Last Updated on March 1, 2024
Getting traffic to your website isn’t as easy as you think. With millions of blogs on the web, what makes you so special? Why should people listen to you instead of somebody else. Aquiring quality traffic is very hard. But don’t let hard discourage you. It can be done.
The entire ‘build it and they will come’ theory is just a joke. Even if your blog publishes some of the best content on the web, how will people find you? Sure you can rank high in the search engines, however to build a strong readership you need to do way more than that. Trying out new mediums to reach people is a must.
Remember Myspace? Nothing is permanent on the web. What if Mark Zuckerburg never created Facebook. Do you think that Myspace would still be the number one social network on the Internet? Probably not. I’m sure somebody else would’ve been fed up with Myspace and created a new social network.
You must understand that the Internet is constantly evolving. It’s difficult to predict where it will be in the future. By staying up to date with the latest trends and trying out new tactics/methods you will get a leg up on your competitors.
Today we will provide you with unique traffic building ideas. Feel free to implement ideas that make the most sense for your blog or website. The ideas listed below aren’t secretive. They’re mostly common sense. However, most bloggers are just too lazy to do the actual work required. This is great opportunity for hustlers like you.
Even if something doesn’t work, never give up. As a blogger you should be constantly testing new strategies and never settle on one thing, or you will eventually fall behind.
Write a Free eBook
An eBook is a book-length digital publication read on computers or other electronic devices. They have a high perceived value and are a great way to build a huge email list. To create an eBook, you just have to copy and paste blog posts you already have written into a document and convert it into a PDF. Give away this eBook for free in exchange that people subscribe to your email list.
Once you have written your eBook, submit it to eBook directories. eBook directories work similarly with other online directories. They simply list a number of eBooks on their directory and people actually visit these directories to find information. In this way, not only do your website gain more traffic, people also get to know you as an author. The key to making it viral is to provide great and interesting content.
Create Epic Content
People love to read content that delivers immense value to them. Therefore, to attract the bulk of traffic to your website, your content must be well thought out and researched, out doing competitors’ efforts in a particular area.
Give Away Free Stuff
One very effective way of making your content viral is to give away free stuff. You are able to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website, generate leads for your business and even make sales later by giving away high quality free stuff on the front end of your sales process.
Participate in forums and add a compelling message in your signature
Forum posting is one of the ways to increase the traffic to your website. When you participate in forums which are on topics surrounding your niche or website content, give value-adding comments and participate actively in the discussions. Add a persuasive message in your signature to attract forum members to visit your website.
Become an active user on StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon.com is a discovery engine that finds and recommends web content to its users. Its features allow users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests using peer-sourcing and social-networking principles. It is thus a very good platform for you to promote your website and get more traffic.
Participate in and/or create Facebook groups
You can find your niche market by browsing through Facebook groups. Once you find a group relating to your niche participate in it and get yourself known to their members by giving value to the group. Make your website URL known. Soon enough, people will start noticing you and traffic will flock to your website. Alternatively, you can create your own Facebook group as well, so that you have total freedom to do what you want in your group.
Write a Roundup Post
A roundup post is an entry that speaks about a group of people in your niche. This strategy is used to build relationships with influencers in your niche. Let them know that you are reaching out to them and promoting their content. More often than not, this leads to them returning you the favor by blogging or tweeting about you. If they are indeed influential in your niche, their return of favor will be sending massive traffic your way.
Interview Experts in Your Niche
If you can get interviews with experts in your niche, your credibility will be greatly boosted thus generating more traffic. All you have to do is ask: email experts a list of questions that is relevant to your niche and get some great content from their answers. At the same time, build relationships with these experts because you never know when a powerful partnership will come knocking at your door.
Video interviews are great to promote your website and get more traffic. Do video interviews with influential people in your industry so you have the credibility factor to attract your niche market to actually watch your video. What’s more, the content comes easily by the answers the person gives. You are simply asking questions while valuable content is given by the expert.
Create an Infographic
If you are great with design, you can take the statistics of any topic and create an infographic to represent the figures. Infographics can go viral very easily as people like to share them all over the web. Do remember to include your website URL within the infographic so that you can get the traffic when it is re-blogged elsewhere on the internet. You know what? Forget about being great with design, you can outsource it to someone else to get it done for you!
