Most common problem faced by Blogger is traffic. There are many misconception attached to Traffic sources like
- Google is the only Best way for Traffic
- Lots of content means Traffic
- SEO is the only way to get traffic.
Top two points hold true but the third one is not 100% true. When a blogger starts blogging and he see other blogs which exist from years, they develop a myth that huge alexa rank and traffic is achievable only by writing lots of quality posts. Well up to an extent its true, but that should not be the way to drive traffic. In these posts I will write few ways by which you can build traffic into your blog.
Quality posts and SEO
Quality of posts determine the uniqueness and a proper SEO optimization of Blog and Blog posts will ensure that you will get lots of traffic in your posts. You should also understand the need of social media optimization and optimizing posts for search engine and readers simultaneously.
Twitter is again a great way to make your posts viral, but marketing yourself and your blog on twitter is not as easy as it sounds, but on other hand it’s not as tough as it looks. Though you need to understand the importance of word social. In simple word twitter is a less micro-blogging tool but social sharing site. Instead of promoting only your blog posts, start sharing other articles from other blogs as well. You should consider reading What digg and Twitter have in common.
Facebook has become one of my favorite tool to drive traffic. I have been using it successfully to drive quality traffic to my blog. Some easy ways to drive traffic from Facebook are
Facebook is growing with a great pace and if you do not start branding yourself on Facebook, you will realize what you are missing. You can also have a look at 13 facebook application for bloggers .See Shoutmeloud Facebook fan page on the sidebar and you will realize how you can brand your blog or company on Facebook.
Commenting
Commenting is one of my favorite tool to drive traffic to my blogs. Commenting also helps in getting Free backlinks and create a relation with another blogger. It is a slow process but yes one of the most effective process in my opinion. I got Page rank for my newly created blogs in one month and most of the backlinks were created because of commenting. This is the simple reason I can suggest you to start commenting as much as possible. Though make sure you don’t write comments like “Nice” “Good share”. This will never create a good impression but will make you look like a spammer. Read my previous tutorials on
Social Bookmarking Websites
Social bookmarking websites like Digg, Stumble-upon, Reddit are good and most effective ways to drive traffic. But like always there are no free lunches, making your posts popular on these sites are not easy. You need to understand every social bookmarking websites and how to make most out of it. People love quality posts, and listified (Top 10, Top 25) posts are popular among such websites. You can also refer to my previous tutorial on Digg : The Beginners Guide and How to become a Digg power user.
Buy Traffic
I have never experienced this one, but if some company who provide such service, gives you targeted traffic. This will help you a lot, though you might need to think, if buying traffic is good for your blog or not? In my opinion this is only good, when you are providing any services or selling anything. Else it may be a waste of money.
Conclusion
There is no easy and free way to drive traffic apart from buying traffic. But instead of spending money, easiest way to drive traffic is commenting, Social media sites like Twitter and facebook. If you have some time Digg and stumble-upon come to your rescue. Above all SEO of your blog and blog posts is the best way to drive traffic from search engines.
What do you think is the best way to drive traffic? Can you add more points to drive traffic to your blog?
Related posts:
- Top Social Bookmarking Sites For Getting Traffic to Your Blog?
- How to Drive Huge Traffic from Facebook?
- How you can use Flickr to drive huge traffic to your blog?
- Why do you use Twitter? Marketing tool or Socializing?
- Are You Social Media Spammer or Contributor?
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
you are absolutely true and in my personal experience all the points you mentioned are true and they work and content is king and people appreciate genuine and quality posts and using social bookmarking sites and using seo tools will help a lot .
Quality of Posts > SEO > Dzone/Facebook/Twitter go in decreasing order of precedence for me.
Note: DZone is only for developers, don’t spam with other post topics.
Unique content is definitely a king while social networks are now being considered as major traffic drivers. Nice tips but, I am not on the side of buying traffic.
@blogsolute…
Instead of buying traffic what i think is that spending that money on promoting your blog offline like giveaways (mugs, keyrings, t-shirts etc.) will help more and also in an efficient way. Till the person drinks coffee, wears the t-shirt carrying your logo… ur blog will be promoted and remember, there is faster medium than what spreads with ‘word of mouth’
Yes, agree with you, unique content is the king but buying traffic is a good way to drive more traffic to your blog.
the best and free way to get traffic by networking.. let say you have one online friend, and you communicate with him, tell about your blog and such, he like it and he told to other his friends, and goes on and goes on.. so it free viral marketing same as twitter.
Even often i see from other blog, about 60-70 % traffic come from seo, but its not the only resource there are lot more out there..
Great tips! Also guest posting on other sites is a huge source of traffic.
good tips harsh, i agree with all this point
Ya..ya.. I think, for long term, content is still the king.
There are so many distractions on net that it becomes a bit difficult to keep all the above points in mind. BTW all the above points are really great and every blogger should have these points on its daily to do list.
i am still learning how to use twitter to get traffic…..somebody please tell
Bookmarking will help blog in SERP.
Guest posting, commenting on others blog and unique content will drive a useful traffic to your blog.
Wow you did a really nice job with this one bro, nice work and very detailed. Any new bloggers or even existing bloggers need to look over this very carefully, you provided a gold mind of information.
Nice post ,Unique content ,all the points are very clear…thank u ….One thing about twitter, how it will drive traffic?
A few more Harsh..
Submitting articles to stumble upon, digg, etc..
Being active on forums, communities, networking sites..
Taking part in memes/contests.. hop around and a lot of blogging are hosting them.. or hosting them yourself
High keyword content.. we all know about it
releasing posts in the wee hours of morning.. drives a good amount of searches to your blog!
I don’t think one should buy traffic from sites/directories that aren’t popular for they send a whole lot of automated traffic to your blog. You could come in the prying eyes of Google, esp if your doing ad sense! what say?
Hit upon me on anything you disagree
Nisha Some great point here. I guess I missed few of points which you added here. And yes its true about paid traffic may ban your adsense account.
There is nothing to disagree and I wish I could have added a rate comment plugin and could have given 5 star for such comment. Welcome to shoutmeloud
I am working 9on creating the facebook fan page. It seems that FB is the great way to drive the traffic.
Ricky Facebook is one of the easiest free way to drive traffic. Best of luck with your facebook Fan page.
Here, I am implementing your last tip! Yet to go aggressively on Facebook & Twitter. One more good way is to ‘submit’ your blog to blog directories. BlogCatalog & StumbleUpon are a good start for me. ‘Buy Traffic’ I guess will be detrimental for one’s blog in the long run. But the Trump-Card is definitely: Quality Content. My 1st post was listed on 1st page in Google at #7 for few days. I optimized it – changing the title & post a bit. I lost it, now it’s buried at #31. Bottomline: We must NOT over-optimize. A quality content will definitely be noticed in the long run.
My traffic from twitter is too low, but getting good traffic from facebook and other social media networks.
These days I am getting huge traffif from Google along with Twitter.. My visitor base has been doubled in 2 months.. So m planning to sell direct advertisements too.. Hopefully will get some sponsors too
Hey dude! You are 10 posts away from 1000 posts! Cool.
I liked this post very much. Much different from other get visitors posts..
And really helpful part was the commenting part. Commenting goes a long way in networking as well as increasing traffic.
i agree
thank u
Like in 3 Idiots R. Madhavan says that “we knew” but “he did it” and I feel the same way, Harsh. The points above, I believe, will be known to mostly all, but not all following seriously.
Thanks for hammering my mind with above points, I will keep them not just in ‘mind’ but in ‘execution’