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Every time I read a story about how a person put up a blog and became immediately rich it makes me a little mad. If it were really that easy, everyone would be doing it!

The blogging is the easy part, getting blog traffic is a little more difficult. And, as you well know, without traffic you are just writing to thin air, and making no money. But there are a few easy things you can do to make sure that "they" visit after your blog is built:

Blog often: Twice a week should be your minimum target, if you have a great niche market that you are targeting, you might want to blog once a day in the beginning to get your site indexed by the search engines. Consistently adding content goes a long way in increasing blog traffic.

When blogging, it is helpful to visit the sites of other blog owners, read their blogs, and post suggestions and comments. These comments and suggestions should be useful, rather than just meaningless agreements with previously submitted contributions. Blog owners don't appreciate spam. Your post is much more likely to be accepted if it is meaningful.

Merely blogging frequently, however, is insufficient for increasing blog traffic. When you post, include a link back to your blog site. This will give the author notice that you have linked in. After a few occasions, the author will often respond by linking back to your blog site.

A helpful tip when doing this is to link to sites that are complementary to, rather than in direct competition with, your blog. For example, if your blog is about romance, linking to another person writing about the same theme offers competition. In contrast, blogs dedicated to romantic getaways and travel are complementary to your topic. This is much more useful than trying to link to competing blogs.

Another important consideration is to ensure that visitors are able to subscribe to the blog through either a newsletter or Feedburner subscription option. If visitors are required to search the Internet to relocate the blog, or are only able to bookmark it, chances are much less likely that they will return to read it, and your attempt to increase blog traffic will fail. If it is delivered via email, they are much more likely to continue reading the blog.

One small but important thing is th have the RSS button is prominently displayed on the site. This will allow many readers to access the blog from their Yahoo! Membership area. This helps to increase blog traffic, and another benefit is that you can increase your subscriber base for future sales.

Consider carefully exactly what you hope to accomplish with your blog. Although it is designed to make money, simply putting up many advertising banners and affiliate links will cause people to tire quickly of reading the blog. These advertisements and links are useful, but only when used in a way that doesn't overpower the reader or the blog.

It is okay to use banners and affiliate links, as long as they don't have the effect of overpowering the blog.

Your goal is not only to increase blog traffic, but also to become known as an expert in your field, so that visitors will want to return to your site to learn from you.

Evelyn Grazini has been in Internet Marketing for more than 5 years, and in Affiliate Marketing for over two years. Her specialty is finding Niche Markets for Affiliate Marketing, and helping others become successful through her blogs and Articles. Find more information at www.bestaffiliateniche.com and Get Your Free Copy of The Niche Code!