How To – 3 Core Traffic Drivers
After almost two years of blogging and learning the ropes so to speak, I have come down to three core traffic builders that have worked for me here on my Blog. Let me state up front, Blogging is not easy, getting traffic through free (not buying traffic) methods still costs you something in time. In fact, all three of these Core Traffic Drivers require planning and time.
Before I get into my big three, one thing you should do is study the traffic you already have, look for when they are coming to your Blog, time of day and which days of the week. That will help you determine a good posting schedule, which days to post and what time of day to do so. The busiest times on this blog are between 5PM – Midnight Pacific Time, so I post a few hours before 5 PM, I may do a late night post around 10 PM too. I can only share with you what I have done, I use WordPress with Headway Themes,(affiliate link) it has great SEO support within the theme, so I highly recommend it. The big 3 have sub-sets of things you will have to do as well, nothing is truly simple.
OK, let me share with you the 3 core traffic drivers that are working for me.
3 Core Traffic Drivers
1.) Social Media Networks – I have to tell you this is where most of my traffic comes from, not because I’m there, but because I’m always there and you will see me participating with a few people. Thats the hot tip with this Core Driver, openning up an account and then hoping it will just happen will fail you time & time again. Now I realize not all of you will have the same amount of time I invested in Social Media Networks so bare with me for a bit. When I started using these networks I learned alot about what not to do, I’m not going to get into those things in this post but may do so at a later time. In fact, I did write a post here on Owen Greaves Consulting called, ” 10 Days To a 1000 Followers ” , this tells of how I started with Twitter.
One of the key secrets to using these networks is to centralize, make your Blog your home base. Use plug-ins to send your blog posts to your out-posts. Out-posts are these networks, FriendFeed, FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace and so on, there are so many of them out there I won’t list how many I use.
The best way to use these networks is to promote other people, promote other peoples products 9 times out of ten, promote your site, products and services at a 1 in 10 or 1 in 12 ratio. Edify others always, help others always,and build powerful relationships with those who are likeminded with you and your blog. Share, Share and share information you find useful for others, things that are interesting and helpful, information that teaches and directs. You need to become a TRUST AGENT,(affiliate link) someone who connects with others and connects business with others, make a positive impact on society. Maximize Social Media Networks, it’s word of mouth that can put you on the map or take you off it.
2.) Consistant Blog Posting – There’s not much to say on this topic because it plain works, post regularly to your blog and the search engines go nuts! This means a couple things, I won’t go into detail but there are a couple of other things you need to pay attention to while here.
a) SEO – I’m not especially strong on this topic but I have learned how to make it work for me. There is a science here that baffles most people, it can be learned so expect to spend some time here. You may need to get help, so don’t feel bad if you don’t grasp it.
b) Study your sites traffic numbers for the purposes of scheduling your regular blog posting strategies.
I have found that posting to your blog regularly builds traffic better than anything, especially if your posts are teaching something of value. This post will be useful to many and should generate considerable traffic, why, because everyone, and I mean everyone is trying to find the silver bullet to getting traffic to their blog.
Again, I won’t go into details on SEO & traffic numbers but they are important. My secret weapon is Headway Themes. (affiliate link)
3.) Commenting on other Blogs /Forums – I fought this hard for along time, I just didn’t want to spend time on other blogs, it felt like I was wasting time. I was WRONG! I think this item is a true weapon for Bloggers, especially high profile blogs & forums that have large followings. I mentioned earlier that this traffic thing takes time, lots of time, and lots of your time.
So what do you do at these Blogs & forums? Answer questions, help those looking for answers, ask a question you need answered, promote someone else’s product or service, strongly disagree on a post, you will get noticed for sure. I can’t stress enough how good this works, I challenge you to spend some time on this and see what happens.
So there ya have it, 3 Core Traffic Drivers that I do and have been working for me, I have not paid for any traffic, I have paid for Affiliate products which you will find in this post and on my blog. Someday I’ll spend money for traffic, but I haven’t as of this writing.
