Chances are you spend a lot of time blogging. If you are like almost every other blogger out there, you’re always searching for ways to bring more visitors to your blog. After all, what’s the point of spending all that time working on your blog if no one is going to benefit from your wisdom, laugh at your wittiness, or “awww” over your precious children.

Of all the successful blogs on the Internet, hundreds more have failed. Running a blog is like running a business website. Unless you are willing to put the time in and treat it seriously, you won’t be blogging long.

That is not to say that the failed bloggers weren’t serious about blogging. Mostly, new bloggers aren’t prepared for the work that goes into creating a successful blog. Just building the blog doesn’t mean that people will necessarily come to you. You pursue the audience and give them a reason to see what you have to say.

1.    Fresh Content – no one wants to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. Update your blog content at least twice a week. This will be easier if you write several posts ahead of time and upload them at the appropriate times.

2.    Article Marketing – the niche you’ve chosen for your blog is one that interests you. If it is interesting you will spend more time doing it. Create content not only for your blog but also to be submitted to article directories. Use the resource box to advertise your blog so people can find you. There are tons of article directories out there. If you’re not familiar with them, here is a great list of the Top 50 Article Directories.

3.    Social Networking – these sites are everywhere. Join Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Twitter or a dozen others and make connections. You can join groups of like minded people who are also bloggers or entrepreneurs. These communities are loyal to those in their “following,” and in addition to upping your traffic, you can create friendships with loyal supporters.

4.    Viral Marketing – this is where you spread the word about your blog. Talk to friends, family and even strangers. Give out business cards that have your blog address on them.

5.    Use RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and read in a reader or get email updates when new content is posted. It is an easy way for them to keep up with your blog without spending all day online. Visit Feedburner to set up your RSS feed.

6.    Submit Your Blog to Search Engines – doing this allows your blog to be ranked. Google and Yahoo! are two of the most popular search engines you want to crawl your blog pages. It doesn’t guarantee top ranking, though. You’ll have to do a little more work for that. This step is becoming less neccasary though as search engines, especially Google, are huge supporters of blogs and seem to crawl blog content without any extra work on your part. A quick way to test this is to “google” your blog or some topics you’ve written about and see where you come up in the search listings.

7.    Joining Forums – as a blogger you are a budding entrepreneur. Right now you are marketing yourself to find traffic and then profit. Become a member of forums to meet new people and share ideas. You can add a link to your blog in the signature line so others can find you.

8.    Visit other blogs – show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs. It is a kindness that shows others you are not just out to advertise your blog alone. Add links to your blog in your comments. But remember to keep these Commenting Do’s and Don’ts in mind.

9.    SEO Marketing – whatever you write, use relevant keywords. Keyword density between three and ten percent is good for getting higher page rankings in search engines. Base your keywords on a research you do to find the most popular words used in search engines for your niche. Wordtracker offers a fabulous free tool for researching keywords.

10.    Social Bookmarking – submitting posts to social bookmarking sites allows others who are members of those sites to track you back to your blog. Some of the most popular social bookmarking sites are Digg, StumbleUpon, Kirtsy and del.icio.us. However, make sure you read through the terms and conditions of these sites before you submit your own posts. Some of them will penalize you if you do that, perhaps even suspending your account. It’s also a good idea to have bookmarking links on your blog to make bookmarking easier for your readers.

Using any of these ideas will start the traffic moving in your direction. It takes time but you will build the readership you want.

If you’re interested in studying an in-depth course on blogging for profit, check out Blogger’s Paycheck. The program is chock full of information, ideas, tips, and proven methods.