Some blog posts and articles about online traffic are too good not to share.
This outstanding piece by Sonia Simone of Rainmaker Digital is required reading.
Most of us stand on our heads to increase traffic to our sites.
We live and thrive by increasing traffic.
Along with traffic we want shares. Shares increase our reach. Shares generate traffic.
Traffic generates revenue.
That’s an online marketer’s version of E=mc@.
Read on my friends, and enjoy.
A Blog Strategy Anyone Can Use for More and Better Traffic
Do you get all the traffic you’d like for your site?
Do visitors just keep pouring in, letting you meet all of your business goals with ease?
Yeah, don’t worry, no one actually says Yes to that question.
Getting new people to your site can be tricky, and changes in Google and Facebook algorithms don’t make it any simpler.
As it happens, there’s one traffic strategy that virtually all “big blogs” use. It works, no matter what’s going on with the big search engines or social platforms.
It doesn’t cost anything. It gets more effective in cluttered, noisy environments with “too much” content.
And you definitely do not need to be “big” to implement it effectively.
This miracle strategy is optimizing your content for social sharing — making it irresistible for readers and influencers to get the word out about the work you’re doing.
Unlike search engine optimization or trying to guess what Facebook wants from your page this week, most techniques for social sharing optimization are evergreen.
Because it relies on human engagement, not some other company’s algorithm.
Influencers gonna influence
Of course, we expect that a web publisher with a significant audience — a “big blog” — is going to be influential. It just makes sense.
But big publishers also understand why influencers share content … because they’re looking for high-quality material to share themselves.
That means that bigger sites get very smart about how to make the content they publish appealing to share. Make a study of the big sites you like, and watch what they’re doing to craft content that gets the Share buttons clicking.
Influencers are looking for great experiences to share with their audiences. If you can deliver that, you have the potential for that nice stream of new visitors you’re looking for.
Keep in mind that it’s not always the biggest sites who have the most passionate fans. Don’t neglect the amazing opportunities that can come from getting shares from a mid-sized publisher whose audience trusts and adores them.
And then there’s that army of people who love your work, find it wonderfully useful, and want to show off by sharing it with their friends. When you optimize for sharing, you help them, too.
Speaking of which …
Why people share
There are a lot of individual specific reasons that people share content, but most of them boil down to one:
People share content because it makes them look and feel smart.
Now, if you’ve ever read anything I write, I bet you can predict what I’ll say next:
Your stuff has to be good.
It doesn’t have to be miraculous. But it has to be good enough that an influential person will speak for it.
What does “good” mean?
⦁ Useful
⦁ Interesting
⦁ Different
You can sometimes get by without Useful (although you shouldn’t), but the other two are mandatory. Boring content doesn’t get shares. Neither do the jumble of cookie cutter posts that pile up around any interesting topic.
Be useful. Be interesting. Be different.
What’s the experience?
Big blogs are obsessive about user experience. What’s it like to land on the site? Is the design pleasing? Does the site instantly communicate its relevance and reliability?
What kind of content do new visitors find? Does it speak to their problems? (Remember … one of your most important content goals is attracting a specific who.)
Do the headlines promise a lot of useful, interesting things to browse? It’s not uncommon for readers to share content on the strength of the headline alone. Make sure yours are worthy.
Does the site load quickly? Can the visitor get to “the good stuff” (the best posts, the email opt-in, etc.) easily? Is the content formatted to be reader-friendly?
How about after the opt-in? Do readers have a great reason to sign up? Is the site sending valuable material, or just a bunch of pitches and thinly disguised spam?
You may not have an editorial department or a design team, but you can ask yourself the same questions. People who care a lot tend to create great experiences.
Does it feel good to land on your page?
No one with an ounce of influence will share your content if they’re sending their audience into a crummy experience. Provide a great experience.
And finally …
Don’t forget to ask! If you ask your audience to spread the word about what you’re doing, they often will.
And when you have that perfect piece of content for a specific influencer, go ahead and let them know about it. Don’t overuse this, but there’s nothing wrong with a polite nudge to content that’s going to make that person look brilliant for sharing it.
Sonia Simone is co-founder and Chief Content Officer of Rainmaker Digital. Get more from Sonia on the CopybloggerFM podcast, or connect on Twitter.
End Thoughts –
This article about traffic is valuable to me. I encourage you to learn from it. Knowing this side of traffic generation assures easier paths to generating traffic to your offers.
To get the most from good source content I recommend reading the post or viewing the video. Then put it aside, letting your subconscious mull it over. A day or so later read or watch the content again . . . slowly. Take in each line, pausing before the next sentence.
Ask yourself what it means and what it means to you. Then go on to the next sentence. Study each sentence and think about each paragraph before going on to the next.
If the content is valuable to you and your learning process then learn it. Study it and file it where you can find it again.
Too many of us (me included) capture content we think valuable and never review it again. We may remember snippets. But we actually remember only 30% of what we read.
Study the valuable content and learn how to put it to use. That’s what successful online money-makers do. Want to be an online success? Do what the big dogs do.
They may not teach what they know. But they certainly know the ins and outs of making money online. The top money-makers know how to generate traffic. Otherwise they’d not be in the top 1%.
They freely admit to learning more about their craft. This ongoing learning process is what keeps you in the game.
Most trying to make money online quit after two or three months. These drop outs may acquire the physical tools, but fail to acquire the skills needed to make money on the Internet.
It’s rare to find someone who cannot bounce a ball. We learn at an early age how to bounce a ball. And we spend many youthful hours doing it. Many of us can bounce a ball without looking, even with our eyes closed.
We need to treat our online money-making efforts the same way.
It’s called practice.
No one can buy a software program and have it automatically generate income. Although many software sellers promise that. There’s much to do before money comes into your bank account.
My advice to you is learn key points and tactics well enough to teach them to someone else. Only when you know something, really know it, is it an advantage to your overall effort.
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