There's a lot of tricks and gimmicks to boosting web traffic, and Twitter and the blogosphere are jammed packed with "social media experts" and "web marketing experts" and "SEOOMGWTF experts" that all claim they can give you the secret. I'm gonna screw all those guys over and give you the secret, right here, right now for free. Because I love you.

So here's the secret. Are you ready?

Write more.

That's it. The more you write, the more traffic you'll get.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Gabe, that's easy. I mean, jeez, we're weblit writers. We're like the A-Team of the literary world."

Yeah, we are, but you know what? Most of our sites are relatively small. They're 30-100 chapters of a web serial, an about page, maybe a few pieces of peripheral content, and that's it.

I Like Big Sites And I Cannot Lie

Picture for a moment a single red brick. Throw it on the ground in the middle of a field. Not very impressive is it? But what if you added another brick every day for a year? You'd have, well, a big freaking pile of 365 bricks in the middle of a field. That's not the point.

The point is that the bigger pile is more visible. People driving by are gonna be all like, "Whut? Why is there a big pile of bricks in that field? lol."

Okay, so they'll probably go on their way immediately after that, but you got their attention.

Take it out another year, but up your efforts. Throw two bricks out there a day. At the end of your second year, your pile of bricks contains 1095 bricks. Now people driving by will be compelled to new thoughts, such as, "My word, that edifice is growing at an alarming rate! Perhaps I shall convey this news to my addle-brained cousin Archibald!" and maybe addle-brained cousin Archibald really likes pile of bricks, so he starts coming back every day to see how much more you've added to the pile.

Congratulations! You've got your first reader/lackey/minion/zombieloveslave.

Here's where it gets sexy. Now you can start conniving persuading poor loyal Archibald into helping you build your pile of bricks. Get some different colored bricks and tell Archibald that these are special forum bricks that he can put on the pile himself! He'll be so ecstatic he might just pee himself, which is, you know, totally okay.

So now, between you and Archie, you're throwing out three and four bricks a day, maybe more. More and more people start sending you their addle-brained cousins, and soon, you've got the makings of your own cult community. People driving by are going to be like, "Holy Ziggurats of Babylon, Batman! That place is huge. Maybe I should check it out and see what all the fuss is about."

Mount some anti-aircraft guns on that sucker to shoot down trolls, stick a few concession stands out front to sell lemonade to the supplicants, and bam, you've got a successful website attracting readers from the world over.

The Bricks Are Posts

Every post you make to your website grows your pile of bricks. Each post you make is another page that Google can crawl. It's another page that one of your readers can link to. I mentioned in my post about how StumbleUpon grew my traffic by 1500% that a single piece of content can change everything.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Gabe, it's hard enough for me to publish 3 chapters a week. I tried writing more, and it burned me out."

I feel you. I've been there. But here's another little secret. Your posts don't have to be chapters. They don't have to be 2,000 word creative endeavors.

So what can they be? Anything.

You heard me. These posts can be anything -- new chapters, bonus stories, peripheral content, forum discussions, interviews, reviews, articles, reader spotlights, weblit-related news, guest posts, anything.

Once a week, make a post spotlighting one of your loyal readers. It can be less than a hundred words, just something to say, "Hey, you're awesome. Thanks for your support." At the end of a year, you've got 52 bricks -- and you've shown your community that you value them.

Once a month, write a 500 word review of another weblit writer's work and post it on your site. At the end of a year, you've got 12 bricks -- and you've probably accumulated a few reciprocal links or reviews of your own stuff.

Once a month, get another weblit writer to write a guest post. Have them take your characters and write a self-contained short story in that writer's proprietary style. Best part about this? You don't have to do a damn thing, and you've got 12 shiny new bricks. Since that writer will obviously want to show off their work, you'll get some links too.

Post a gallery with half a dozen images of you and your cat. That's six bricks right there and it takes 20 minutes. And it puts a face to your name and makes you more recognizable and boosts your credibility.

Make a forum topic once a day. Ask your readers a question. Encourage them to answer it. Forums can generate a lot of bricks in a short amount of time, but you've got to encourage your readers to use them.

Be Patient and Persistent
Don't get impatient. Web traffic doesn't usually grow by leaps and bounds. It grows in trickles -- a reader here, a reader there. If you start posting a new piece of content every day, I don't mean that you'll suddenly see a huge boost in traffic. But a year from now, when you've got 365 pieces of content more than you do today, I guarantee you'll also have more web traffic.