Blogging for a living can be hard work, and to be honest it gets very frustrating when we don't obtain the traffic we need to keep the blog thriving. You see, simply working hard can't always guarantee that you will receive the traffic you want, while on the other hand, not working at it is a sure fire way to never receive traffic at all. For us bloggers that work too hard at this game, here are 11 successful techniques to help you get all the traffic you need.
#1 Be outstanding. There is a good reason this is first in line. Being outstanding to begin with will ensure that everything else becomes easy, as it will make a lasting impression on your readers, and interest will increase.
How to be outstanding:
* Being informative: Teach your readers what they want and convey the info in a way your audience appreciates. * Entertain - Insert humor, amaze your readersdo what's appropriate to get their attention. * Connect with Your Audience - Understand and speak to their pain, worries and even their dreams and desires. * Be Controversial - Share an opinionnot everyone has to agree with you to find you interesting.
Some may disagree with this attitude, and advise that more effort should be put into building traffic the manual way. This may be so, but building up the content of your blog or sites can far outweigh any amount of traffic building. Think about it - what's the point of sending masses of traffic when the average viewer will simply click away on arrival at your site.
2. RSS Feed: You'd think it'd be a given, but I see plenty of blogs without an RSS feed. If you're not familiar with the term, an RSS feed allows your readers to be notified when you make new blog posts. Unless your audience is totally tech-savvy and is all over the RSS thing, I recommend setting up a feed that allows your reader to sign up for updates into their feed reader or email if they prefer. An easy way to set up this type of feed is to use a free service like FeedBurner.com.
#3 Ping Your Blog. Be sure to choose the option to ping relevant services. Most blogging platforms or scripts will allow this easily via your control panel. Using a ping service will notify various search engines and other sites that you have updated your blog.
4. Blog commenting: Offer to comment or publish content on other blogs or sites related to the same niche. The owner will usually allow you to link back to your own site, providing the comment you have provided is respectful and useful to the site itself. Be as courteous as possible! Make sure your comment is relevant, and don't make it a big advertisement for your own site.
5. Add trackbacks: You can get an automatic link back to your own posts by using trackbacks. If you've written a post and provided a link to a post on another blog, a link to your own post will appear in the comments section on the other blog. If you are doing trackbacks between two WordPress blogs, simply linking to someone else's post will automatically set up the trackback. As mentioned in point 4, be polite! A simple summary of somebody else's post or other garbled nonsense just to get a back link is not following proper blogging etiquette.
6. Keep Your Email List Up-to-Date: You probably already know that your mailing list is a valuable asset. Use this asset to the fullest by sending them to your blog to read the posts you think they will find helpful, enjoy, etc.
7. Distribute Content: A great way to get people read more of your content is by getting content out there to more people. You can distribute articles, post videos, guest post on other blogsjust get some good stuff out there and lead people back to read your blog.
8. Affiliates Link to Your Blog: If your affiliate program allows your affiliates to link to any page on your site, encourage them to link to and write about your various blog posts. The system I use at Quicksales.com (a private-label 1ShoppingCart) allows my affiliates to quickly and easily link to any blog post they want.
Affiliate referrals are cookied when someone follows a link and if that referral eventually buys, they get the commission. Of course, the conversions on blog links aren't going to be as good as linking directly to a sales page, but it gives your affiliates the opportunity to bring value to their own readers (by linking to your AWESOME content) and potential benefit financially.
#9 Social Networks: All of the popular social networks around can provide traffic like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Internet users admire the transparency that these type of networks offer, and like the idea of being able to communicate with the blogger. Follow the right mannerisms when using these networks, and try not to fall into the trap of messing around on social networking sites for hours ( remember there's more important work to be getting on with). And, if you are remarkable as mentioned above, everybody else will be talking about you on the networks without you having to intervene.
10. Online Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking includes well-known sites like del.icio.us, Stumble Upon and Digg. The site enables you to bookmark your favorite webpages and other content on the Internet. A lot of marketers choose to mark their own sites, but this could be against terms and conditions, so read the rules first. Another idea is to bookmark each other sites, but at the end of the day if you're site's good enough, people will bookmark it on their own accord.
#11 Search Engine Optimization: Perhaps I'm going against the crowd, but I've chosen to put SEO last. I understand most marketers would have this at the top of their list, but if your goal is to make an amazing website that will retain visitors, SEO should take a back seat.
The problem with trying to optimize all your blog pages is that it takes away from you being remarkable. A remarkable blog is written with interesting subject lines (rather than boring keyword phrases) and isn't always on topics that people use a search engine to find. Of course, you can combine the two (SEO and being remarkable) in some ways, but don't let SEO take anything away from the interest and word-of-mouth your blog creates. - 16463
#1 Be outstanding. There is a good reason this is first in line. Being outstanding to begin with will ensure that everything else becomes easy, as it will make a lasting impression on your readers, and interest will increase.
