Blog Traffic Secrets

Blog Traffic Secrets

Search Engine Traffic and Social Traffic. The real secret on how to create blog traffic success is WORK. There are bloggers out there that are much more successful than I in generating visibility and they will tell you this...blogging is work. I'm not talking drudgery. I'm talking commitment. That is why you never hear me pitch gimmicks or tactics that promise traffic will very little effort. Let me qualify this statement about work also by saying that blogs as publishing and content management systems are much easier, time efficient and cost efficient when compared to standard web sites. Your work and labor involves your commitment to relationship building and socializing your message to a niche. Now this may be a bit disappointing to some marketers who want use blogs as brochures and sales pages. However, if done right you can use your blog to driving traffic to any page you like for added revenues and business profitability. SEO versus SMO Search engine traffic is vitally important to your blog success. No question about it. Those who are committed to publishing with a blog are experiencing great success in search rankings. These people know the only secret is the work of being committed to serving the wants or needs of a niche market with great information. That is the key to revenues with a blog. Let's talk about a few comparisons between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Marketing Optimization (SMO). Keywords vs. Community Content vs. Conversation Content Consumers vs. Content Creators Search Engine Optimization = How well you pull traffic from high ranking content Social Marketing Optimization = How well you pull traffic from high ranking reputation By examining the comparison above I want you to realize that no successful blog thrives on search traffic along. Also, volume of traffic is the best indicator of success either. But successful blogs do get significant search traffic because they tend to have a lot of inbound links and relevant content. To increase traffic to your blog you must have a definite aim of cultivating social dialogue with your blog and from your blog. This can seem like a bit more human work but it isn't as labor intensive as you might think. The Art of Social Marketing with Blogs There are three focal points I would like to pass to you as helpers for you in building traffic to your blog. These three points should be used deliberately as social marketing components. 1. Rank Well 2. Link Well 3. Sell Well Rank Well. This focal point is more about reputation that about search engine traffic. I have a more specific article about search engine rankings and blogs in an article entitled Search Engine Marketing for Beginning Bloggers. Your ranking well focus should identify what you want to known for. Now this might sound obvious to some but this is important because in this age of bloggers and citizen generated media, links are just points to your content. Links represent word of mount, opinion, influence and they say some about you. Links now carry with them conversations. You need to decide what you want your reputation to be like and drive content into your market that will get links (and lots of them!) pointing back to you and sending traffic to you based on this reputation. Your Rank Well focus is about reputation and expertise. Link Well. This focal point is both the way of the blogger. Blogging is still about linking your audience to information that matters most them and establishes you and their expert. Remember this: Who you link to is just as important as what you link to. Don't be gun shy in pointing your customers and prospects to other content. Demonstrate that you are the newsmaster for your brand and niche. Your audience will thank you for it with repeat visits and referrals. Bloggers absolutely love to refer their audience to any source the have examined and trustworthy, informs their audience and builds their reputation in the eyes of their audience. It's the exact same thing I'm stating you should do. While you are linking to great content you must also link to key bloggers in your niche or bloggers that have traffic that can especially benefit from your message. In an article published by Steve Rubel called Scoble's Law of Five, Steve writes about Scoble's tip on getting your product noticed by strategically mentioning their names in posts to play to their egos. This tips makes a good addition to what I've mentioned here before and most serious bloggers know. Bloggers watch their reputations and citations vigorously. Any mention of them or link to them get's their attention. When you link to another blogger as well and mention them you are helping to socialize your message. When your message gets picked buy another blogger that increases your traffic and exposure. Remember this: Your traffic potential is always exponential. Any blog that has been published decently for a time has a social network that can grow your traffic by a factor of (n). The growth factor is potentially exponential yet unknown because you cannot predict the exact multiples of growth with have a full accounting of the exact readership of each blog. Suffice it to say however that even if a blog has just one reader you and that blog cites your blog you just gained traffic with a multiplier of two (the publisher and the one reader). You don't know how many people they in turn will reach on your behalf. Your linking is important. Key citations and links can explode your traffic literally overnight and that's the truth. You don't have to link to everyone to get traffic and everyone you link to won't send you traffic. That nature of blogs is that they are link magnets period. You just don't have the visibility into all the eyeballs you can reach simply by linking to a few key blogs which in turn refer you to others and so on. But also remember that each person influences and unknown number of people. The result is that you starting getting all kinds of back links from places you never thought point to you on the basis of your reputation and expertise which is dictated by the content you publish. Sell Well. This focal point centers on a solid plan to win revenue through reputation. When using blogs in your marketing mix it is best to use blogs in the way in which they work best for you. Socializing. Selling well with a blog includes your content as much as you communication. It is as much about your quality of your information as it is about your conversation. A simple blog revenue roadmap is this: relationship -> reputation -> revenue Blogs excel at publishing information as digital conversations for the purposes of establishing relationships, building reputation...and driving revenue. Your money is in your message and what you come to be known for through your blog.