It’s what every blogger wants isn’t it? Until it gets too much, brings your server down, or even worse that of your host, or your site gets suspended for using too many resources (the Slashdot or Digg effect!). Knowing who you are writing for is half the battle, the other half is writing because you enjoy it!

If you haven’t heard of the Slashdot or Digg effect, it generally happens when you write some catchy slogan or headline and a bunch of people get behind it and get click happy. Glenn Abel calls this a “Traffic Jam, Upon Request“, but also goes onto discusss various other methods for getting traffic, whether it be Reddit and Propeller (both Digg like, with a more mature audience), Truemors, BlogExplosion, or the ever random StumbleUpon.

One comment that Glenn writes about BlogExplosion, has almost put me off to the point where I may remove myself from the BlogExplosion network.

Don’t count on these new readers to make return visits, though — BlogExplosion doesn’t even display the real URL for its “surfers.” These visits provide an uptick in the blog stats, that’s about it. As a marketing tool, BlogExplosion seems borderline worthless.

One member I encountered in a forum said she visits these blogs while doing laundry or watching TV. She never actually reads them, just waits out the timer in order to get a credit (return visit). Too bad — every now and then members will come upon some finds.

My favourite way of getting traffic is to write good quality content, so good that people will subscribe and come back again! Saying that you’ll find lots of random stuff on this blog, some you may find interesting – other stuff you’ll simply be bored rigid from – but hey it’s my little piece of blogspace! I could split it up into lots of little niche blogs, one on WordPress, one on Gadgets, one on Blogging…. But I really can’t see the point at least everything on here I right about with passion – it’s something that interests me!

Blogging with passion is something that Vlad seems to be having a change of tack on at the moment, he’s made a really interesting post entitled “Can You Really Monetize Your Passion?“. I believe the answer is categorically yes, I’ve done so. My hobby of web hosting is now a full scale business operation with hundreds of customers (who’d ever have thought that when I sat in the pub trying to work out whether to take up this “little” hobby!) – I was lucky I could monetize my hobby and turn it into something great! I have other passion’s that I probably couldn’t monetize and nor would I want to.

If making money is your passion, then almost anything can be your passion in my opinion, as Vlad quite rightly points out:

It all has to do with knowledge and numbers as simple as that. You can learn about the product, the potential customers, the best way to promote the products and numbers will help you to determine your success or failure.

Vlad’s had some success in this with his affiliate marketing, but has decided that’s not where his passion is anymore, and as such is bowing out of his affiliate marketing adventure – I wish him well in the future!

Back to the original theme of traffic Ryan Shamus was recently surprised by the amount of traffic he received to his “Making Money with Clickbank” article (it is a very lengthy post – but makes some fantastic points….), so he’s decided he wants to get to know his readers – this would be fantastic, if you know who you’re writing for – you can provide them with more engaging content that they want to read!

The digg effect isn’t necessarily a good thing, all that traffic, all those bandwidth costs – so Simonne has provided 9 Ways to Digg proof your blog .

I’d like more traffic, more subscribers and more people who are interested – but I really don’t know who’s out there! So if you’re reading this let me know, let’s have a chat – and you may just find you’ve got one extra subscriber to your blog – me!