Top Traffic Sources for Craft Sites/Blogs

Are you interested in increasing traffic to your craft site?

I thought I would share with you some of my best traffic sources to my blog and my website, Cash Crafters. I am not talking about free search engine traffic, which accounts for the majority of my traffic, but rather traffic that comes from referrals or directories.

The absolute best sources of traffic to either of my craft sites is from Google, with Yahoo, MSN and Ask following. Aside from those I have had traffic come from several other sources.

Here is a list of the best sources of traffic for Cash Crafters...

Crafting The Web (This Blog) - My number one traffic source outside of search engines is actually this blog. If you have any kind of craft website or online craft store, you might want to compliment it with a blog. It is a great way to build traffic and connect with your customers.

Craft Pop.com - This is a craft directory that sends a surprising amount of traffic my way. If you haven't submitted to them yet, you might want to.

Soap Making Forum.com - This is just a very active site that I did a link exchange with. Link exchanges really do work if you are selective with who you exchange with.

Craftster - This is a very busy craft message board. Just having a link to my site in my signature brings me loads of traffic. Forums are a good way to bring in traffic, but be sure to add value to the community. Depending on how much time I spend there, Craftster is frequently my number one referral site.

Squidoo - This is a lens I made on Squidoo. Making a lens (or page) is a great way to bring in a bit of targeted traffic and also make a very relevant in link to your site.

EzineArticles - Article submissions to sites like Ezine brings in a steady stream of traffic each month. They also provide relevant in links that search engines love.

My blog brings in traffic from different sources than my website does. Here is the list...

Cash Crafters (My Website) - I intended my blog to compliment my website, but it turns out they compliment each other. Cash Crafters sends nearly as much traffic here as Crafting the Web does there. Talk about win/win.

Blogcatalog.com - This is a blog directory. Submission is free.

Blog Rush Widget - The blog rush widget (you can see it on the right) brings in a surprising amount of traffic, usually between 10-15% of my overall traffic. Blog rush is still in beta, but I think worth the space it takes up for the traffic it generates. They still have a way to go on getting more targeted categories.

Sarah's Texture Crafts - I submitted an article as a guest writer for Sarah's Texture Crafts. It has brought me a fair bit of traffic this month, which I expect to drop off. It was worth the effort however, because even after I stop getting direct traffic from it, it will still be a highly relevant link.

Blogher.com - This is a blog directory specifically for blogs written by women. There is a crafts category and submission is free.

Blogflux.com - Another blog directory with free submission.

Your own traffic sources will vary from day to day, month to month, but as you can see here you can do a lot to boost your traffic by link building through directories, forums, article submissions and link exchanges.

Are you wondering how to track your site's statistics? Google Analytics is a great way to keep track of how your site is doing. Statcounter is another site that can track website statistics, but I haven't tried them yet.