I hope these help you, I’m here helping you make sense of Social Media, Blogging and I.T. Strategies, let me know how it goes for you, please leave comments and suggestions below, I really would love to hear what’s working for you.
Technology Questions To Think About
I have been surfing about looking at sites selling different products & services, it got me to wondering if the technology they chose is working for all these business sites. I thought I would share a few questions that have been rattling around in my knoggin. Here ya go:
1.) Does technology help fill your sales funnel, and how?
2.) Has or does technology help build your brand?
3.) Does your current technology build community?
4.) Does your technology match your business processes?
5.) Is your technology easy to use?
6.) Which technology do you like best?
7.) Does your current technology improve productivity?
8.) Is your technology doing what you need it to do?
The strategic planner in me wonders how much work or time was put into determining what was going to work best and how they measured the solutions used. I’ve often said, if you don’t have your business process documented, how can you possibly know if a software or hardware solution actually handles 70, 80, 90% of your problems.
Anyway, I was thinking out loud and thought I would share my technology questions.
If It's Free – Don't Ask for My Credit Card!
One of the down sides to monetizing Blogs and websites is, they try to capture as much of your contact information as possible upfront, including credit card details. I understand why, but it also operates on the assumtion mode or that you will forget that you signed up and gave all that information. Next thing you know you are paying for something you didn’t want anymore. I’m sure I’m over reacting but, I get miffed at sites that say the 1st month is free but give me your credit card information before we give you access.
I won’t name names because just about every site selling a service or product practices this model and it really needs to be re-thoughtout (is that a word?) further in my humble opinion. I rarely sign up for services that practice the credit card collecting up front, if it’s a trial then they can come back to me when the trial is about to lapse. These days trying before buying is an even better way to go, especially with the new Social Media environment claiming transparency practices.
In the day and age of transparency & trust, we should think about the message being sent when asking for credit card information on the marketing of ” The 1st Month is on Us”. If that’s true, let us sign up and try it, if we want it, come to us later and ask us to stay on and then ask a payment method. I know you think thats bad business, but really? I think the opposite, it would tell me you are so sure of your product and you are willing to lose me if its not a good product or service. Of course this doesn’t work with all products and services but, if you are offering a trial opportunity, then make it just that, don’t charge or ask for creditcard or payment method up front.
If it’s FREE! – Don’t ask for my credit card!
Do You Know The Depth of Your Twitter Following?
Have you ever wondered how many people you actually reach through those who follow you? Have you wondered how many of those followers are online at the same time you are? Does the information even matter?
If you are selling a service or product you may want to know some of this data, it can help you target and schedule what time to do promotions. You could be doing research on another Twitter account or follower. At best you will be amuzed at the data, it makes me wonder whats happening in the Blogesphere. But make no mistake, if you’re in marketing the information can be a great asset to your marketing toolbox. It can validate or affirm whether what’s happening is real or has potential.
So why even bring this up, I was wondering about reach, I was wondering who at any given time might see what you were Tweeting when you were Tweeting it. Afterall, you want traffic to your blog right? You want traffic to see what you are about and what you do right?
I have to make a disclaimer here, I used just one site for this excerise, Twitter Analyzer, I’m also skeptical of these kinds of sites, why, accuracy, I have no way of proving how accurate the data actually is.
Anyway, let me share a couple things for you to do, you’ll get an idea of what’s happening when you’re not looking. Oh, and be sure to write the data down so you can look at it later.
TWITTER ANALYZER
Step 1
When you first put your name in the dialogue box you have to wait for a short bit, then you will be brought to a page with all the data it was able to extract from Twitter, the first stat is how many Tweets you made for the last week and the current day. It’s not an important number but interesting to see how active you are any given day.
Step 2
While on the User button click on the Popularity button just above it, you will see total mentions and total unique users monitoring. Click on any date on the graph for the details to posted below.
