Seth Godin posts a list of advice on driving traffic to your blog. In this list of 50+ items there is some sound advice, but much of it is at best contradictory, at worst bad for your blog. Traffic is one measure of success, but a more fundamental measure of success for a sustainable blog is organic incoming links. Not only do they drive traffic, they also form the foundation for your visibility on google and technorati. Seth suggests some topics to write about, but if you want to write a sustainable blog you have to write about something you know about, are passionate about, and are intensely curious about. Be authentic.
(Seriously, i love Seth’s stuff and i’m not trying to be snarky here)
5. Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
Topical and Timeless.
49. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
52. Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
40. Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don’t bore your readers.
I say stay on topic until you’ve built a readership, I say pick a topic you know something about and then find the other people who are talking about that.
36. Write about blogging.
Yep, that’s what we need, more bloggers talking about blogging, gadgets and web 2.0 
That way you won’t have to compete against scoble, techcrunch, and gizmodo
13. Write about your kids.
I say write about whatever you want, but make it interesting
Good one and tag them and link them back to your blog
Why don’t you have comments Seth?
note: Seth just turned comments on
note: Seth just turned them off again
28. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
No, don’t or you could end up with a sidebar like this
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Amazing stuff huh??? I just did a post about the whole comments thing. Wow. Seth followed his own advice with the whole weekend post.
I think Seth was just throwing out a lot of ideas to show how different things work for different people.
Some are two extremes that *purposely* contradict each other — for example, “be topical” vs. “be timeless”. Both extremes would attract people to your blog.
If you were topical, a lot of people would link to you about a big news story. If you were timeless, people would keep referring back to your posts. Both extremes would get you more traffic… it’s not a one size fits all thing.
Anyway, you must be doing something right because I found your blog on Google pretty easily!
http://spiddlement.wordpress.com
I really liked the article some of the things you said made a lot of sense. I’m new at this and trying to get traffic to my page thanks.
http://drapedinpearls.blogspot.com/