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A large percentage of new bloggers want to make it big, to have a blog that tons of people visit and money pouring in. The truth is this rarely happens, and if your goal is to make money online, getting tons of people to your site is the wrong way to go about it.

I will probably get booed off the blogosphere for stating the obvious and so many people are ready to defend social media successes, but rarely do any of those defending it actually make money from the traffic that sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon deliver.

I won’t lie to you and say that if you make the front page of Digg you won’t get a ton of traffic, because you will. But did you know that most of Digg’s front page stories are generated by just a handful of people? The rest of the stories are generated by everyone else who is using the site. (Grip time) The traffic from these sites rarely comment, subscribe, buy, share or hang around.

When I first started blogging I used to think that social traffic was the end all and be all of blogging and that having good stats was better than anything. But if your goal is to make money, go where the money is and where you need to go in order to get paid. Provide for or target the people who are looking for a solution to their problems. Digg users aren’t looking for something in particular, they are looking for something random or weird that they can entertain themselves with for a few minutes while they kill time at work. They aren’t going to sign up for an affiliate program or buy a book. They are simply wasting time and floating from one thing to the next.

Making money online more often than not requires you to do and talk about the things that social traffic sites shy away from. This would be the niche blog or abstract art dealer site. By catering to the people who are looking for specific things like a service or collectibles you will find there is money to be made.

Before you persecute me saying you can convert that massive social media traffic, I will admit that many people can convert that traffic and have perfected the monetization of mass traffic flow. In the end, for me, if comes down to the amount of time spent achieving that goal and if that can sustain itself. If you stop for one week pressing, shouting, friending, digging, stumbling and so on, your business will wither. But if you set up a site that generates nice and consistent traffic and money you now have a business model. Don’t forget that a lead in the hand is worth more than a thousand fly by.

*For the record I have obtained mass traffic including having a number of posts hit the Buzz page on StumbleUpon, netting upwards of 35,000 page views per article. So it is possible, but simply unsustainable in the long run.

*Inspired by Vic and Grizz

Over the last month give or take I have been running a test for this blog to determine what kind of traffic and visitors I would receive if I put the least amount of effort into running my blog.

I did 11 posts over the past 30 days, just about averaging 1 post every 3 days for the non-math majors. Along with minimal posts, I quit buying Entrecard ads or promoting in any other way. I noticed a little down tick in traffic and comments as fewer posts are appearing but has been pretty consistent since, with about 330 unique visits per day and 600ish page views.

If you notice that little up tick towards the end of the chart, that was a result of my last post with the help of a WordPress plugin called Auto Social Poster (not an affiliate link). What you can do is have you post submitted to various different bookmarking sites at the time of posting. The plugin isn’t free, but I would highly recommend it if you are running a WordPress Blog.

I found that instead of posting and promoting, I can focus more on posting and know that promotion is being done. I will now run another experiment here to determine whether posting daily versus every three days with the aid of ASP will result in more traffic. I will continue to not buy any ads on Entrecard in order to preserve the experiment. Instead, I will be giving away all of the credits I accumulate to this month’s the top commenter (horse race can be viewed to the right the side bar —-> ).

On one more note, I have begun to use a mailing list. The purpose of the list is to provide only marketing ideas and marketing strategies to subscribers. I will not spam you or try to sell you anything. It is simply for the people serious in receiving free marketing ideas and using them anyway you see fit. To subscribe, fill in your email to the right sidebar and hit submit.

This is the third installment of the Blogger appreciation week, found here.

I don’t know much about John Leonard of Master Networker’s MLM and Internet Marketing Blog for Professional Entrepreneurs other than what I have seen over the past two days checking out his blog. But I do know one thing for sure, he is a seller. Just combing through a few of his posts, I am almost tempted to sign up for some multi-level marketing programs. From a marketing standpoint, I should steal incorporate some of his techniques into my own blog.

John uses a lot of eye candy (words in different colors or in bold, not risky photos) to emphasize key phases and draw your attention to specific areas. Within the descriptions of products or different multi-level marketing programs, he is sure to state the credibility of the originator as well as the pros and some cons.

What I like the most:

The diversity of information on various different mlm marketing programs, tips and tricks. He has some good info on building up a list here.

Quick point:

I would like to see some more success and failure stories. I know with mlm, the potential to fail is pretty high from time and time, and I think sharing those experiences could be very beneficial to anyone who is interested in a particular mlm program.