[CASE STUDY] - 1 Article = 7,640 Visitors

[Kim Roach]

Hey Warriors,

Last month I published an article on my website that ended up sending
7,640 Visitors. And so I thought I'd do a case study for my fellow Warriors detailing exactly how I did it.

So, without further ado, let's dive in...

The first thing I did was actually write the article. This is actually THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the process because the quality of your article is going to determine how far it will spread and how much traffic it will end up attracting. Promoting the article is definitely a critical piece of the puzzle but you MUST start by creating a truly exceptional article.

So my first task was to create a great article that people would instantly want to bookmark, share with their friends, etc...

I spent 4 days writing the article - packing it with killer content and golden nuggets that were truly irresistible. I gave it an eye-catching title. And finally after hours of work, I posted the article to my blog at http://www.buzzblogger.com/21-untapped-traffic-sources/

Now that I had finally finished writing the article, it was now time to promote the article. And this is where most people drop the ball. You should spend TWICE as much time promoting your content as you do writing it.

So here's what I did to promote the article:

First, I purchased 500 Visitors from StumblUpon Ads.

This is a really easy, low-cost way to "seed" your article and start getting some traction. Each visitor cost 5 cents each. This will put your content not only in front of powerful StumbleUpon users but also potentially in front
of other influential bloggers.

So this is something I like to use whenever I create pillar articles that have a good chance of going viral.

I ended up receiving a total of 1,706 visitors from StumbleUpon through the additional organic stumbles.

The next thing I did was post my article on Twitter. I have over 6,000
followers on Twitter so this was another great content syndication point for spreading my article.

Here's what my tweet looked like:

21 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Traffic....http://su.pr/3aoElu <===
Plz RT

Now, you'll notice quite a few things with this tweet. First, I had an enticing headline to get people to click through. At the end of the tweet I also included a "Plz RT" to increase the number of retweets. This phrase has been proven to generate more retweets.

Plus, I also used a very powerful URL shortener called Su.pr.

Not only does Su.pr shorten your URL but it also exposes your content
to StumbleUpon's user base, sending you even more traffic and exposure.

The Su.pr URL shortener is the only one I know of that actually PROMOTES
your content for more exposure and clicks. I got more traffic simply from using the Su.pr url shortener when posting my tweets. Very Powerful and super simple!

You'll also want to tweet your article more than once. I would recommend
that you tweet your article at least 3 times. Retweeting your article has proven to increase your traffic, exposure, and retweets.

Plus, it's very unlikely that you will annoy anyone because there are always different people on Twitter at any one time. So by posting multiple times you actually end up exposing your content to new audiences.

My article ended up receiving 170 tweets, many of which came from high-
profile bloggers and Tweeters. They included people like Guy Kawaski,
Larry Wentz (96k followers), Dan Tanner (71k followers), mailcopywriter2
(44k followers), Sherman Hu, Stu Mclaren, mlrockwell (19,659 followers),
and DotSauce (11,949 followers)... (just to name a few...)

I also purchased tweets from John Chow and Joel Comm from SponsoredTweets.com. But to be honest, I probably wouldn't do that again. I don't think it really made too much of a bump in terms of traffic. Plus, the majority of my retweets did not come from those sources either. So next time I would just let it all be organic.

Interestingly enough, Facebook actually sent me 404 Visitors, which was
a huge surprise to me. I've never really seen Facebook as a top-tier traffic source. But lots of people post their tweets on Facebook. So if you're content is being shared and retweeted on Twitter, then you'll probably see a good flow of traffic from Facebook as well.

I also posted my article on ImNewsWatch.com, which sent an extra 56
visitors. ImNewsWatch is basically a content aggregator that shares all the latest news and content related to Internet Marketing. It's a great place to get some extra exposure and traffic on any of your content.

