I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting

Yes you have to post good comments. if you’re not contributing back to the site then it just comes across as cheap. Posting a comment that just says “Great Post” is fine, but don’t expect people to click on your name to get more of your perspective.

There was one comment that I left in a forum that directly resulted in a spike of about 50 RSS subscribers. Having those extra readers resulted in a modest but sustained jump in traffic.

There are a few sites that I have commented enough on to make it on the top commenter panel. Some of those are giving me an extra 5 visitors/day. which isn’t a lot, but if I can convert them into rss subscribers then they’ll likely come back.

The same is true for my adwords campaign I’m only spending $1/day on adwords. that sends about 4 people to the site each day.

In my case being on the top commenter list for a blog is therefore worth about $1/day to me for a comparable amount of paid traffic.

Are these methods working for you? For me they did not produce.

If I had to name two things that bring links I would say Content and Relationships.

-I could be wrong, but I’ve found that posting comments on related sites is only good if you are 1) genuine and 2) doing it to build a mutually beneficial relationship and Conversation with the editor and readers of the site.

-According to “the 22 immutable laws of branding” Advertising doesn’t build brands, publicity does. Rather than get a few readers with adsense why not get tons of readers by getting others to write about your blog?
Some reasons this may be better:
The readers coming in from the other site have a high opinion of you because they heard about you from a source they trust (as opposed to Adsense which gives you no such reputation)
News is always more important than advertising in a readers mind. What do you read on a site the posts or the Google Ads? I think it is better to be in the post of a site than in its Google Ads.

So how do you get in the post? Ask. That’s what John Chow did (link below). He asked 200 news sites related to his field to write about him. Sure, I bet a lot did not but it is a numbers game. And it is a better numbers game than paying for readers one by one.

I mentioned it on another of your posts but will expand it here.
These are some awesome articles that I have found on traffic and revenue.

http://www.johnchow.com/index.php/so-you-want-to-be-a-google-whore/
http://www.johnchow.com/index.php/the-internets-biggest-google-whores/

A list of traffic building ideas:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/06/how_to_get_traf.html

Here is something that I have been doing (I am not expert though, so take it with a grain of salt):
I have just started doing this (after reading about Chow) and am getting over a 30% response rate. I email related sites (10 a day) and ask if I can interview them via email and post the interview on my blog. I put a list of questions at the bottom of the email (they can answer when they want). And I shamelessly (and I joke and say out right that I am being shameless) ask for a link, a post, or even just some feedback.
I do everything I can to promote them well. In the end we both benefit greatly. Seth Godin, in the link above lists interviews as one of the best methods for traffic. It makes great content.

Sorry to write so much, but if it helps you then it was well worth it. And if not, sorry.

Thats really one good article to read

I’ve chosen a slightly different attack vector – build a network of small sites, building each one until it makes $100-$200 a month passively, or close to passivly as possibly can be.

- Blogs need constant posting to generate traffic, so they’re mostly out. An exception is Video Blogs. They just take 10 minutes a day or less. I’m experimenting with one right now – http://panicroom.tv, and will see what the time:return ratio is. (To promote it, I made a sister site this afternoon, http://videoblogtopsites.com to promote it. )

- proxy sites. Yes, I unfortunately have quite a few of these. They make $50-$100 a month each. Killer on the server, but I have an “advantagous” hosting situation, and dont have server bills to worry about right now.

- dead but still earning sites. I have one of these, just sitting there with “coming soon”, and the obligatory Google ads. Funny, it makes more money down than up.

- I’m also building a number of more ambitious sites.

I keep throwing things at the wall, and things are starting to take off.

I think your goal of $10k a month is very doable, for both of us. Best of luck in your efforts!