Thanks just the same.

I have to say that I find much of this list pretty unhelpful for a blogger, and even bordering on gimmicky.

#10 Targeting Unmonetized Searches – may be useful for a web-based business, trying to angle in on search traffic, but for us regular bloggers, who wants to go to the trouble of all that? I find that if you just write for your blog long enough, this effect will happen on its own.

#9 Creating controversy – I call this “link baiting”, being purposefully annoying just so people pay attention to you.

#8 Maps and Mashups – wrangling with an API just to create something that hopefully gets noticed by the mashup reporting blogs? And, what percentage of the thousands of people who come by actually stick around? This may be quite a useful tool if it makes sense given the content and community of your site, if not, seems to me to be a waste of time.

#7 Event Coverage – most events I know that have lots of bloggers interested in them, have lots of bloggers covering them too. I would say for this tip to work you would need to pick a wildly popular event that few tech-savy people attend. This year. By next year, 4 times as many people will be blogging and those events will be harder to find.

#6 Top Ten Lists – an effective communication device, no news there.

#5 Online tools – If you create your blog with the intention of being “useful” for your audience, whether it’s a tool or your text content, it doesn’t matter. People are attracted to content that help them with their work and life. Tools are helpful, but most of us bloggers don’t have the necessary programming skills to create them.

#4 Graphic and web design – there is something to be said for a beautifully designed site. Something even more to be said for a site that is easy to load, easy to read, and easy to navigate.

#3 Leveraging social networks – this is a good idea, especially with del.icio.us and digg. Mostly because attention on those networks goes to people who usually have their own blogs, and they just may end up linking to you.

#2 Blogging and blog comments – sort of redundant for a blogger, but highly useful recommendation for anyone with a website who is not yet blogging.

#1 Reporting remarkable news – yep, if you want to be chained to your computer 24 hours a day. Some people do. Most don’t. TechCrunch deserves all the traffic they get. It’s hard work.

#0 Offering something incredible – great idea if you are trying to create a multi-million dollar business. The advice for a blogger might be a little scaled down to – create something that makes you, your parents, your kids, your friends and colleagues proud.

~Elise
elise.com, Simply Recipes, Learning Movable Type

For my wife and I it’s worth it. The freedom, no boss and all that, but the first year was a ton of work.

All ten of those ideas require serious committment.

A positive attitude the FIRST step. Then all the work will get done.

-Terry

Yeah, this works quite well. 3 days ago, I offered to my readers to do 1 free logo design for one of them, and the day after, my blog was advertised on blogger’s front page as the blog of note for july 18th, driving around 20000 uniques to me.

The traffic was of exceptional quality. They visited everything I had to offer, clicked on ads, and a lot of them are comming back, even 2 days later.

I just created it on a whim. It wasn’t really something I figured would do much, but the top 10 list did far more than I ever expected it to do.