11 Steps to Explode Your Blog Traffic
Professional blogging is not as easy as it sounds. It can be a bit of a vicious circle as a blog cannot thrive without traffic, so we have to put forth a lot of effort in an attempt to obtain it - however simply working hard is no guarantee that you will receive traffic in the first place. To help with this matter, below are eleven tried and tested techniques that will ensure you get as much traffic that you need to your blog.
#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:
Delight and indulge - Stimulate your readers minds, give them some brain food to get their minds working. Build rapport - understand your readers personalities, address their worries and concerns. Be outlandish - sometimes controversy can also bring good publicity, even if not everyone agrees with what you’re saying. Enlighten your readers - Be honest with your readers and tell them exactly what they want to hear, in a way they would appreciate.
This may be seen as a “build it and they will come” attitude, which is usually advised against in internet marketing, which may be true in some respects. Of course, this doesn’t mean giving up manual traffic building, but the more “out there” or a controversial your blog is, the higher the chance is that your efforts become noticed.
2. RSS: Some may say RSS old news, but there are still many blogs that haven’t thought to use a feed. If it is not something you have come across, an RSS feed is simply something that allows readers to stay updated without constantly visiting the blog. The RSS feed alerts readers to every new post via their feed reader or e-mail account. Using a service like FeedBurner.com will make this process a lot easier.
#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. Make Comments: Make useful comments on busy blogs related to your blog’s subject. Usually, you can link back to your site when you make a comment on another blog. BE RESPECTFUL!: Only use the space provided for your linkdon’t write ads or fancy signatures AND make sure your comment is relevant and useful to other readers.
5. Do Trackbacks: Many blogs allow you to make commentary about their posts on your own blog. When you link to their particular blog post, a link to your own blog post appears in the comments area on their blog. For trackbacks between WordPress blogs, all you need to do is link to a blog post and it’s automatically set up. BE RESPECTFUL: If you’re going to trackback, have something useful to say. Just summarizing and linking to someone’s post does NOT add to the discussion.
6. Keep up-to-date with your e-mail list: Your list can be the foundation to the success of your blog. Keep your list updated with relevant posts and helpful information that they may enjoy. Those on your list will appreciate the contact.
#7 Content Distribution: Your content does not have to be 100% contained on the blog. Remember the many other ways there are to distribute content, like article marketing, guest posting on other blogs, audio content and videos. The more content you have out there, the more likely you will be noticed.
8. Affiliate linking: You may have set up your own affiliate program, enabling your affiliates to link back to any page on your site. Try to encourage your affiliates to link to, and write about your blog posts. A recommended system to use is quicksales.com - which is a private label 1shoppingCart solution, enabling affiliates to direct traffic to any page they please.
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: You can use various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) to drive traffic to a blog. People you connect with socially are likely to be interested in what you have to say on your blog. Make sure you follow proper etiquette and use your common sense. Also, don’t overdo it and get lost in your social networks all dayyou’ve got WORK and other important things to do. Plus, if you are remarkable, those who use social networks will be doing the work for you and talking about you.
#10 Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking is different to social networks. Social bookmarking is a little like bookmarking your favorite websites in your browser, except the list will be published for everybody else to see, including the search engines. Some people bookmark their own sites, but do understand that the networks do not like this and may ban your account for “self promotion”, so be sure to read the rules. Another technique is to pay others or work in a cooperative scheme. But again, if you are remarkable enough, your site will be book marked thoroughly by the internet public.
11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): I’ve chosen to put SEO at the end of the list, even though I know a lot of people would disagree. If you’re trying to find first-time visitors or people who are just browsing, SEO is fine, but if you want the faithful visitors who continuously return, try not to concentrate too much on optimization.
The trouble with trying to optimize every single page on your blog is the time it takes to do so, and the fact that you could be using that time for being remarkable. Remember that content should be readable rather than just written for the search engine’s, and keyword rich with the same phrase repeated throughout. If you’re savvy enough however, you could combine the two by optimizing your existing pages, but don’t make this a priority over your (remarkable) content.
Related posts:
- 4 Ways To Explode Blog Traffic For Free! Every online business needs traffic in order to survive, that...
- How To Attract Traffic For Your Blog Many people posted regularly when they first started a blog....
- Popular Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog There are literally hundreds of ways to drive traffic to...
- 5 Easy Ideas for Blog Traffic Tips There are a vast number of blogs out there in...
- Need To Get Traffic To Your Blog? Get Traffic The Sociable Way Using social bookmarketing to get traffic to your blog is...