Authors: Healthy Living
Electric Pressure Cooker: Perfect Recipes To Get Meals On The Table In No Time (Clean Eating, Paleo, AIP, Gluten Free, Vegan, Healthy Diets, Nourishing, Cookbook) (33 page)
Before I begin talking about
the limitless ways to build traffic to your blog, it is important to mention
that you must not try to grow your platform if your blog is not ready yet.
Always remember that
sustainable blog traffic growth can only happen if your content rocks. Having
somebody visit your blog once is just one thing – but having them to come back
again and again is another and that is the reason why awesome content is a
necessity if you want to profit from your blog.
Here are some of the
traditional ways to build traffic on your blog:
WORD
OF MOUTH
Word of mouth is a great way
to start building traffic on your blog – you tell your friends about your blog,
who in turn tell their family and friends and that is how your list of readers
increases – in case your content is read worthy.
Before you begin talking to
people about your blog, spend some time crafting your elevator pitch. This is a
thirty second overview of what your blog is about and how readers can benefit
from it. Once you are ready with the pitch, practice it, hone it and own it.
Here are some ideas about how
to build word of mouth publicity for your blog:
§
How
about sending a quick reminder to everyone in your address book whenever you
publish a new blog post?
§
Every
time, you publish a new blog post, share it with a comment on your Facebook
page and ask for feedback from relatives and friends.
§
Have
an inexpensive bumper sticker printed with your web address – this is how a
number of people with get to know about your blog and begin reading it.
§
Politely
ask people you know and trust to spread the word around – you could ask them in
person or include a link at the end of each blog post.
Remember, most first time
bloggers feel embarrassed promoting their blog and asking for feedback. This is
completely natural and should not discourage you from seeking support. Your
friends may even mock at you initially. Once again, don’t get discouraged by
this and just continue promoting your blog. Think of it as your business and
promote it as if you were promoting any other business.
COMMENTING
ON OTHER BLOGS
You may have heard about
shameless commenting on other, bigger blogs in order to drive traffic.
Well, here is the deal – while
bloggers pretty much love to get comments, it is important to realize that they
hate spammers – you just CANNOT scam the traffic these seasoned bloggers worked
incredibly hard to build.
A better approach here is to
read the blogs that you like – especially the ones that you feel have a great
crossover traffic – and leave a thoughtful comment with your blog URL only if
you genuinely have to say something. This means that your comments have to be
genuine, straight from your heart. If your comments are genuine and insightful,
they may lead other readers from the blog to reach out to you via your blog.
PROMOTE
OTHER BLOGS
If you already have a sound
database of readers, this ‘pay it forward’ approach can work wonders for your
own blog.
Promoting another blogger can
be as simple as linking back to another blogger whose post inspired any of your
posts. Most blogs have
trackbacks
on their blog posts
– this means that if you link a person’s blog, they will automatically get a
notification that you linked their blog. Now, I can’t vouch for others, but
whenever I receive such an alert, I definitely go and check the blog of the
person who linked me. And that is human psychology –
most people do that, by default!
Remember, the more you focus
on building other people’s blogs without accepting anything in return – the
more it comes back to you in many different ways.
NETWORKING
Networking can open new doors
for your blogging business. Apart from forging genuine friendships, you get the
opportunity to grow your blog. I must mention here that ‘true, genuine
friendships’ come first. If you make friends with the intention of growing your
business, your friends can see right through your eyes.
The best way to connect with
other bloggers is via blog conferences. This is a highly misunderstood
profession and I can’t tell you how amazing it is to be in the company of
like-minded people who understand what you do for a living.
Here are few things that you
can do at your first networking event:
Focus on making new
connections
: Even though you will be tempted to attend all
sessions in order to make up for the money that you spent, don’t fall into the
trap and if possible, spend some time going out for coffee with the girl you
met at breakfast or taking a small nap because you were busy chatting all night
with your roommate, who is now your friend.
Find a roommate
: Most
blogging conferences have Facebook groups with a roommate connection thread –
use that and get a roommate. Even if you and your roommate do not convert into
overnight best friends, there is something really comforting about knowing at
least one person in the group.
Listen more, speak less
: The
best way to learn is through listening – ask as many questions as you can and
listen to the answers in the most genuine manner possible. There is a reason
God gave us two ears and one mouth.
Listening and being genuinely
interested in the conversation is a gift that you can give to other people at
the conference and in the process, this can help you win genuine friends too.
You will also be amazed at the amount of learning this can get you.
