How to get more hits on your blog from referring sites?

For most of the bigger blogs referring sites are the the single best and largest source of traffic. In fact they are also he most reliable and a source of long time traffic. Search engines algorithm can change, your rankings can change and this would affect number of visitors on your blog. But if you are for a long haul , I would advice you to focus upon this source of traffic. I have identified 5 types of sites which can act as a media to send visitors to your blog-

• Other blogs
• Forums
• Article directories
• Website directories
• Sites like google groups and yahoo answers

Getting hits from other blogs-
One of the highly talked source of hits to your blog is another blog of the same niche as yours. Now there are three ways you can utilize these blogs to get hits on your blog.

• By commenting on them- Choose some highly trafficked blog in your niche and regularly pour in some useful and thoughtful comments on them with a signature link back to your blog. Let us suppose you just comment on 10 posts. In months time you will have 300 comments and if each of these sent just 1 visitor a week you will have 300x4 = 1200 visitors a month. Isn't this incredible. But make sure your comments are unique, thoughtful and make the visitors inquisitive.
• By Guest posting- Guest posting brings in a huge amount of traffic to your blog if you persuade a key layer in your niche to write in his blog. There will be an instant spike in traffic and many of those who visit your site will become regular visitor and subsribe to your feeds.
• Through Trackbacks- Trackbacks are a tool that enables a blogger to write about someone else's post in your blog. You just post your opinion about some other blogger's post on your own blog. The trackback link appears in yours as well as other blogger just below the posts. This link can bring in some hits to your blog.

You can either use one of them or all these three methods. If possible use all these three methods to get better results.

Getting hits from forums-
Forums are sites where people ask question o other forum memebers and others answer them. All the forums allow you to leave a signature link below the posts you make. Just identify some high trafficked forums in your niche and make useful contribution to it by answering people's question. You might get some visitors if you are doing this job perfectly well with an intention to help others.

Getting hits from article and web directories-I
I don't have an idea about the amount of success you get through these sites but some bloggers has advised to submit articles and links in some quality directories like Dmoz and yahoo directory. I had limited success with these but I think you must try this out as you might not get some hits from these but they will pass some link juice to you.

The same can be said about article directories.Although in terms of traffic article directories give better results than web directories but still the amount of traffic they send is not impressive. (at least it hasn't worked for me). I think they are better sources to build links and gfetting more hits from them is hard to accomplish.

Getting hits from sites like google groups and yahoo answers-
I had some success with google groups. I have answered many questions in google groups and it sends some visitors to this blog on regular basis. Similarly , I had some success with yahoo answers which sent some visitors to my "India travel guide" site.

I haven't been much active in these type of sites. Just commented and answered some questions on a couple of occassions. I am of opinion that these sites can be milked for even more hits for your blog. Just you need to answer the questions and post your useful opinions. You have to be active here to get some traffic out of it. 10 postings in these sites daily can give you good results.

How to get more hits to your blog through Social media sites-

Web 2.0 has come to its full effect on the net and it can be seen on the sites like stumbleupon, digg, facebook ,Myspace and many other networking portals present on the net. With rise of web2.0 social media sites can't be overlooked if you are looking for a long time haul in blogging. Actually your blog can also be regarded as a mini social site where you put your opinion forth and readers put their own opinion through comments.

Social media sites are not only effective in bringing your blog to limelight in short span of time but also it has potential to long term and consistent hits on your blog. But how to usce them is a big question that need s to be answered.Here I will discuss just the basic points that you need to remember while using these sites.

• Choose a social site that meets your need. Not all social sites are suited for everyone. For example , Digg is best suited for those bloggers who write about news items or tech stuffs. A blog about shoes might not get anything in Digg. So, be choosy in deciding the social sites. For most of the bloggers stumbleupon is quite suited. It has a large number of categories ,so, there is all liklihood that your blog will be accomodated in one of those categories.
• Use these sites to help others- One f the reasons most of the bloggers fail in these sites is because their action is driven by making traffic or sales. Please keep in mind that social media sites are a place where poeople share stuffs and socialise. So, over promotion on these sites can bounce back on you by bringing a bad reputation to you and your blog.
• Network with other like minded people to vote your posts- I don't find anything wrong in asking people to vote your posts. But don't do this for every posts you have written. Just do it for a post that you think is useful and is value packed.