I'm new to blogging and although I have seen consistent and significant growth in unique visitors, I have been keen to find tips to grow my blog quickly. I've spent my spare time over the last few weeks researching and what I have found scares me. There are lots of ways to grow visitor numbers and one of the most heavily promoted is back-links. The benefit of back links is that search engines give greater ranking to sites that have lots of back links as these links are seen as votes (endorsements) from other sites. Of course this makes sense and like everyone I will be doing my best to develop back links of my own. My concern however is how some bloggers are going about this. What I have seen is the setting up of fake websites, commercial organizations doing the same and arrangements where a group of bloggers agree to swap "Digg nominations", "Technorati Favs", "Stumbleupon Recommendations" etc. I understand the desire to build web traffic quickly, but if you use this method, at what cost?

My belief is this ...

- If you make a recommendation without knowing what you are recommending you loose credibility and risk linking yourself to people who reflect badly on you. - Quick traffic volumes don't necessarily translate to longer term volumes. - This is not building a network of friends that can support and help you. - Most of these people don't even visit your website, do you really want a recommendation from someone that doesn't know you? - To other bloggers and your readers you risk looking like a fake!

What time horizon are you working too?

If you are in this for the long term, isn't it better to put the work in and build a network of reliable links and develop your reputation as someone to be respected and listened to? In the long term I am certain this will yield dividends, especially if you hope to have your readers take advantage of recommendations you make. Please don't get me wrong, I am not saying you're a bad person or dishonest ... I also have tried this myself before I thought through what I was doing and stopped. I am just asking you to think carefully before you give away your valuable recomendations, favs and links. Good luck and enjoy your time on line. UPDATE : Here is a great post that offers lots of options for blog promotion