What's in a number?

I am not totally obsessed with the statistics of people visiting my blog but I do enjoy watching the numbers go up! Like many other bloggers I have listed myself on a couple of ranking sites I have liked the fact that my ranking has been going up on both of them:

Tots 100:

 

Wikio UK Parenting:

I know that if I want to make money out of my blogging and attract advertisers or sponsors I need to keep my blog moving up the rankings and closer to the top 100. So how do I go about doing this?

1. Keep writing articles that people find interesting to read (I can see which work through looking at page views and how people reach my blog)
2. Share in blog hops and weekly activities such as Cosmic Girlie's Silent Sunday and Tara's Gallery - not only by posting my own photographs but commenting on others.
3. Publicise my blog on Twitter, Facebook etc and encourage people to follow it with all the available tools:

Looking at my top 5 posts since May 2010 what is working for me so far is:

1. Countdown to Christmas Day 2: Dear Santa - referencing Steve Backshall in an article
2. The YES jar - early days - the search term YesJar on Google is driving readers to my blog
3. A drive through my Derbyshire family history - someone seems to have set this as a regular start page
4. Do we pigeon hole our children early on? -This article was listed on a feminist web site and generated traffic
5. Getting Boys Reading - Competition -A competition always generates more traffic plus referenced Gareth Malone

What other ways do ways do you use to drive traffic to your site?