Got a new blog and no idea how to increase traffic?

You've created your blog and have added some Adsense banners, but noone is clicking through and you have no idea how to increase traffic. This is a horrible situation that most of us have found ourselves in once entering the online world of blogging, marketing, and earning money.

There are several sites that you can go to that list sites that you can submit your site to such as search engines and blog logs, but I'll do my best to simplify these links so you can steer clear from the garbage sites and save some time. BEWARE! This will take some time and can be nauseating after the 1000th form, but once it's done, it's done! Then you will be able to focus on creating great content articles that will draw new readers, and keep the older ones.

The lowdown.

1) Go to the RSSTop55, scroll about half way down the page (unless you want to read the author content), there you will find links currently starting @ Blog Toplist. Go through as many of these sites and fill out their submit forms. Most of these will add your site to their searchable directories, and some will display your RSS feeds live.

2) Go to the DigitalPoint Forums, and scroll down to the first post by KeithLDick, he makes a great post with LOTS of links and information on getting your blog out and about, including more links on submitting your blog.

3) Add your site to Technorati, a popular and centralized blog listing and search engine. Also, once you have created a compliant sitemap for your site, which you can have auto-generated for your blog depending on the software you are using (such as the Adsense-Deluxe plug-in for WordPress), or you can find a site that will do this for you by either paying or for free. I will have a later posting with more information on doing this. Once you have generated your sitemap, add it to Google (click here for sitemap submission) and Yahoo! for indexing.

4) Create original content, this is the most important part! You'll need to take some time with your posts, if you throw up a bunch of small articles with random garbage your site will never take off. You need to focus on a "niche" in a way. If you write about cars one day, then knitting the next, and something else the next, noone will have a clue where your focus is and that will determine if you will have repeat visitors.

These are the basic for starting your blog, I will add more information about ad placement, site fine-tuning, and individual blog software tips later on. If you have any feedback or additional information, please feel free to add it here.