In your experience, do blogs (I put this in this forum for the SEO aspect of it) gain steady, long-term traffic increase through Google search results or through word of mouth the fastest? Obviously, both would be best, but I'm wondering which one is most effective by itself . Thanks for the help!
I'd say word of mouth is harder to measure. Although i know that a recommendation from a friend or colleague carries alot more weight than a listing in the SERPs.
there are thousands and thousands of blogs on the net. "word of mouth" works only if you have something exceptionally good to offer to your readers. less than 1% of blogs have such exceptional content. if you think, you have such a blog, stop worrying about traffic and concentrate on your content. for the rest 99% of blogs, SEO is the only hope.
I believe SEO's better, because through it, your site has the higher chance of making it to the top. Word-of-mouth may work but most of the time, it won't.