Those of you that are using Blog Explosion know that it is an incredible way to raise your traffic. But to those of you that are new to it, I have a couple of ideas that make it work even better.

First off, if you are patient and keep surfing for a while, you can get a lot of mystery credits. I have won 100 credits at least three times, and normally win around an average of 15-25 per time if I will surf 20-30 pages or more.

Second, try to "bank" as many unused credits as you can. Don't just put them back into your accounts to get traffic. You can only put 25% in unused, but if you save them up until you have around 100 or more, you can make the best use of them. This leads me to my third point.

All of us have posts that aren't so hot. Not everything on our blogs is going to be incredibly fascinating. But when you have a day where your post is smoking, when you have put into words the mysteries of love, world peace and comfortable shoes, combined with smoking sarcasm-this is the time to crank up your blogplosion credits. When I have a post I think is good, I try to transfer 10-15 credits to my account so I will get the full benefit of it.

If all you do is surf until you have a bunch of credits, but spend them all at once, you may have people seeing the same post repeatedly, and that could guarantee you less traffic in the end.

Lastly, Blogplosion is only one tool to gain traffic. The best way is still more personal-that is good,old-fashioned networking. Leave comments on blogs you like, put up a blogroll, promote other people's blogs. If you find a post that is really good, link to it and tell the author and your readers why you think this is good writing. If someone links to you, you should link to them unless you aren't crazy about their writing, or don't want to have too many links.

Some people think this sounds phony, and self-serving. I disagree. This type of networking is being kind to others, and that is always a good thing to do. Where this becomes phony is when you start expecting links, even demanding them. Or maybe you are acting like a used-car salesman, and badgering people.

Just do good to others without thought of reward, and you will get links from people you can consider friends. You will also develop a community of like minded blogs. That's the great thing about the blogosphere, there is room for every kind of thought, and you can find others that share your thoughts.

Thanks for reading,

AC