This is a guest post by Craig Sowerby from CraigSowerby.com.
Know matter what your purpose is with creating your sites or blogs if you do not have any traffic going to your squeeze pages, sales pages or even blogs; it’s like a little shop in a ghost town.
Content is King but it does not matter how good your content is, if it is not being looked at or read then what is the point.
You still have to market and promote your blogs and websites.
Having a blog is a great way to get your foot in the door of the Internet. But there is so many more elements to just posting content on to your blog. Just because you have a blog with some good content on it does not give you the right to have a mass of traffic that flood’s to your site.
Not only does your content have to be relevant to your readers you want your personality to run through your content, be just that bit different and entertain your audience. People will warm to the person behind the blog not the words they read on the screen.
Especially when you first start blogging, it just is not enough to post on your blog. You need to be getting more exposure and promoting like a rabbit on heat to get eyes reading your posts.
4 methods that I would like to share with you today are:
Guest Posting
So why would you even consider writing quality post for someone else’s blog.
Well if you put that same content on your own blog who would actually see it? Especially in the early days.
So writing a guest post is a sure way to get more exposure for you as well as your blog and products.
Why should any top blogs allow your post to be added to their well established blog? Well if you don’t try then you will never know. If at first you don’t succeed then keep trying. Just because you did not get accepted on that particular blog then try another.
Talk to the blog owner or editorial team and find out what sort of material they would be interested in. Sometimes they may have a dedicated post of rules and regulations of what is needed. Read older posts and find a feel for what the blog publishes. Check what the comments are discussing. Sometimes the comment section can turn into a whole new post in it self.
Forum Marketing
Ok this is a bit old school. But if you are a member of a highly trafficked forum with in your niche. You have all the traffic you could possible need. All you need to do is siphon that traffic from the forum back to your blog. By using the signature file in your profile. Having a line or two of text linking back to your blog or squeeze page
You will want to offer VALUE with in the community. Contribute to other threads and help other marketers that have problems. Become the person that people look for when they have a problem. When you help others then people will start talking about how you helped them out and people will start searching for you and wanting to know more about you. They only need to look in your signature file to find more about you
Social Media
This is the new staying in. The top 2 big hitters are Facebook and Twitter. But there is a mass of social sites and it would take ages to list the lot. Some other top social sites include Digg, Stumble Upon, LinkedIn…….. It really is a must to get your content out there and getting more eyeballs towards your blog. Your content has the potential to go viral. If other members like what they see they can recommend it to their followers tweet it, like it stumble it. So that one piece of content can be seen all over the net.
There are also a lot of Word press Plugins that can help automate a lot of this work. Word press is now becoming the industry standard for most blogs and sites
- Digg Digg – is one that I have only started using. It is nice looking with a crisp clean finish. You can add a load of the top social sites to appear making it easy for the reader to add to their social account
- Sexy Bookmarks – I used this before using Digg Digg. I personally think Digg Digg looks better as you see it on the page all the time.
- Facebook Like – If you want to concentrate on Facebook then this a neat plugin will add the like button at the top or bottom of a page
- Facebook Comment – This is even more exposure for your content through Facebook. People can actually leave a comment using their Facebook account instead of the standard word press reply. So it makes it even more interesting for people to check out your blog
- Tweetmeme – For all the twitter maniacs. Makes it simple to retweet and share post over at twitter. This plugin and the Facebook like are within the Digg Digg and sexy bookmarks plugin.
- OnlyWire – Will submit your content to all the social sites that you have created and add in the settings of the plugin
Content Syndication
Once you have posted your content onto your blog, why leave it there. Get it out there to as many places as possible. You might say this is going to go against Google’s rules and your content will be penalized for duplicate content. But this is not about SEO, it’s about getting more exposure to your blog. Ah the duplicate content rules. There is so much noise about this subject. Does it exist or is it just made up, so you buy spinning tools.
Here are my thoughts on duplicate content. I am not saying this is true or set in stone it is just my thoughts, like Google’s algorithm nobody really knows what it is except of course Google
When there is a major news story do all the news and press release sites have each story spun to make it different from the original source? That would be a lot of work before getting that exclusive news out to the masses. Of course Google will rank original content more fairly but if you have the same content on thousands of websites. Then Google has to decide where to put them in order of relevancy and authority.
As I said this is not an article about SEO but getting more exposure to your blogs/sites so let’s not go off track here. Want my take? Duplicate content is fine for article marketing and building links, but do not use it on your main site or sites.
So once you have it posted to your blog start posting it to these other sites for a lot more exposure. Most of the time you are only submitting the Link, Title and short description anyway.
Blog Carnivals – A Blog Carnival is very similar to a magazine. It is a blogging community where other bloggers share their content for other’s to read. The articles can contain any type of subjects from all types of bloggers. So when submitting you need to make sure you submit it in the correct category.
If there is a carnival for a topic that interest you, start following it and you will see what other bloggers are talking about. You will then be able to share your content with like-minded bloggers
Blogging Communities – This is very similar to the social sites but dedicated to blogging. You will also have to take your time and interact with other bloggers like you do on the social site. Vote for other people’s content that you like and not just keep submitting your content as you will end up becoming a spammer and probably band. Now I am still testing to see which are better and others have been recommended to me.