I also posted a modified, condensed version of the article on the Warrior Forum, which sent me 584 extra visitors. It was essentially a "Cliff Notes" version of the full article. But the full article is a whopping 18 pages long, so this modified, "condensed" version offered a lot of value for someone who just wanted to quickly digg out the golden nuggets. You can see the Warrior Forum post at:

21 Untapped Traffic Sources

This post has received 3,431 views and 77 replies. It also received 96 "Thank You" clicks from people like Willie Crawford, Jonathan Mizel, Maria Gudelis, Ron Douglas, and lots of other great Warriors.

I also received 365 Visitors from a private membership called ChrisFarrellMembership.com. I had logged into my stats to see quite a bit of traffic coming from this site, but when I clicked the link I wasn't able to see what had been posted because it was a paid membership. This made me deathly curious so I ended up joining the site and getting involved with the forum there.

I also met the owner, Chris Farrell and we quickly became good friends.

We've been chatting ever since. We've also done an ad swap and exchanged content. So because of this one article, I now also have a new business partner as well. Creating exceptional value is EXTREMELY POWERFUL.

I also shared my content on a number of different Ning Communities.

These are basically social networks centered around every topic imaginable. Many of them have thousands upon thousands of members. So I simply found the Ning networks related to business and marketing and
started getting involved in the community.

Ning Networks are extremely powerful because they allow you to post your
content, post videos, and interact in the forums. They are truly an untapped traffic source.

The Biggie: Here's where things really hit a tipping point. Guy Kawaski
ended up posting a link to my article on http://holykaw.alltop.com -
sending me 2,192 visitors. He also shared the link on Twitter.

And this is where things really started to go viral.

Because of Guy Kawaski's tweet, lots of people retweeted the article,
shared it on social bookmarking sites, etc...

It also gained some traction on Delicious and ended up hitting the popular page - sending 244 extra visitors.

At this point, I was finished with all of the organic promotion so my final task was to send an email out to my subscribers to share the article with them. This sent an extra 1,118 visitors to the article.

But I did this last because I wanted to see how many organic visitors I
could get first without using my list.

In the end, this one article alone brought me 7,640 visitors. That's the
power of writing truly great content.

Here's a quick overview of all the major traffic sources:


ChrisFarrellMembership.com: 365 Visitors
InternetMarketingSecrets.com/blog : 133
Twitter : 453 Visitors
WarriorForum : 584 (322 +
StumbleUpon : 1,706
Facebook: 404 Visitors
ImNewsWatch.com : 56 Visitors
Delicious: 244 Visitors
TwitterMoms.com : 56 Visitors
http://twitturls.com - 93 Visitors
The Biggie: http://holykaw.alltop.com/ : 2,192 Visitors
http://www.wahm.com/forum/ : 109 Visitors
http://vitavee.com/forums/thread-280.html - 25 Visitors
HomeBasedBusiness.com : 34 Visitors
OurSignal.com - 17 Visitors
JoeTech.com - 19 Visitors
ShareIn.com - 32 Visitors
Email Broadcast - 1,118
--------------------------

Total: 7,640 Visitors


Plus, this article also exposed me to a lot of top-name bloggers and marketers. And this is actually exponentially more powerful than the traffic it brought in. Those relationships will be 100x more powerful than the traffic alone. Because when you create exceptional content, people take notice.

It's a game-changer... if you're willing to put in the work.

[Scott Ames]

STOP!!! I can't take anymore great content.!!! Gosh you always have great stuff...

Seriously.. Thanks!!!

[sahi]

4 days??? But like they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. Great stuff.

[Kim Roach]

Thanks guys!!

You always know how to make my day Scott

Cheers!

- Kim

[Razer Rage]

This is a nice, fresh approach from the traditional "SEO your article" method. Well done.

[Terro]

Wow. That´s a lot of visitors for just one article. Good work.

Thanks for good advice.

[Gerardas Norkus]

Great article, good work.

It would be great to hire someone to write and submit articles like Kim did...

[kkchoon]

I always love and enjoy reading Kim's articles, I'm on her list too..! Kim is the Traffic Guru, another great piece of work, well done!