Engage in meaningful
conversations
: Imagine meeting a new person and just handing
over your business card. What a turn off!
Focus on real conversations,
not card swapping. I don’t even keep the cards of people who I have not had a
great conversation with. If you are genuinely interested in developing a relationship
and don’t know what to say, ask a question.
Don’t let your new found
friendship fade away
: If you get a chance to develop authentic
connections and are lucky enough to find somebody as amazing as you are, don’t
let the friendship fade away after the conference. Start reading their blogs,
read their comments, send an occasional ‘Hi’, connect on Facebook – nurture the
relationship.
GUEST
POSTS
If done properly, guest posts
have an amazing potential to drive traffic to your own blog. The key to a great
guest post is to not post on a site with a similar audience but to write
something so great that your host’s readers are driven to your site in order to
read more of what you write. If you are interested in guest posting on other
sites, make sure that you ask for guidelines and always submit original
content. Also, do not try to be overly familiar – since this is not ‘your’
audience. You are writing for somebody else’s audience. Submit your best
content and never make your post self-promotional.
BUILD
YOUR E MAIL LIST
‘Building an email list’ model
is extremely impactful when you want to reach out to an audience that can be
converted into a sales funnel that you want to use in order to sell your
expensive courses or physical products. This model is extremely effective for
online marketers. However, for stay at home mommy’s, this model may sometimes
backfire – most of them will NEVER be interested in buying a $450 course.
Having said that, I still feel
that building an email list is important. You can connect with your audience
via newsletters and share news about your upcoming e-books and courses. I
personally use
Aweber
to build my list, but I have
also heard raving reviews about
MailChimp
.
As you build your email list,
remember to place the subscribe button at a prominent place in your blog.
Create some nice freebies for your subscribers – these could range from recipe
books to goal setting and time management guides – just make sure that you are
adding value to your readers.
Always promote the incentive
that you offer on social media
UNDERSTAND
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
As you create content,
remember to create content that is SEO friendly. You must remember that
Google’s only goal is to display the best possible content for a particular search.
The extremely sophisticated Google algorithms look at everything ranging from
the content on the web page to the time visitors spent on the page. Another
important thing to remember is that Google cannot be tricked via SEO. Here are
some things that you must know in order to create a blog post that is Search
Engine Optimized.
Title
Tag
: The title tag refers to words that show up at the very
top of your browser window when you open a particular web page. The default
title tag is generally the title of your post. However, it can be further
optimized – remember that you can change the title tag and make it as long as
you want, but Google will only read the first seventy characters.
You must therefore focus on optimizing the
first seventy characters
.
Meta
description
: The default meta description is the first 150
words of your post. You can change it too – it helps in telling Google what
your post is about.
Meta
Keywords
: Meta keywords are the search phrases that you
like to see associated with your post. They are more helpful in browsers such
as Yahoo or Bing.
UNDERSTANDING
THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
You may probably be familiar
with the numerous options of social media – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
Instagram, Google+,
StumbleUpon
, LinkedIn, Snapchat,
Reddit, etc.
Now, here is the point – I do
not want you to use all the options listed here. In fact, most social media is
a waste of time. Since you are treating your blog as your business, your time
on social media must be measured in terms of ROI. You may have over a million
Twitter followers. However, if none of them translate into readers
….well
, no point then!
You must work on developing
your presence on platforms where your readers tend to be. As an example, for
blogs targeted at women aged between 25-55, the ideal social media platform
would be Facebook or Pinterest. For a blog that focuses on entrepreneurs or job
seekers between the age group 25-40, the ideal social media platform would be
LinkedIn.
Figure out where your audience
is and use that platform – you want them to come back to your blog and read
about what you have to offer.
As you focus on building your
followers, remember
it is always quality
that matters over quantity
. While it seems nice to have over one million
followers (and I am sure a lot of them would be disengaged), it is nicer to
have around 10,000 actively engaged followers.
As you build your Pinterest
home page or your Facebook page, make sure that you use your blog name as your
Pinterest and Facebook name. Be sure to include your blog address too.
Join as many collaborative
boards as you can and be active – pin the relevant content on multiple boards.
You could join the Pinterest Collaborative Boards group on Facebook.
And now, time for action plan
from this chapter:
·
Start talking about your blog with family and
friends. Have some business cards printed and create an elevator
pitch.
Practice it at least once every day and OWN it.
·
Read and comment on other people’s blogs.
·
Promote other bloggers by featuring their
posts, or linking to a blog post that you really liked.