- Bloggerbase.com
- Blogengage.com
- Blokube.com
- Serpd.com
- Bizsugar.com
- Bloginteract.com
- Betternetwork.com
- MMOSocialnetwork.com
- BloggerDen.com
- Community.bloggerluv.com
Another place to add your blog post is at imnewswatch.com. Of course this has to be more of a news story and no promotions, but just another place to get more traffic. Easy to come over as the news story is a new post on your blog.
I hope you enjoyed my guest post and you have learnt something new. If you want to add more great tips and advice lets hear what you have to say in the comments below.
This post is a part of SmartBloggerz’s guest blogging contest where you can win cash prizes for earning the most points. Help this guest author win this contest by commenting and sharing this post using the buttons below.
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Hey Mushfique,
I would highly recommend in getting started to guest post on some higher trafficked blog that is with in your niche.
Also from testing the blogging communities the best performance for me so far have been Bizsugar & Blokube
Here is another great little tip if you are using forum marketing. Look back on older post that were very active having a lot of views and comments. See if you can revive the subject. Add your own spin on it or bring it up to date
Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog. You not only flatter the person by acknowledging their celebrity, you nearly guarantee yourself a link or at least an association with a brand that can earn you readers.
Hi Nicholas,
I have never asked well know marketers to add content to my blog. I usually do interviews with them to either add to my blog or turn into products.
Maybe that should be something I should consider for the future.
Craig, I particularly liked the fact that you were guest blogging while you talked about guest blogging… definitely goes to show how good of a tactic it is to increase your own blog’s traffic – I know that I’ve already visited yours and liked what I saw! I’m relatively new to blogging and posts like this give me all sorts of ideas. Thanks for the information, I’ll be reading again soon!
Hi Brad,
Yeah guest posting is a very good way to get more exposure especially in the earlier days. You can only reach out so far on your own.
But networking and building relationships with other marketers can open so many more doors for you.
Social media and guest posting are the main best strategies which can give your web traffic a big boost. they are also very simple and works with high speed. and both of them i am using on my own blogs and they works very well for me.
Hey Craig,
Yes, of-course I think Guest Blogging is one of the best tactics to make our website quality after the update of Google’s Panda. It is an boost up process for both the website. And here yours is a nice post. Social Media here also playing a vital role now-a-days, the one who knows to use it in proper ways can reach the market leadership.
Thanks for the comment Fori,
I am in the process of doing more guest posts as I have seen a jump in traffic not just from the blog I guest post for but others who have tweeted, liked or shared the post on other social sites.
So if you provide value you can gain exposure from all over the net!
Hey, you have posted some cool tips. Guest posting had always been the best and now a days blogging communities are emerging out to be a great source of targeted traffic. There is a lot potential in it and it is not saturated yet, so we should focus on getting readers from there.
I have only really started using the blogging communities but have seen from my stats that they do deliver the traffic.
If you have any further recommendations that are not on my list. It would be appriciated
Hi Craig,
I agree with the 4 methods you mentioned on how to get more blog traffic and exposure. Of all the four of them, social media is the easiest and it is fun too. 🙂
Social media is not just becoming a very good source for traffic, but it is also become very very important for SEO purposes
Sites like Facebook are now over taking Google in the most visited sites and when your content or sites are linking back from these high PR sites it is great for SEO and ranking high in the serps
Great list and some handy tips on getting that extra exposure. Guest posting seems like the way to go these days. It is the new article marketing.
IN some ways this is a disturbing trend. I see some sites that allow tons of guest posts that are of a distinct lower quality than their own posts. IN the long run I think this can hurt some of the blog owners and there may be a backlash.
Of course there are many people who do still kill it with guest posts. (Just to be clear…your guest post is fine. I am not being subtly passive aggressive).
I guest my point is I hope people are putting out their BEST work with guest posts. After all this creates a first impression and you only have one chance for those
It will only be time, well it is happening right now!
When guest bloggers just spin articles and content to get more exposure on other sites.
I just recently had a blogger wanting to guest post on my site. When I checked it through copy scape I found the same article only re written
I agree with you more especially with guest posting and social media. Social media these days is the best and the most powerful way to spread your business… Getting your sites promoted these ways can surely give you a good traffic.
Just get out there and hustle! Make sure you have your content with as much eyeballs on it as you can!
Having good content without any traffic going at it is quite pointless. Guest posting is definitely a great way to bring more eyes to your content. Just be sure to put your best effort forward when you do a guest post because sometimes you only get one shot.
Forum marketing is something I have not given a fair try yet but social media is definitely full of ever increasing potential.
If you are thinking of going into forum marketing. Here is a little tip.
Find a subject that might be a year or two old. But it has had a lot of activity, meaning there has been a lot of views and comments.
Read through it and see if you can revive it and bring it up to date. Or if you have used the methods put your own spin on it. Of course do not forget to add a link in your signature file