[DAS_Matt]

Great post and great info. Something that people should definitely consider adding to their arsenal so I appreciate it. Here's a question that piques my interest though, and you obviously don't have to go into great detail or even answer if you don't want to, but how productive was this traffic as compared to other methods you have used. I suspect it was quite good. I only ask because people tend to think all traffic is equal and not all of it is.

[networkmom]

Hi, You provided a great article and I am thinking of writing more of my own articles, but I wonder how I would make money from my articles? Was this just for traffic or were sales involved with this article?

Thanks
Denise

[peter gibson]

Kim,

You're in FTW as "Best Post Not Located in the War Room". Truly golden stuff. I had no idea about the added benefits of Su.pr either. You rock.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by networkmom

Hi, You provided a great article and I am thinking of writing more of my own articles, but I wonder how I would make money from my articles? Was this just for traffic or were sales involved with this article?

Thanks
Denise

You can make money with your landing page:

1. Building a list using squeeze page
2. Recommend some products on your landing page

Use article to build traffic, and great content to build relationship...

[Lady_T]

This is a great blueprint to use for article marketing.

All the info on StumbleUpon was something I'd never
heard of.

Thanks for sharing...I've printed that post so that
I can use it as a guide for my articles - you never
ever stop learning here in this forum!

[Black Hat Cat]

That's great.

Soooo.......how much money did this earn for you?

[ajbarnes777]

Thanks for this awesome post! This came at the perfect time because I just wrote a pillar blog post myself last week and was wondering how I can further promote it besides the usual bookmarking.

Thanks again.

[Kim Roach]

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone!

I'd like to go ahead and answer some of the questions that are being asked.

One of the first questions was whether or not this was targeted traffic. And that is an excellent question! Because it doesn't matter how much traffic you're getting if it's junk traffic.

Most of this traffic was very targeted because it was coming from targeted forums, related blogs, sent out by a very well-known marketer to his subscribers, (Michael Campbell) etc..

However, with any article that goes viral, not all the traffic is going to be laser-targeted. This includes traffic from sites like Twitter, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. Now, this certainly does not mean that this traffic isn't valuable, it's just not as targeted.

Now, the other question that's being asked is how much money this article made me.
And I can tell you that this one article alone will end up making me thousands of dollars. But article marketing does NOT make you money up front.

Instead, I used this article to drive traffic to my blog and to my squeeze page. The main goal is to BUILD THE LIST!!!

This article generated over 400 subscribers. And as you probably know, on average, you earn $1 per month for every subscriber that's on your list. So that's an extra $400 per month.

However, my average is higher because I focus on delivering exceptional content and developing a relationship with my list.

Plus, I've also developed priceless friendships with other marketers because of this article.

Hope this answers your questions.

Cheers!

- Kim

[mike66]

Good work,great report!

[elaine drennan]

Originally Posted by Kim Roach

I also received 365 Visitors from a private membership called ChrisFarrellMembership.com. I had logged into my stats to see quite a bit of traffic coming from this site, but when I clicked the link I wasn't able to see what had been posted because it was a paid membership. This made me deathly curious so I ended up joining the site and getting involved with the forum there.

And we're delighted that you have, Kim!

Elaine

[DAS_Matt]

Originally Posted by Kim Roach

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone!

I'd like to go ahead and answer some of the questions that are being asked.

One of the first questions was whether or not this was targeted traffic. And that is an excellent question! Because it doesn't matter how much traffic you're getting if it's junk traffic.

Most of this traffic was very targeted because it was coming from targeted forums, related blogs, sent out by a very well-known marketer to his subscribers, (Michael Campbell) etc..

However, with any article that goes viral, not all the traffic is going to be laser-targeted. This includes traffic from sites like Twitter, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. Now, this certainly does not mean that this traffic isn't valuable, it's just not as targeted.

Now, the other question that's being asked is how much money this article made me.
And I can tell you that this one article alone will end up making me thousands of dollars. But article marketing does NOT make you money up front.

