Well that's what I should have said to myself before I posted about my record traffic day.

I felt a bit bad because I got some emails from people saying their traffic seemed pretty crummy even though their blog was one or more of:

• Been going longer than 12 months
• Posted to 4-5 times a week
• Influencers were reading it
• Their posts were being commented on

This post is in answer to the question: "How do I get lots of traffic".

The first point to make is that my record traffic day is peanuts compared to people who've hit a chord with people and have people flocking to read them.

I certainly have very loyal followers, and that's brilliant, but nothing like John Chow or Michel Fortin or Dave Taylor. And they're only some of the high traffic sites.

So What 12 Things Must I Do To Get Traffic?

I'm glad you asked me!

A lot of it comes down to a huge amount of midnight oil reading other bloggers experiments and trying out my own experiments.

However if I boil it all down these are the top ways I've used to get consistent traffic:

1. Write about what your reader is interested in
2. Write yourself into the blog
3. Use photos to break up the text
4. Add the blog to directorys (check out Robin Good's Top directorys for blogs)
5. Add tags to the bottom of posts. At the least add a tag to Technorati
6. Ping after every post.  I use Pingoat.com but there are others
7. Comment on other people's blogs
8. Make sure you get links into your blog from other blogs and web sites
9. Link to other people (as I have to John Chow, Dave Taylor, Michel Fortin and Robin Good)
10. Put your blog address on everything: Business cards, literature, web site, email sigs...
11. Bear in mind but don't feel constrained by Search Engine Optimization (check Brad Fallon's SEO thoughts)
12. Enable your comments and reply when people make comments

Apply the 12 points and unless your content sucks you will get more traffic.

Does that guarantee huge,enormous, amazingly awesome volumes of traffic?

Of course not but it does make it more likely that you get and retain a loyal readership that builds your blog readership day by day.