Create a PDF Cheatsheet
Create cheat sheets with important information about a certain topic and include your website URLs where possible inside the document. People love content such as this and there is a very good chance that it will go viral being shared on the web.
Screencast Videos
Creating screen cast videos is an effective way you can use to drive traffic to you website. One strategy is to attach a screen cast near the end of the video to persuade visitors to check out your website. Talk about it for short while, pointing out the cool things visitors can find on your website. Some software I would recommend is Camtasia or Jing.
Write Guest Articles
Many bloggers have audiences to their websites amounting more than your own. Approach these people and ask them if they would like for you to write a post for their blog. Not only will you possibly get traffic flocking to your site, it will also get you quality backlinks that will boost the ranking of your site on Google. In addition, you would have made a friend or friends and build relationships in the process.
Build an Email List
Building an email list enables you to drive traffic at the click of a button. With a substantial number of subscribers in your email list, you can also build a community around your site or even your niche and eventually make sales after you have established relationship with your list. However, it takes time, effort and the right strategies to attract people to subscribe to your list. Also, it is essential to use an autoresponder service to build your email list. You can check out Aweber, iContact or Mailchimp for autoresponder services as mentioned.
Conduct Proper Keyword Research
Keyword research help you to find relevant keywords that are high in demand but low in level competition. Use the Google Keyword tool to gather this information and then use it for search engine optimization or cost per click campaigns to get your website ranked to be found my prospective customers. Or you could use an awesome Keyword Research software like: Micro Niche Finder
Upload your power-point presentations onto Slideshare.net
Create interesting and eye-catching presentations. Upload it onto Slideshare.net and include the URL or links of the sites you want to send traffic to in your slides.
Post trainings on Learnable.com
Do you have knowledge on certain topics others are looking to learn? Create online courses and upload them to Learnable.com and watch your content go viral. Courses can come in the form of videos, articles, project files or just answering questions.
Join a tribe such as triberr.com
Triberr.com is a community of bloggers in different niches grouped in tribes. Every time you publish a new post, everyone in your tribe will tweet it to their followers. And you do the same for everyone in your tribe. This will get your blog off the ground and buzzing with traffic in no time.
Start a Podcast
Start a Podcast to get your content out to the millions of people with iPods and other Apple products. It allows you to build up an audience who you can form strong relationships with. You can learn more about podcasting here: Niche Podcasting
OnlyWire
OnlyWire.com allows you to send your content to up to 45 social sharing sites at once. If you are using WordPress, utilize the OnlyWire plugin so that when you publish a post, your content will be bookmarked to the 45 social bookmarking sites.
Link to your site in your Email Signature
You can get traffic to your site with every email you send. Therefore, set up a custom signature with a link to your website. In addition, have it as an anchor text with the title of your site, because in that way, there is a good chance that it will get clicked.
Interlink your Pages
Create links that link internally within your site because the more links you have within your content to other content on your site the better your site will rank in Google. This will also mean more traffic for you. Hence, interlink the pages on your site as often as is relevant.
Emphasize your Popular Content
Popular content on your site is most likely to be shared by your visitors, which will in turn bring in more traffic for you. Therefore, make it easy for your visitors to find your best content.
Create a controversial (yet industry-related) post
Controversy and sensationalism are old tricks gain more traffic to your site but they still prove to be the most effective in getting your content shared virally on the internet. So, create a controversial post which is industry or niche related.
Network with Other Bloggers in Your Niche
Attend blogging events and network with other bloggers in your niche. The more relationships you build with other bloggers, the better. Tweetups are a great way to meet people if you are on Twitter and Eventcast is a cool way to keep up with the events your friends are attending.
Encourage Active Commenting
Keep the conversation going on your website by answering comments with a question. One of the strategies to get your first comment is to be the first to comment in your own post. Your first comment can be asking people what they think about the post you wrote. Avoid putting them down if they disagree, and you’ll have plenty of comments in no time. For WordPress users, consider installing the Disqus commenting plugin, which allows users to login with Facebook or Twitter, and then share their comment with these networks.
We hope these tips will encourage you to take action. If you have some other suggestions for driving traffic, feel free to let people know by commenting below.