Creative Ways To Drive Traffic - SEO and otherwise

So, I'm not totally new to SEO, but I'm not great at it either. I don't rank for a lot of fantastic keywords on my main site, but I do get 'ok' traffic. My adsense earnings are very very small though (5-10 dollars a month) and I dream of the time when I can boost them up to a few hundred a month or more. I know that it takes traffic... the more eyes to my ads, the more click-thrus. I don't have all my eggs in one basket either, I've recently begun putting Amazon products up on my site that I've reviewed and recommended, and I also sell my graphics on Zazzle, and I promote those as well as they are in the same niche.

I think I have pretty good on-page SEO, excellent in-depth and original content with good keywords, and recently I've started to get a little twitter following on my blog's official twitter (though Facebook is still lacking on the blog's facebook page). I've also just started trying to get people to G+ my content (using Empire Avenue, because it's free and easy). I even get a little traffic from my YouTube videos (and I know if I put more time into it I could get even more). I also interlink all of my related articles (like crazy) and put banner eye candy up around my site to drive traffic to my other articles.

What I'm not great at is link building. I do leave some useful comments on do-follow blogs, and I use Yahoo Answers to answer questions and try to get top-answer (not that hard) then link my related articles in the sources section. I don't trust link building services because I've been burned by them before, and I don't want the big Google slap from a bunch of useless links. I ran a giveaway this month too, but it didn't have the success I wanted like I got running a giveaway for one of my other sites (though the item I gave away there was more expensive).

Ok, all that being said, I could use some help getting targeted traffic. It's a Bible Study blog, so pretty niche specific and I currently get a couple hundred views a day. The most views per month I ever got was 21k (and I really have NO IDEA how I hit that number that month. I didn't have analytics installed back then and I didn't know much about SEO back then either. Right now I'm only getting between 5k-7k a month and I'd love for that to jump back up over 10k. Occasionally I get a bigger more popular blog linking to an article and I get a temporary increase in traffic and earnings.

What are some ethical, cheap (free), and creative ways I can gain more links and drive more traffic to my blog without getting Google penalties? The site is 6 years old and I don't want to lose any PR I do have. I've been really focused on Twitter recently so if you also have tips on how to get more clicks on my Twitter links, that would be great too.

Thanks.

When you write content, try to think of it as link bait... stuff that people will want to link to or share on social networks.

Also, try to think about offline methods.. give out flyers or business cards with your URL, you can also try niche forums, Facebook page, Twitter, Youtube,...

It's been a while since I thought about niche forums for this niche, I'll give that a try again. It's hard to join a forum and get your link out without being spammy though, especially if links aren't allowed in the signature. I know there are people on Fiverr that sell flier distribution services. I might try that out. Thanks!

GiorgioB said:

When you write content, try to think of it as link bait... stuff that people will want to link to or share on social networks.

Also, try to think about offline methods.. give out flyers or business cards with your URL, you can also try niche forums, Facebook page, Twitter, Youtube,...

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jatomlinson said:

It's hard to join a forum and get your link out without being spammy though, especially if links aren't allowed in the signature.

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Then don't be spammy. actually contribute to the forum(s) and try and become a reputable member, then you can answer some questions and at the end just add "read the rest here: your URL"

Put quality content in regular intervals. Make some good backlinks from high pr forums and blogs.

I always try to contribute valuable content, but I've been on a lot of strict forums, like this one, where backlinks aren't encouraged.

GiorgioB said:

Then don't be spammy. actually contribute to the forum(s) and try and become a reputable member, then you can answer some questions and at the end just add "read the rest here: your URL"

Click to expand...

you can add it in your profile

focus on building your social media up and have savvy content their which will drive traffic to your site

social signals is hot right now. you can search it here to find out more about it

As Jiggz said, social signals are important right now. You can try some google communities (which works great) or facebook groups. On Google you can post your url too, but of course, you have to post something else, too, not just your url. Also, on G+ are many people who likes to share their circles. You can search a little bit about them, then add a such circle. This works for me. By the way, what are you using for analyses your progress? You should have a tool for this too. It's more easier to see where is a problem if you have such a tool. I use squirrly seo for finding my keywords, to analyses my traffic, to analyses my social impact etc.

I would suggest that you create free mini blogs (tier 1) with original content. Include backlinks to your money site obviously. Then you can create articles (tier 2) that point to your tier 1 mini sites. You goal should be creating high PR mini blogs that will help your money sites anchor texts have some authority. Diversify your anchor texts as much as possible so you don't get hit for using the same keywords. Use a spread sheet of everything you have to do on a daily bases. Good luck.

Make your website more involve with the social media community. Create unique content. Submit guest blogs at high PR sites.

social media, search engine marketing, web 2.0 & link pyramids are a good combination of driving traffic, if you have a good budget, go for adwords too.