Over time you become more established, and hopefully start to build a good audience. If you're writing a blog, tracking your audience can be pretty easy with tools such as Feedburner. You can find out just how many people are subscribed to your blog, and even share that information on a chicklet if you like.

The trouble comes in if you start to get too obsessed with search engine traffic, and forget about the audience you've been building for. Or you start aiming for the Digg front page or wanting a huge number of Stumbles to your site.

You forget your audience and write for someone or something else instead.

All these sources of traffic can be very nice, but trying too hard for them can alienate the readers you really want. Digg and Stumble traffic may not convert well. Search engine traffic is better, but it only helps if you're writing for the people reading your site rather than the bots.

Truth be told, success is not to be had strictly in a large number of visitors or subscribers. Both are nice, but what are they doing to help you earn a living? If you're trying to earn money and they aren't interested in buying, you aren't doing yourself any good just going for the numbers.

Show your audience that you value it by providing good value to them. Write interesting, relevant content. Point out solid products and services that they may enjoy using. Build trust. Be responsive.

If you're open to what your visitors and subscribers have to say, they may well tell you what they'd like to see on your site. You can get some idea of this just by tracking where people go the most on your site (aside from the home page!), or you can ask. Start a poll or write a post asking people what they would like to see more of from you.

Providing good value is not the only step you'll have to take if you want to succeed online. No matter how good your site is, if no one can find it no one will care about it. But it is a major portion of what it takes to maintain your success.