How to be outstanding:
* Being informative: Teach your readers what they want and convey the info in a way your audience appreciates. * Entertain - Insert humor, amaze your readersdo what's appropriate to get their attention. * Connect with Your Audience - Understand and speak to their pain, worries and even their dreams and desires. * Be Controversial - Share an opinionnot everyone has to agree with you to find you interesting.
Some may disagree with this attitude, and advise that more effort should be put into building traffic the manual way. This may be so, but building up the content of your blog or sites can far outweigh any amount of traffic building. Think about it - what's the point of sending masses of traffic when the average viewer will simply click away on arrival at your site.
2. RSS Feed: You'd think it'd be a given, but I see plenty of blogs without an RSS feed. If you're not familiar with the term, an RSS feed allows your readers to be notified when you make new blog posts. Unless your audience is totally tech-savvy and is all over the RSS thing, I recommend setting up a feed that allows your reader to sign up for updates into their feed reader or email if they prefer. An easy way to set up this type of feed is to use a free service like FeedBurner.com.
#3 Ping Your Blog. Be sure to choose the option to ping relevant services. Most blogging platforms or scripts will allow this easily via your control panel. Using a ping service will notify various search engines and other sites that you have updated your blog.
4. Blog commenting: Offer to comment or publish content on other blogs or sites related to the same niche. The owner will usually allow you to link back to your own site, providing the comment you have provided is respectful and useful to the site itself. Be as courteous as possible! Make sure your comment is relevant, and don't make it a big advertisement for your own site.
5. Add trackbacks: You can get an automatic link back to your own posts by using trackbacks. If you've written a post and provided a link to a post on another blog, a link to your own post will appear in the comments section on the other blog. If you are doing trackbacks between two WordPress blogs, simply linking to someone else's post will automatically set up the trackback. As mentioned in point 4, be polite! A simple summary of somebody else's post or other garbled nonsense just to get a back link is not following proper blogging etiquette.
6. Keep Your Email List Up-to-Date: You probably already know that your mailing list is a valuable asset. Use this asset to the fullest by sending them to your blog to read the posts you think they will find helpful, enjoy, etc.
7. Distribute Content: A great way to get people read more of your content is by getting content out there to more people. You can distribute articles, post videos, guest post on other blogsjust get some good stuff out there and lead people back to read your blog.
8. Affiliates Link to Your Blog: If your affiliate program allows your affiliates to link to any page on your site, encourage them to link to and write about your various blog posts. The system I use at Quicksales.com (a private-label 1ShoppingCart) allows my affiliates to quickly and easily link to any blog post they want.
Affiliate referrals are cookied when someone follows a link and if that referral eventually buys, they get the commission. Of course, the conversions on blog links aren't going to be as good as linking directly to a sales page, but it gives your affiliates the opportunity to bring value to their own readers (by linking to your AWESOME content) and potential benefit financially.
#9 Social Networks: All of the popular social networks around can provide traffic like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Internet users admire the transparency that these type of networks offer, and like the idea of being able to communicate with the blogger. Follow the right mannerisms when using these networks, and try not to fall into the trap of messing around on social networking sites for hours ( remember there's more important work to be getting on with). And, if you are remarkable as mentioned above, everybody else will be talking about you on the networks without you having to intervene.
10. Online Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking includes well-known sites like del.icio.us, Stumble Upon and Digg. The site enables you to bookmark your favorite webpages and other content on the Internet. A lot of marketers choose to mark their own sites, but this could be against terms and conditions, so read the rules first. Another idea is to bookmark each other sites, but at the end of the day if you're site's good enough, people will bookmark it on their own accord.
#11 Search Engine Optimization: Perhaps I'm going against the crowd, but I've chosen to put SEO last. I understand most marketers would have this at the top of their list, but if your goal is to make an amazing website that will retain visitors, SEO should take a back seat.
The problem with trying to optimize all your blog pages is that it takes away from you being remarkable. A remarkable blog is written with interesting subject lines (rather than boring keyword phrases) and isn't always on topics that people use a search engine to find. Of course, you can combine the two (SEO and being remarkable) in some ways, but don't let SEO take anything away from the interest and word-of-mouth your blog creates. - 16463
About the Author:
If you're looking to pull more profit out of your business blog, check out the IM Blogging Bootcamp. This 4-week intensive program designed to get you actively and effectively blogging to reach more of your prospects and convert more of them into lifelong customers.
