Are you a new blogger? It's very easy to become disheartened because you lack traffic. Let's look at four ways you can get traffic to your blog fast.

Here's an important tip: remember that content is vital. Please don't obsess about traffic until you have a reasonable amount of blog content. What do I mean by "reasonable"? Check out your competitors. In competitive niches, the minimum amount of content you need is higher than in tiny niches; as your content increases, so will your traffic.

1. Backlinks Bring Traffic

All things being equal, the more links pointing to your blog, the more traffic you'll get. Yes, this is a case where the rich get richer -- long-established blogs have had years to build their link profile, you're starting from scratch.

Here are three simple ways to get quality backlinks:

* Create several Squidoo lenses with links pointing to your blog;

* Write a Web press release announcing your new blog;

* Pick a sub-niche, and create a Blogger blog, then link to your primary blog.

2. Make Yourself Useful: Comment on Others' Blogs

Join the conversation on blogs. Leave appropriate comments on others' blogs. However, do ensure that your comments are useful. Comments like "Great post" or "good blog" are a waste of your time; they'll be deleted.

3. Guest Blog: Get Known

Blogs are voracious. They need feeding with content regularly. Offer guest posts to prominent bloggers in your niche. Many will take you up on your offer, because it relieves them of a little blogging pressure. As a guest blogger, you will of course link to your own blog.

4. Niche It Down: Start Another Blog

Many new bloggers struggle to get traffic because they've bitten off more than they can chew. Their niche is being served by long-established blogs, so that it's hard to compete.

If you suspect that this is what's hurting your blog, pick a sub-niche of your primary niche, and start another blog. Use a long tail keyword in the title. For example, if your primary niche is "dog training", you could create a sub-niche blog "German Shepherd dog training".

Your sub-niche blog should get ranked more easily than your primarily. Just post to the new blog, linking back to the primary blog in several posts.