Instead, I used this article to drive traffic to my blog and to my squeeze page. The main goal is to BUILD THE LIST!!!

This article generated over 400 subscribers. And as you probably know, on average, you earn $1 per month for every subscriber that's on your list. So that's an extra $400 per month.

However, my average is higher because I focus on delivering exceptional content and developing a relationship with my list.

Plus, I've also developed priceless friendships with other marketers because of this article.

Hope this answers your questions.

Cheers!

- Kim

Thank much. Greatly appreciate the reply. Lots of pearls of wisdom from you in this thread.

[Kim Roach]

Originally Posted by elaine drennan

And we're delighted that you have, Kim!

Elaine

Thanks Elaine!

It's now one of my favorite places online

- Kim

[opportunites]

Hi Kim!Thank for sharing this... I will save it on my computer to read it time to time...Thanks again!

[actionplanbiz]

thats pretty damn awesome. thank you very much

[robinter]

Great job, 4-5 days and extra 400$ a month.

[vlduffy]

What a great post and a wonderful article. I learned so much!

Thank you!

[Sirago]

Great information. Thank you for sharing.

[benjawealth]

I have a sentence to say to you. "Wealth is in your mind, but it should start from your heart." - Me -

Thank you for all your advises.

[jimmyjay]

Kim

I saw your webinar on Chris Farrell's site. You really do epitomise "over delivery". Keep on with the great posts.

[tommen]

Originally Posted by Kim Roach

Hey Warriors,

Last month I published an article on my website that ended up sending
7,640 Visitors. And so I thought I'd do a case study for my fellow Warriors detailing exactly how I did it.

So, without further ado, let's dive in...

The first thing I did was actually write the article. This is actually THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the process because the quality of your article is going to determine how far it will spread and how much traffic it will end up attracting. Promoting the article is definitely a critical piece of the puzzle but you MUST start by creating a truly exceptional article.

So my first task was to create a great article that people would instantly want to bookmark, share with their friends, etc...

I spent 4 days writing the article - packing it with killer content and golden nuggets that were truly irresistible. I gave it an eye-catching title. And finally after hours of work, I posted the article to my blog at 21 Untapped Traffic Sources

Now that I had finally finished writing the article, it was now time to promote the article. And this is where most people drop the ball. You should spend TWICE as much time promoting your content as you do writing it.

So here's what I did to promote the article:

First, I purchased 500 Visitors from StumblUpon Ads.

This is a really easy, low-cost way to "seed" your article and start getting some traction. Each visitor cost 5 cents each. This will put your content not only in front of powerful StumbleUpon users but also potentially in front
of other influential bloggers.

So this is something I like to use whenever I create pillar articles that have a good chance of going viral.

I ended up receiving a total of 1,706 visitors from StumbleUpon through the additional organic stumbles.

The next thing I did was post my article on Twitter. I have over 6,000
followers on Twitter so this was another great content syndication point for spreading my article.

Here's what my tweet looked like:

21 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Traffic....21 Untapped Traffic Sources <===
Plz RT

Now, you'll notice quite a few things with this tweet. First, I had an enticing headline to get people to click through. At the end of the tweet I also included a "Plz RT" to increase the number of retweets. This phrase has been proven to generate more retweets.

Plus, I also used a very powerful URL shortener called Su.pr.

Not only does Su.pr shorten your URL but it also exposes your content
to StumbleUpon's user base, sending you even more traffic and exposure.

The Su.pr URL shortener is the only one I know of that actually PROMOTES
your content for more exposure and clicks. I got more traffic simply from using the Su.pr url shortener when posting my tweets. Very Powerful and super simple!

You'll also want to tweet your article more than once. I would recommend
that you tweet your article at least 3 times. Retweeting your article has proven to increase your traffic, exposure, and retweets.

Plus, it's very unlikely that you will annoy anyone because there are always different people on Twitter at any one time. So by posting multiple times you actually end up exposing your content to new audiences.

