Ten things. If you do one or more of them, you’ll have readers in no time. The first suggestion is one that is easy, and works well: Write a couple posts before you start trying to publicize the blog.

Do you want a guaranteed way to launch with a bang? Prepare amazing content before you launch. I am not talking about a quick general post, I want you to take the time of your life to create the most astounding post you have ever come across.

Another suggestion is to create some sort of freebie to give away. Icon sets and eBooks are suggested, and I’ve had success with WordPress plugins.

If you can offer a valuable freebie that is related to your target audience, it can radically improve your subscriber count in a very short time. If you don’t have something worthy to offer your subscribers you might as well not offer anything at all. Make it worthwhile.

The post also recommends guest posting on a few established blog. This can net you some traffic, maybe even some money if you go to the right places. The Envato blogs, for instance, all pay their guest writers. Do you read any blogs on a regular basis? If you’re knowledgeable in their area, try pitching them a post idea.

Write a WordPress Plugin, or if you lean more toward design rather than coding, make a WordPress theme. WordPress resources are the ultimate linkbait. It may take you awhile, but it doesn’t take much work to get the traffic coming. Write a page about the plugin on your blog, submit your theme or plugin to WordPress/Extend, post a quick note to WLTC News, and submit to a few social bookmarking sites. It won’t take long before the plugin spreads through the blogosphere, netting you some incoming traffic, and some good links and mentions on other blogs. I’ve done this twice, with WP125 and GoCodes, and both plugins have really added a helpful boost to Webmaster-Source.

If you Google “WP125,” a good many of the 12,000+ results are related to my plugin, though I have to admit there are some scrapers and non-plugin-related posts in there. “WP125 ad” returns higher quality results, and 4.890 at that. Not bad considering the plugin is only a month and a half old…

Now I know not everyone has the skills to put together a good theme or a useful plugin, and therefore may not be able to make use of this tip at the moment. But don’t give up on this idea yet. Anyone can learn PHP, or pick up blog design. If you’re already blogging with WordPress, chances are you’ll be able to pick up said skills without too much difficulty if you put your mind to it.

A little counterintuitive, isn’t it? You send your visitors away, in order to get more?

Yep. It works because, by linking to someone, you’re ending up on their proverbial radar. If they notice that you’ve linked to them, there’s a good chance they will read your post, and possibly link back. If everyone was stingy with their links, the web wouldn’t work very well, would it? You wouldn’t have traffic from people linking to your posts. As a reader, even, you would have a much harder time finding things, and would miss-out on posts that you would find useful. Without links, the web wouldn’t be the web.

But the New York Times doesn’t ever link to anyone!

No, they don’t. Most of the Dead-Tree Media (or Dinosaur Media) don’t really understand the web. They don’t really like it much either. They would prefer to hang onto their existing, failing, business model. Since they can’t do that very well, they try to “break the web,” and make it work the way they want. They hoard PageRank, and try to keep people on their site, where they’ll be bombarded with ads, and help to inflate their traffic stats. Oh, and sometimes they don’t like it when you link to them either…

Link, and you will get links. That’s how the blogosphere works.