Friday, February 10, 2012

How to Increase Blog Traffic - Top 8 Ways


Are you happy with the amount of traffic you're currently getting to your blog?

Do you want to increase the number of visitors reading your content?

There are thousands of abandoned blogs on the Net because they didn't receive enough traffic to make them profitable or the owners simply lost interest. In order to create and sustain a blog you must be passionate abut your niche because it requires a constant investment of time and energy.

Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. If you fail to get visitors to read your blog you won't sell products or get subscribers. There are 2 major ways to generate traffic to your blog. One works very fast while the other is more long-term.

Paid traffic

Pay-per-click

This is where you create ads which appear on the right side of the search engine results. When someone clicks on your ad they'll be taken to your website. A profitable pay-per-click campaign is one in which your profit is greater than what you invested. For instance if your budget is $300/month and your profit is $1000/month your profit is $700/month.

Ezine advertising

This refers to placing an ad in an ezine that caters to your specific niche. For example if the ezine has 50,000 responsive subscribers you will generate immediate traffic from your ad.

Free traffic

There are 100s of ways to generate free traffic to your blog however I'll discuss the 8 most effective methods I've used and still use to generate traffic to my blog or websites:

1. Great content

I added this method first because "content is king" on the Internet. If you create content that contains great value it will automatically be shared with others thus attracting more visitors. To create great content think like your potential customers and try to solve their most pressing problems. They'll be very grateful for it.

2. Search engine optimization

Before adding content to your blog do some initial keyword research using Google's free keyword tool to see how many searches a keyword phrase receives each month. Weave the keyword phrase into the content so search engines will find your post. Include your main keyword at the beginning of the title meta tag, in the description meta tag, the title of your content and a few times throughout the body of your content.

Avoid keyword stuffing because this often alters the flow of your content and search engines may regard it a "thin" content which affects your rankings.

3. Article marketing

Write a unique article of 500 words that provides several tips for your readers. Assign one paragraph for each tip. Add your author resource box at the end of your article. It should include a call to action and a link to your website.

To get people to read your article publish it on your blog first then rewrite some of it and submit it to the top article directories. Some directories receive millions of visitors each day so you'll be able to get your content in front of that traffic and redirect them to your website.

4. Ezine marketing

Instead of just submitting your article to article directories select several targeted ezines in your niche and submit your content for publication. The beauty of this method is that you get more readers interested in your content because it's a targeted audience.

5. Guest blog posts

It's not easy for blog owners to always create new unique content several times a week therefore they often accept guest blog posts to feed their blog. This provides a great opportunity for other bloggers to redirect some traffic from a popular blog to their own blog with a guest post.

Create a list of popular blogs in your niche. Read their content and leave constructive comments before contacting the author to submit a guest post so they'll see your not just a random visitor. You may even get the opportunity to be a regular guest poster once you've established a good relationship with the blog's author.

6. Social media

Use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to interact with your audience and build a community of people interested in your content. When people get to know, like and trust you they're more likely to purchase your products.

7. Video marketing

Many people prefer to watch and listen to content rather than read it. Video enables you to engage with your audience more than text. Since YouTube receives 3 billion views each month it makes sense to get in front of this traffic by uploading videos to YouTube. It could be as simple as converting your article into video by reading it on camera or creating a video slide show.

It's easier to get high rankings for your videos in the search engines than written content because there's less competition (not everyone is doing it).

8. Newsletter

Creating a regular newsletter is a great way to build a community of people you can stay in touch with on a regular basis. It enables you to build long-term relationships with them so you can recommend new products as well as offer new ideas and tips to build their online business.

I recommend subscribing to a dedicated email list provider that stores all your contacts in an online database so they are easy to manage. You'll also be able to create automatic follow-up messages as well as schedule the publication of your newsletter on a specific date (i.e. next week).

If you take action on these 8 ways to get visitors to your blog and do it frequently and consistently your blog traffic will steadily increase.


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