My article ended up receiving 170 tweets, many of which came from high-
profile bloggers and Tweeters. They included people like Guy Kawaski,
Larry Wentz (96k followers), Dan Tanner (71k followers), mailcopywriter2
(44k followers), Sherman Hu, Stu Mclaren, mlrockwell (19,659 followers),
and DotSauce (11,949 followers)... (just to name a few...)

I also purchased tweets from John Chow and Joel Comm from SponsoredTweets.com. But to be honest, I probably wouldn't do that again. I don't think it really made too much of a bump in terms of traffic. Plus, the majority of my retweets did not come from those sources either. So next time I would just let it all be organic.

Interestingly enough, Facebook actually sent me 404 Visitors, which was
a huge surprise to me. I've never really seen Facebook as a top-tier traffic source. But lots of people post their tweets on Facebook. So if you're content is being shared and retweeted on Twitter, then you'll probably see a good flow of traffic from Facebook as well.

I also posted my article on ImNewsWatch.com, which sent an extra 56
visitors. ImNewsWatch is basically a content aggregator that shares all the latest news and content related to Internet Marketing. It's a great place to get some extra exposure and traffic on any of your content.

I also posted a modified, condensed version of the article on the Warrior Forum, which sent me 584 extra visitors. It was essentially a "Cliff Notes" version of the full article. But the full article is a whopping 18 pages long, so this modified, "condensed" version offered a lot of value for someone who just wanted to quickly digg out the golden nuggets. You can see the Warrior Forum post at:

21 Untapped Traffic Sources

This post has received 3,431 views and 77 replies. It also received 96 "Thank You" clicks from people like Willie Crawford, Jonathan Mizel, Maria Gudelis, Ron Douglas, and lots of other great Warriors.

I also received 365 Visitors from a private membership called ChrisFarrellMembership.com. I had logged into my stats to see quite a bit of traffic coming from this site, but when I clicked the link I wasn't able to see what had been posted because it was a paid membership. This made me deathly curious so I ended up joining the site and getting involved with the forum there.

I also met the owner, Chris Farrell and we quickly became good friends.

We've been chatting ever since. We've also done an ad swap and exchanged content. So because of this one article, I now also have a new business partner as well. Creating exceptional value is EXTREMELY POWERFUL.

I also shared my content on a number of different Ning Communities.

These are basically social networks centered around every topic imaginable. Many of them have thousands upon thousands of members. So I simply found the Ning networks related to business and marketing and
started getting involved in the community.

Ning Networks are extremely powerful because they allow you to post your
content, post videos, and interact in the forums. They are truly an untapped traffic source.

The Biggie: Here's where things really hit a tipping point. Guy Kawaski
ended up posting a link to my article on http://holykaw.alltop.com -
sending me 2,192 visitors. He also shared the link on Twitter.

And this is where things really started to go viral.

Because of Guy Kawaski's tweet, lots of people retweeted the article,
shared it on social bookmarking sites, etc...

It also gained some traction on Delicious and ended up hitting the popular page - sending 244 extra visitors.

At this point, I was finished with all of the organic promotion so my final task was to send an email out to my subscribers to share the article with them. This sent an extra 1,118 visitors to the article.

But I did this last because I wanted to see how many organic visitors I
could get first without using my list.

In the end, this one article alone brought me 7,640 visitors. That's the
power of writing truly great content.

Here's a quick overview of all the major traffic sources:


ChrisFarrellMembership.com: 365 Visitors
InternetMarketingSecrets.com/blog : 133
Twitter : 453 Visitors
WarriorForum : 584 (322 +
StumbleUpon : 1,706
Facebook: 404 Visitors
ImNewsWatch.com : 56 Visitors
Delicious: 244 Visitors
TwitterMoms.com : 56 Visitors
Twitturls - Popular Twitter Links Tweeted err Twittered err Twhatever - 93 Visitors
The Biggie: Holy Kaw! - All the topics that interest us : 2,192 Visitors
WAHM Forums - WAHM.com - Powered by vBulletin : 109 Visitors
The Ultimate Internet Marketing Toolbox By Kim Roach - 25 Visitors
HomeBasedBusiness.com : 34 Visitors
OurSignal.com - 17 Visitors
JoeTech.com - 19 Visitors
ShareIn.com - 32 Visitors
Email Broadcast - 1,118
--------------------------

