It’s a simple thing to do. Leaving comments on other sites in your niche with an URL pointing back to your site. Should be easy traffic right? Not if it isn’t done correctly. How often do you click on a commentor’s name to see their site when all they left was a comment that didn’t either make you laugh or think?
Sure you can get the author’s attention by asking for links, but what if you want more than the author’s attention? What if you want his audience’s attention? Leave an insightful comment, but don’t just do it once, do it often. Do it on every post for a month if you can. Maybe do it for two months, but do it enough where people begin to recognize who you are.
You are more than likely starting a blog to become an expert in that field, even if it’s just a personal blog. You want to be an expert at something because experts get traffic. Comments can help get you there. I found girlspoke simply because Meme continuously leaves comments on Paul Davidson’s blog and the result was that I invited them into the 9rules Network. What was her expertise? It was humor and it showed through in her comments.
You are not trying to build massive amounts of traffic directly from your comments, but hopefully you can get the attention of some sites that can give you lots of traffic by linking to one of your posts. Indirectly you are looking for that traffic from your comments. This option requires patience though, but building a successful blog never did happen in a day.