Traffic Tips for your Website or Blog

Traffic (or at least quality traffic) is the lifeblood to all websites. We all want it, but how do we get it? In this post we discuss traffic tips for your website or blog. 

Do we pray for luck that one of our videos or posts will go viral or is it just putting in the hard yards each year delivering quality content that enables you to become an “overnight success”? Or better yet, if you did become an “overnight success” and traffic started flooding your website, are you set up to advantage of this surge of traffic? Below we discuss traffic tips for your website or blog.

So how do we become the blog or website that gets high quality referral or organic traffic?

Assuming you are publishing great content (I believe that publishing great content that is solving a problem will help you to win the day). Let’s look at the types of traffic your website might encounter (these are broken down into Free and Paid sources):

 

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FREE TRAFFIC

 

Free traffic could mean a website refers (or links) to your website, you could get some great free (organic) SEO traffic or you could get a shout out on a popular podcast. *Note, some of these free sources can also be paid source of traffic as well.

Guest posting

Find authority sites in your niche (or an overlapping niche) and reach out for the opportunity to provide a guest post. A lot of these sites won’t allow guest posts, keep going until you find one that does (they are out there. The simplest way to find guest post opportunities is to use Google. Brian Dean writes a great post about how to search Google for guest post opportunities.

Tools like Alexa’s overlap tool will help you identify similar sites to yours that may offer guest posting opportunities. Also check out sites like My Blog Guest or get ideas from All Top to help you with guest post opportunities. Or can you go the old-fashioned route and ask for the opportunity to guest post on a site.

On the flip side of you applying for a guest post, also be on the lookout for a good quality guest post to feature on your site. This could open a new market or traffic source from your guest poster (they may have several thousand followers or subscribers who will now be exposed to your blog or website).

Article sites/directories

Although not so common these days (particularly from an SEO point of view), article sites/directories can also provide traffic. Depending on the niche, article sites (where you publish fresh content and link back to your own blog or website) can give you a small boost in traffic numbers. An example of an article site is eHow.

Commenting on popular posts or articles

As with article sites this was a more popular method a few years ago (particularly to build backlinks).

By providing insightful comments that improve the post or article, you may get fellow readers wanting to follow your writing (if your additions or questions are of quality).

Plus, it’s also a great way of getting noticed by the author of the post or website. Neil Patel and Spencer Haws are really good at responding to comments on their posts.

SEO (including backlinks, etc)

SEO will have its own dedicated post however organic SEO is a great way to get traffic to your website. This is the best example of qualified free traffic (for the right keyword) to your blog or website. Once you get an understanding of how SEO works and get a handle on keywords (and how to use these with your site and content) organic SEO can drive some serious traffic to your site. Either get serious in understanding SEO or hire a professional to help you and your site.

Video

Aside from good content you will also need to provide quality production and have an understanding how YouTube works for SEO purposes. YouTube (on top of being the second most popular site in the world) is also one of the largest search engines on the internet.

Nail the above (and providing your niche is suited to video) and you will be getting some nice traffic via video (and YouTube). With video you can also expand upon your existing content or create content that is completely new. Look at people such as Lilly Singh or Felix Kjellberg as examples of people who have built large subscribers which in YouTube.

Podcasts

As with video above, podcasts allow you to expand your content offering and reach more people. Used well and successful podcasts can drive traffic to your website or other outlets that you may have. Again, you can use your existing content, or you could offer something totally unique. Look for people such as Pat Flynn or Bill Simmons who have built successful podcasts on top of their previous successful platforms.

Q & A sites/Forums

This also depends on the niche you are targeting however these sites can be a great way to drive traffic to your site. Build up your profile, provide high quality answers or suggestions to relevant (to your niche) questions or topics and you could be driving some nice qualified traffic to your site. Forums don’t have as much traffic as a site such as Reddit or Quora, however if you are in a very specific niche (and have built up authority) the traffic is more qualified meaning more subscribers or sales. Try not to waste too much time here as your answers (content) are being used on a site that isn’t yours.

PBN/PIN***

Whilst this technique can drive traffic it is also against the rules of Google and can lead to a penalty from Google. A PBN (or PIN) is a private business network and essentially allows you to use a group of sites to link to your new site for SEO ranking purposes. I don’t recommend this (particularly if you are looking at building an authority site) so do this at your own risk!

Reach out to influencers

You can do this directly (through email or social media) or through a post where you profile an influencer or influencers in your niche and let them know and maybe you get a shout out back.

This style of post was more popular several years ago however it can’t hurt to provide a favourites or experts post and reach out to the featured people via social media.

You will have a better chance at success if you reach out with some quality information, feedback or a quality post than if you hit these people up to help you straight away. Always provide value not just to your readers but to people who you want to help grow your site.

Social media

The popularity of social media has exploded in recent years and the ability to drive traffic has increased with this popularity.

Examples of ways to drive traffic from your social media channels could include:

Instagram stories, Facebook messenger, Facebook groups, Twitter short stories, etc.

By using the correct hashtags, correct times/days to post and the feeds of the relevant search engines can also drive traffic to your blog or website.

Writing for an authority site or news site (i.e. Huffington Post)

If you can get your post or article featured on an authority site (i.e. Huffington Post) you are tapping into their millions of readers who may take a liking to your content. Whilst it isn’t easy getting featured on one of these sites, it can be well worth it from a traffic perspective!

Other

Other examples for traffic could include:

• Get featured on an authority website via a write up or interview which could be written, video or audio.
• Get featured by a local news outlet (either video or written).
• Social media shout out by a popular influencer.
• Get invited to a Virtual summit.
• Get invited to speak or present at an event of conference.
• Networking a conference or an event.

 

PAID TRAFFIC

 

As the title implies paid traffic is traffic that comes to your site through payment. These include:

Advertising (Google ads, Facebook ads or boosts or other social media ads), sponsored posts, purchasing traffic from sites such as Outbrain

Paid SEO (will go into this in more detail in the SEO post) though essentially you will appear at the top of any search for a relevant keyword or phrase (depending on how much you’ve paid).

Sponsorships

I’ve split this up from advertising (which it is part of) and given this its own paragraph. Examples of sponsorships could include a paid advertisement on a popular podcase (i.e. Tim Ferriss) or even sponsoring (or advertising) a popular newsletter, one that is suitable to your niche or industry.

Paid Speaking Engagement/Virtual Summit

As per the description in the free option written above, there are some opportunities where you can pay to speak or present. Granted you will need to prove why you deserve a speaking or presenting spot however as mentioned above there are some lucrative opportunities if you find the right event.

Brand or PR Agency

This option can be expensive however it can also deliver some great results. Before undertaking an option like this know your budget, know what you expect to get out of this option and be ready for the traffic opportunities that will occur. Be aware that this option in most cases will be expensive!

Whichever way you wish to go make sure you have a plan. Make sure your content is great and that once you get the traffic you know what to do with it. When going down the paid route make sure that you have your budget set. Also make sure that you do a lot of testing and once you find the traffic source that works for you, keep scaling!

 

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