Total: 7,640 Visitors


Plus, this article also exposed me to a lot of top-name bloggers and marketers. And this is actually exponentially more powerful than the traffic it brought in. Those relationships will be 100x more powerful than the traffic alone. Because when you create exceptional content, people take notice.

It's a game-changer... if you're willing to put in the work.

Excellent information, thanks for the great tips! I have noticed that EzineArticles (once article accepted) delivers a huge traffic boost like no other article directory.I will use your strategies next time.

[Kim Roach]

Wow!!

Thank you all once again for all of the amazing feedback.

- Kim

[theultimate1]

Hey Kim,

Some fantastic read this! I'm, for the first time, seeing the true value of article marketing. 4-5 days of work resulting in (obvious) fan following and (approximately) at least $400/month in residual income. Beats a lot of BIG Gurus, I'm guessing.

Thanks for starting this thread.

Regards,
SooRAJ

[Tam Chancellor]

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

STOP!!! I can't take anymore great content.!!! Gosh you always have great stuff...

Seriously.. Thanks!!!

My sentiments exactly! Kim, I enjoying reading your posts.

Tam

[Kim Roach]

Thanks Tam and SooRAJ!!

You're the best and I'm so glad you enjoyed the case study.

I'd like to start putting out more information like this.

I love reading real case studies of what people are doing
and getting to see behind-the-scenes.

- Kim

[laurenceh]

Kim will you marry me lol. Honestly your value is massive, yet given for free!

[pharris1]

Hey Kim:

You're one of the few that inspired me to continue with IM'ing simply by the examples that you set forth in your marketing and the content you deliver. You never disappoint. This case certainly supports the benefits of hard work and focus and the awards that go along with it.

Thanks

Peter

[Kim Roach]

Originally Posted by laurenceh

Kim will you marry me lol. Honestly your value is massive, yet given for free!

You'd be surprised how often I get this kind of response :)

I'm glad you enjoyed the content.

- Kim

[chukwuma]

There is really a lot to learn here. Thanks for this great article.

[dwaser]

Hey Kim,

Thanks a lot for sharing this and the great tips. I really enjoyed reading it.

Daniel

[FriendlyRob]

I haven't even finished reading it, as of this moment, but I've already gotten a few gems out of it.

[lmager]

Thanks for the informative article. I have used article marketing in the past without much results. I am going to use the steps you describe. If I get half the results I would be really happy.

[neil1976]

Thanks for sharing this info, keep it up

[rwb24]

Originally Posted by Kim Roach

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone!

This article generated over 400 subscribers. And as you probably know, on average, you earn $1 per month for every subscriber that's on your list. So that's an extra $400 per month.

However, my average is higher because I focus on delivering exceptional content and developing a relationship with my list.

Plus, I've also developed priceless friendships with other marketers because of this article.

Hope this answers your questions.

Cheers!

- Kim

Kim really great post, you have helped a lot of people by sharing. I am sure you will continue doing the same thing, imagine the long term benefits from this if you continue repeating this process over and over.

Very nice work!

Robert

[macknox]

The Stumble Ads is a gem.
Nice work!
You are right, quality articles work.

It would be interesting to see if you now used something like BookmarkingDemon, would it improve your visits significantly?

Cheers!

[pheonix44]

You'd be shocked at how easy it is to beat your competition into the dust by simply loading an article with good nuggests of information and facts. All you need is one or two really informative articles around any niche to get that article ranking well.

[ScottTMc]

Fantastic content, seriously good stuff.

Im going to take the information away and implement it

[Kim Roach]

Thanks for all the great comments everyone!