. Maybe it’s me, but that’s just too much information that I’d rather not be privy to.

Twitter Direct Messages

I frequently get direct messages informing me that the sender has the answer to my online earning problems or, if I auto follow (a feature that I have to disable), I usually get a reciprocal follow or direct message telling me to click on a link to read, buy or sign up for something.

The ‘always on’ quality of Twitter turns me off. I believe Twitter has its usefulness and there are many folks who utilize it well. Me, on the other hand, I don’t tweet well. After all, I’m one of the few people left on earth that doesn’t IM (instant message) and barely uses a cell phone (a habit that drives my daughter crazy).

Maybe one day I’ll really gain a liking for Twitter. In the meanwhile, I’ll stick with the forms of communication that work best for me (face-to-face, telephone and email).

Most of us who have been around the internet for any period of time understand the need for social networking. Social networking is an online community of folks with similar interests. The purpose of each network varies, but in the freelance writing community, the more popular social networking sites are usually used as a way of promoting articles and gaining a loyal following.

I’d like to say that social networking is a way to have meaningful interaction between community participants, but I’ve found it to be more about getting page views than communication. I’ve found more communication on things like blogs and forums (just my own experience).

The Benefits of Social Networking

If you know how to work the social networking scene it can be extremely beneficial. Since I haven’t quite figured out how to work it, I’ve had moderate success with it. I guess I get a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work it takes to become successful at social networking. I’m more of a worker bee than a social butterfly.

The Pitfalls of Social Networking

One of the pitfalls I’ve found with social networking is that it can potentially take all of your time if you let it. There are so many social networking sites that you can conceivably spend 24 hours a day being social.

When is Enough Enough?

Below is a listing of 365 social networking sites. No, I did not compile this list, I found the list some time ago on a blog called, www.burhankhan.com . I’m sure there are more social networking sites than are on this list, but you see where I’m going with this.

One can quickly become overwhelmed when it comes to social networking. I use three or four (Digg, Reddit, Mixx and an occasional Stumble) and call it a day.

I guess in a round about way, I’m looking for tips on how to successfully utilize social networking without spending an entire day on such sites. Anyone have any advice?

Update: 2/2/12: I’ve removed links for those sites that are no longer valid.