The Best Traffic Strategies for Your Blog
So you have taken the plunge and started a blog on your site that will increase your page rank and cause you to rank even higher- good for you. Now before you get too excited and start to kick back, there are some blogging traffic strategies that you may want to know to help you even more in this game we call niche marketing.
You may be shocked to know that getting traffic for a blog is different than getting traffic for most other websites in that the blogging technology is full of social elements that are integrated into the results of the blog itself.
One way of marketing your site is to make connections. Your blog will be more about creating an internet buzz or giving people some water cooler talk about a certain topic, relating to your site and business, of course.
Here is a breakdown of how the social means of blogging works. If you started a blog on your site about hair care products, then know that your readers can easily begin to subscribe to your blogs through RSS and feed readers. They can then be updated every time that you publish the blog. Another fun fact is that many of your blog readers will probably be bloggers themselves, and often with a large following. So, if they decide to link to one of your blogs, then it can have a delightful domino affect of being viewed by all of their readers, opening a whole other door to you and expanding your market. Another thing to try on for size is that a popular blog will probably have reader feedback, like users asking you for answers about what hair care product would be best for their hair type, which will give you some new and unique content that your page can rank for in addition. An easy bonus!
Basically, what you are trying to go for in optimizing your blog is to spread the word about your topic and business and get a loyal following of people to give you their attention, rather than matching search relevancy algorithms by optimizing page copy. It can be done! There are several sites out there like WordPress and Blogger where you can host your blog, but I would advise against it. You are so much better off starting your own domain name with a reputable host, that way you can build your audience at a much faster pace without some of the limits of the sites mentioned.
From there, it is time to get creative. You need to brainstorm and find some content ideas for your blog that will catch the public’s eye and draw traffic to your blog. Utilize social news sites like The Digg to see what is the latest among social bookmarkers, and you can tie that to your business and blog so that what you are posting is relevant, catchy, and in demand. Many people will also use their own social media networks, like Twitter or Facebook, to update their followers on their latest blog posting so that you can have even more people flooding your site. Again, back to one of my past examples of connecting to people in social media circles as you would at a party, be sure to really relate to your followers on Twitter or elsewhere so that you are not simply popping in every day to plug your blog and only your blog. Users will get disinterested in that real quick. SEO blogging is under the same umbrella as all of the other niche marketing startegies- meaning you need to remain genuine to get the results you are looking for.
The Best Ways to Succeed in Social Media Marketing
What you may have noticed by now in promoting your website and business is that the majority of niche marketers out there are looking to the avenue of social media marketing to give them that extra edge and connection that they can’t get anywhere else. If you haven’t pursued the options in social media marketing that are out there, then you are sitting on an untapped resource, my friend, and I am here to give you some of the best ways that you can succeed in growing your online business through social media marketing.
First, when you are joining a site like Facebook, Squidoo, or Hubpages, make sure that you are there to make connections and form relationships. You must avoid self-promotion. If you take all of your time plugging yourself and your company, then the users will not respond well to that and your reputation in that particular social media site will be shot as a spammer. Believe it or not, when people begin to see you as a credible authority on your business and subject through social media sites, then they will come to you to ask you questions about, say poker chips and where to find them (if that is what your site sells), and that is how a loyal relationship with your customer is born. It almost seems a little old fashioned, doesn’t it?
Next, please do not try to ride someone else’s coat tails in their efforts. Be original! If you see someone that has taken the time to build a poker group, or anything related to your business, and you then jump in there and begin promoting yourself and your site, that is a serious social media marketing faux pas. People will not respect you when you are simply trying to edge in one what someone else has created, so it is wasted efforts on your part. Instead, be original, and take the time to create quality groups of your won that poker lovers can join to get the latest poker tips and find out where to get the best poker supplies.
Lastly, you completely need to give to get. If you want people to start checking out your site, your business, your poker tips, then you need to first look in to what they have to offer. If you are constantly sending people comments or tweets saying, “check out my new poker supplies at XXX”, then that comment will most likely be disregarded as spam. Instead, if you begin to go to other poker player’s blog and comment on them, then their interest will be peaked to visit your site or blog as well to see what you have to offer. You may notice that the majority of users in the social media marketing venues are all about taking and promoting, so just the mere fact of you showing interest in really connecting with someone else’s community will set you apart as a real person that people will want to buy from. And that is what you are, right?
I hope these ideas have shed some light for you on the best ways to navigate your way through the social media sites that are thriving out there right now. Use these tools for the proper internet marketing etiquette, and you will be surprised to see how easily it gets you ahead in the game and draws traffic to your site. Brilliant!
Learning How to Start Out in Social Media Marketing
Now that you have learned the vast amount of ways that you can promote your business and website through social media marketing, your next step is to actually put it all into practice. I’m sure that it may seem overwhelming at first, but this is your time to shine without training wheels! Let me just say that these social media sites truly beat marketing methods where you hand out our business card to random people you meet who will probably throw it away shortly thereafter. This has been proven to be a sure way to make a lasting impression on your niche market and to draw traffic to your site.
You have to be willing to experiment in your social media circle. If you are one of the many users out there that tries Twitter, Facebook, or Hubpages and feel like it didn’t work to market your site, then I have to say that you may not have been putting your efforts into the right areas. If you have simply set up a profile in several sites but have not put forth the necessary effort, then of course you are not going to see hardly any results in that time period, sad to say. When you actually delve into these communities, good or bad, then you will be able to know what does or doesn’t work in marketing your site.
Stick to the ideas that work. When you are putting yourself out there in the social media sites, and you notice that one of your particular comments or groups or blogs got quite a few responses, then you should stick to that for as long as it is working for you! There is a reason that numerous people responded to your specific blog topic or tweet, so you need to tap into that resource and give your audience more of what they are looking for. From there, you can check out what your peers are doing to succeed, because there are so many people out there like you who are using these social media sites to promote their service or business, and it is working for someone! You wisest move would be to pay attention to the individuals who are creating a mass following and see how they do it. People on every social media site do want to take an interest and follow other users, which is why they are all there as a community. The catch is that the person worthy of the large following has to provide a genuine reason as to why the public should be interested in him or her. Seems easy enough, right?
My personal recommendation to you is to get away from the cookie cutter type approach to people and begin to market what is unique about you. Whether you make a personality for yourself that is related to your site, or just tailor your approach to people in a more personal way, you want to make sure that you are standing out from the crowd. This in essence is a popularity contest, but users out there are really wanting to see something original. What comes to my mind is one of the most popular Twitter users that is a mommy blogger, and all she does is make hilarious comments about parenting. That’s it. And people lover her! So that backs up my point about doing what is authentic to you to create a huge following that will end up trafficking to your site. Viola!