Step 3
Still on the User tab, click on the Reach button above, You can select a date but it will auto-select the current date for you. Three stats will be shown, Unique Readers Reach, Unique Users RTing and Total Update Messages RTed.
Step 4
Now lets click on the FRIENDS tab on the bottom, Click on On-Line Followers button. Here you will see who is online by the hour, it’s an eye opener if you have lots of followers. Even if you don’t it can be an interesting stat, it keeps you humble too : )
Step 5
The next one to look at is the Followers Density Map, this one shows where your followers live by country. Another very interesting stat depending on where you live, the majority of my followers are from the USA, no big surprise, #2 is, GB – Great Britan, and #3 EC – Ecuador! I didn’t see that one coming.
As you can see you can extract some interesting data, there’s alot more you can do at this site like how many followers your followers have by groups. For example, 32% of my followers have 1,000 – 2,000 followers. 11.27% of my followers have 10,000 – 20,000 followers. That appears to be the highest demographic as that’s all it shows me on the high end. The problem is, I happen to know that The Ellen Show is following me and has over 4 million followers, why doesn’t that get reflected in this section? I’m just say’in. Oh and by the way, Paul Rickett sent me this Tweet:
@paulrickett Notice on Twitter analyzer it doesn’t seem to know abt Canada in density reach? Appears to put all Cdns into US!
Have fun checking your stats and your friends stats, if you work for a corporation this information could be very useful. This site and many others can help you answer the question, do you know the depth of your Twitter following?
5 Stars for Amber Naslund at Altitude Branding
I was over at altitudebranding.com’s website responding to one of Amber Naslund’s brilliant blog posts, she gets 5 stars from me almost everytime she posts something. I think many of us have rants pent up deep down inside, but we’re not sure what it is or where we should put it. I can’t articulate as well as Amber, but I too share her concern and wish list if you will.
Please read her article called, Will The Business People Please Stand Up! You can read my response there too and I am including it here below as well, why, because I think my response is a good blog post too : )
Hi Amber,
OK, You got me on this one, I know what you are trying to say but lets look at who we are talking to in this environment. Forgive me if I come off ranting.
I am only going to draw from my experiences of being here online since the late 80’s when Gohper and WAIS were the tools of the day, FTP was the strongest tranfer tool ever!
It will appear like I’m tooting my own horn but really I’m not, like you, my hearts desire is that I could share my experiences from the trench building sound I.T. Strategies, showing Blog readers how a traditional ROI is calculated, and show you how to determine your businesses breakeven point, but that’s kind of boring me thinks.
Walking through an I.T. Strategic Plan, the steps you should consider working through to at least set the foundation for that plan, that’s not all that exciting either. You can find the above on my Blog, not in great detail but at least at a high-level approach.
There are literally hundreds of, if not thousands of sites on how to do a proper business plan too.
Everything you mentioned plus mine above are badly needed from a professional perspective, but my experience so far, here in Social Media circles anyway, people are not that serious about how to do those things. This is still a place to escape to after the day job, or even during the day job.
The How to build a good blog, how do I monetize it and make millions, the how do I get 10 million followers and so on seem to be the lions share of Internet users and scammers today. Even I want to learn some of those things.
My point is, right now, I would love to see what you have so brilliantly articulated but the reality is, the circle is still too small. Why? Business owners still don’t fully understand what they have in their hands when it comes to the Internet.
You & I know many of the same great people working hard to change the mindset, we want to educate and arm business owners with the right tools, metrics and perspective to succeed here. The problem is, they still don’t take this platform seriously enough, it’s still recreation.
Sorry but I had to get that off my chest. There’s more but it’s a moot point.
So what’s the answer, I think you & I and host of others must stay the course, continue to fight the battles we can win, do our best to educate the business owners if they’ll listen. This is going to take a little longer than I would like to see, but I know eventually this environment will have to be taken seriously because the shift is well under way.
It’s not that different than trying to save people from going to hell, business is changing rapdily, if you don’t change with it, your out of business.
Owen