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In this post I will discuss the benefits of combining two sources of blog traffic: Top Sites lists and Blog Traffic Exchanges.

Top Sites lists are great, but only if your site is at the top. I am a member of BlogTopList and TopBlogArea, but since I am a new member, my site appears pages deep into the lists of bloggers who have been using the sites for longer. These sites use either just the amount of unique visitors your site receives in the case of TopBlogArea or a combination of the unique visitors your site receives and the number of visitors who vote for you in the case of BlogTopList. But the problem is you won’t receive much traffic from these sites unless you already have traffic. How do you find traffic in order to increase your ratings? That’s where Blog Traffic Exchanges come in.

A Blog Traffic Exchange is a site where, quite frankly, blog members exchange traffic. For every site that you view on the exchange, someone will view yours. Some sites have different ratios, but this is the main concept. The problem is, though, that this traffic is typically untargeted. You will receive visits from people who have no interest in viewing a Christian blog. This might be a good thing if your focus is on evangelism, but a key problem with traffic exchanges in general is that no one really views the sites they are looking at. They just visit long enough for a timer to elapse that allows them to click on the next site and build more credits.

But this is not the most effective way for you to be viewing sites on these exchanges. As you view the sites you will see a variety of opinions, many of which are contrary to your own. These make for great post ideas for your blog as well as serve as places to make comments. Since comments typically include a link to your blog, this is an opportunity to leave links on blogs you would normally never visit. But what about all of that untargeted traffic to your site that consists of people who are not interested in your content, but in building up credits? They all will show up as unique visitors on your site, bumping up your ranking on the Top Sites lists provided that you joined the Top Sites lists first and already added their html codes. This is how these two resources work together to bring you more traffic and the secret to using them both.

I have experimented with a few Blog traffic Exchanges, but the most effective has been BlogMad. This site offers multiple ways to bring traffic to your site and seems to bring me more consistent traffic than Blog Soldiers.

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