I think the point Vangogh makes is a very valid point. Which i have read many times, a referral from another popular blog. This does not mean that you will get a huge on going audience, however many people i have read mention getting a large increase in traffic for a day or two after a fellow blogger posted about them, and while the traffic did not stay as high as it peaked, it did stay up somewhat on what it had been before.
I think this is the key though, you shouldnt be looking or even expecting a single event will drive your traffic to new heights and keep it there. You need to be looking at one step at a time. You have another blogger post about your blog, and you get an extra 5000 visitors in 2 days but rather then dropping back to the previous average, your traffic falls back to about 200 visitors more on average. Then the same next month and so on where you get a large influx for a day or two, then month by month you slowly increase by a couple of hundred visitors.
Where some of the more successful blogs differ i would imagine is they probably started just as you are however they managed to catch the interest of one or maybe many other blogs often.
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