I have made up a list of effective methods of generating traffic, all of these I have used to get traffic to my own Blog.

1. Articles. In order for your article to be effective you need to do your keyword research. I always use Google Adwords keyword tool, which you can use for free here. I look for longtail keywords that have a local and global search from 100 to 5000 a month. I also try and use the ones that have around 50% to 75% competition (anymore than that and you will find it very hard to get indexed on the search engines). Once you have found your keywords (and try and find as many as you can), then type your keyword phrase into Google and look how many sites your are competing against for your keyword phrase. If it is anymore than 1 million then I would say don’t bother, it will be too hard for you get your article showing high enough  in the search engines for anyone to read it, not without some serious backlinking anyway. I always try to look for a competition of around 250,000 to 500,000.

2. Twitter. When used properly Twitter can be a very powerful tool. If you have made a Blog post that you believe provides value and can help people then you can Tweet about it and add a link to that post. Just be careful not to be to SPAMy and send out link after link, just send out the odd Tweet, maybe one or two a day to a informative Blog post you have written and you will see good traffic come from this.

3. Blog Carnivals. Every time I write a Blog post I submit it to relative Blog Carnivals. The permalink and description of the Blog post is published on the carnival, and any interested readers will visit your Blog by clicking on your perma link to read the entire post. To optimize this I use a piece of software that submits to all of the relative Blog Carnivals at the click of a button. It’s very effective and has been a great traffic tool for me. You can see the software I use here.

4. Oil Rig Hopping. This is a phrase that I got from my mentor, Alex Jeffreys. What it means is to go and comment on other peoples Blogs. Find Blogs that are in the same niche as yours, read through their posts and leave a relative comment to their post. Your comment should be interactive and always try and add value to the Blog post. Don’t just say “great post, come and have a look at my site”. The Blog owner will probably never approve this as it is just SPAM. If you can add value then other people reading will notice your comment and are then likely to pay a visit to your Blog to see what you have going on there.

5. Email List. You should always treat your list like gold, and if you have created some valuable and informative content on your Blog, then you should always tell your mailing list about it. Your Blog is where you can brand yourself and your business, so if you keep posting great content there then your list will be happy you told them about it and likely to come back aswell.

6. Viral Competition. Set up a viral competition on your Blog. Give away something then ask your readers to send an email out to their subscribers to tell them about it. Only when they have done that will they receive their free gift.

7. Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers can be a good place to divert traffic back to your Blog. Look for questions that are relevant to any of the posts you have made in your Blog. When you find one, provide an informative answer there on Yahoo answers and then add as the end that you have more information about this on your Blog and add your link. Don’t just SPAM it and say, “I have the solution for you on my site”. Give them an answer there, just subtly mention that you have further information that can help them on your Blog and add your link.

8. YouTube. I have only recently discovered the power behind videos. YouTube is one of the most highly trafficked sites on the web, so the possibilities of very getting high traffic to your site from here is very real. Your video doesn’t have to be long, just make it interesting and informative and add a link back to your Blog. Use your description box to add a call to action and include your link right at the start.

If you implement one of these methods each day then you will see your traffic levels go up significantly.