10 Free Ways to Increase Traffic to your Website or Blog

Tired of your Mom and Grandma being the only visitors to your blog?  Help is on the way!  Here are ten  free ways to get more traffic on your website or blog.

1. Create unique, useful, interesting content and update it on a regular basis. This will increase traffic to your website or blog and best of all keep people coming back to your blog or site. Also, if you create high quality content people will link to your website or blog, giving you valuable backlinks.
2. Write about something that you are passionate about. It is difficult day in and day out to create content about a topic that you have no interest in.  People will "clue in" pretty quickly that you are not passionate about your niche, and just writing for money.  Thus they will not return to let alone create those valuable backlinks to your blog or website.
3. Here's a really simple one! Add a signature to a link to your website or blog in your email.
4. Contribute insightful comments in blogs related to yours. Include a link to your blog and/or website. Bloggers like to visit the website or blog of people who leave comments on your site. Who knows, they might even link to and/or become a regular visitor to your blog or website.
5. Write a blog entry or article endorsing, praising, and/or recommending a website or blog, especially one that shares the same niche as yours. Email the webmaster/blogger, informing him or her of your endorsement. Sometimes flattery can go a long way. They very well might return the favor and quote your endorsement with a link to your website or blog.
6. Provide links to websites or blogs sharing the same niche as yours with your own personal review of the website/blog. Email the webmaster or blogger, informing them that you have added a link to their site or blog. Once again, flattery can go a long way. They might just add a link to your site in their website or blog, providing you with traffic and valuable backlinks at the same time.
7. Contribute to newsgroups and forums that are related to your niche. Become an expert on your topic. Include a link to your blog or website in your signature. I am absolutely amazed at the amount of traffic I receive from posts that I have made in forums and newsgroups, often months after I wrote the post. Please remember, do not spam the forums/newsgroups. Nobody likes a spammer, doing you more harm than good.
8. Submit your website or blog to be reviewed on sites such as Ozzu.com. You would be amazed at how much traffic this can bring and you might gain some valuable feedback/advice on your site or blog from other webmasters and bloggers.
9. Submit your site or blog to directories. There are thousands of free directories out their that will provide a link to your site for free. The two big ones are the Yahoo Directory and Dmoz, but they are both really hard to get listed in, especially Dmoz.
10. Write articles related to your niche and submit them to article sites such as Article City and Ezine Articles. This can really bring a lot of traffic to your site or blog.