Any other traffic generating ideas?

[Danyelle]

Hi Warriors, please help me.

I'm updating content steadily (every other day), commenting on other people's blogs, sending bulletins on myspace, links are in my siggie in the forums I frequent, i answer related questions on yahoo answers and include my link... I ping when I update... I send my articles to ezinearticles.com w/ my links in it...

Granted I only started it a week ago, but still, I get only 30-40 unique visitors a day

What else can I do to get folks to my blogs? Would love some ideas

thanks

[lakshaybehl]

Hey Dan!

Great you are getting 30-40 visitors a day!

But the best thing you can do is get repeat traffic.

There are basically two ways of doing that...

1. Your own list (Follow up with them via emails and send them to free contebnt as well as paid products' sales pages). For starting list building 30-40 UV a day is just fine!

2. Engage people and get them to interact with the functionality and other people and create content for you! That might not be the easiest thing to do just now, but I thought it deserves attention!

-Lakshay

[lakshaybehl]

But are you using social networking to drive traffic?

Myspace is one of the major sources of my traffic.

Build personal relationship with people by adding them to your friends. And then send them personal messages etc... and later on give them something for free via your squeeze page!

Note... You talk to them about your interests, but not products and services.

-Lakshay

[Bill Brickman]

I agree 100% with Lakshay. Your goal isn't just new traffic/visitors, your bigger goal is to keep them coming back.

If you have not done so you should definitely get an autoresponder (opt-in) onto your blog so people can sign up for automatic announcements whenever you make a new post.

Remember, there are millions of blogs out there. You're trying to create a following among all that noise.

Bill Brickman

[Frank Murphy]

Create a video and post it on youtube. Lots of traffic, guaranteed..

[entrepenerd]

I have to say congratulations. 30-40 uniques after only a week is actually really good.

These things will build over time. The more answers you post, the more links you will have. The more articles you publish, the more links you'll have coming in. You just need to have a little time to let them compound.

If you're looking for a quick boost in traffic, a great way is with video, especially if you can get it to go viral. Try to find a topic that you touch on in your blogs that you can make a quick video about that somehow touches a nerve or does something fun or funny. Then make sure you post that video to as many video sharing sites as you can. Just make sure that you include a link to your blog as the very first part of the description for the video.

Video is powerful!

I have to agree with Bill and Lakshay also. Work on getting some subscribers to an autoresponder and let them know when new items are posted to your blog. Build up your relationship with them and you'll do well.

Good luck!

[Frank Bruno]

Danyelle thats a great start and after a weeks time your doing just fine.

Keep doing what your doing. Articles and videos can bring in a lot of steady traffic for you.

Concentrate on the areas that bring you the most traffic and expand from there.

Try to get your visitors to stick and start building your list immediattely so you can leverage off of that soon.

Keep up good work!

Frank Bruno

[Alex Sol]

Originally Posted by misako

Create a video and post it on youtube. Lots of traffic, guaranteed..

I double that!
... However, traffic is not GUARANTEED as said by misako. The same marketing rules apply to Youtube and other video sites. One of the most important things is to pick a GOOD keyword phrase that gets lots of daily searches. Another important point; when you add a video to Youtube you must write a description of it. Well, start by giving the URL. It must include the
http://.... this way the link become clickable

So when someone watches the video - right next to it they see a link they can click on

Good Luck

[lakshaybehl]

Originally Posted by misako

Create a video and post it on youtube. Lots of traffic, guaranteed..

Of course... She's right!

Guaranteed traffic.

But here are some pointers before you get down with videos...

1. Shorter than 2 mins and 30 secs.
2. Be specific... And that's not about telling your story to the world unless you are Phelps
3. Be controversial : Not always, but sometimes it helps. Only do it when you feel strongly about something.
4. Be absurd... Maybe when you are not being controversial.

Spoofs work best. Especially if you know how who your market is and what are the problems they are facing. ((You should know that beforehand by the way)). Use them when you are doing something different from the rest of the world.

And please..... No screenshot videos... like the "How to" ones. No one bothers watching a 7 minute long video which is basically nothing but a disguised advertisement of your business!

-Lakshay

[Danyelle]

WOW! Thank you so much guys n gals! I've got to get a webcam or borrow someone's camcorder stat!

[mojoisland]

May I suggest trying hubpages. I set up a new hub with an article relating to my blog and then have a link from the hub to my blog. Hubpages is like a PR6 I think so it is a great back link to have and you can set up as many as you'd like as often as you like. It's like Squidoo except that Google still likes them.

Good Luck!

Robert

[Dan C. Rinnert]

On your "Actress" blog, you don't have the RSS subscribe links in a prominent position. The only link I see is allllll the way at the bottom of the page.

On your "Fitness" blog, move your RSS subscribe links above your "about me" area in the sidebar. Make the logos bigger too so they stand out more.

Also, on your "Actress" blog, make it easier for people to follow you on Twitter. You have "Follow Me on Twitter" in your sidebar, with Twitter updates below it, but no easy way for people to follow you. I'm used to seeing the "Follow Me on Twitter" text as a link to your Twitter page, which means I can click the link and then quickly choose "follow" over on Twitter.

You might also want to add a Twitter link to your "Fitness" blog.

The thing is, if you want subscribers and followers, you have to make it as easy as possible for them.

And, as others have mentioned, starting a mailing list would be a good idea too.

[drr]

Some good pointers given. Youtube has been a good source of traffic for my travel sites, so I thoroughly endorse submitting some free, short video clips branded with your URL.

Also, here's a neat site that submits your videos to several video directories incluing youtube. Was free last time I checked:

TubeMogul.com - Online Video Distribution and Analytics (not my site btw)
__________________
Free Membership For Resell Rights, PLR, IM Videos, Software & Resources - Click Here

[Danyelle]

Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert

On your "Actress" blog, you don't have the RSS subscribe links in a prominent position. The only link I see is allllll the way at the bottom of the page.

On your "Fitness" blog, move your RSS subscribe links above your "about me" area in the sidebar. Make the logos bigger too so they stand out more.

Also, on your "Actress" blog, make it easier for people to follow you on Twitter. You have "Follow Me on Twitter" in your sidebar, with Twitter updates below it, but no easy way for people to follow you. I'm used to seeing the "Follow Me on Twitter" text as a link to your Twitter page, which means I can click the link and then quickly choose "follow" over on Twitter.

You might also want to add a Twitter link to your "Fitness" blog.

The thing is, if you want subscribers and followers, you have to make it as easy as possible for them.

And, as others have mentioned, starting a mailing list would be a good idea too.

THANK YOU for the tips!!!
I don't intend on ever monetizing my acting blog, just the fitness one, and thanks I'm going to make the changes you suggested.

[Scott Ames]

You can grab my free report if you are a member of the War Room. See Sig.

[Simon_Sezs]

Originally Posted by Danyelle

Hi Warriors, please help me.

I'm updating content steadily (every other day), commenting on other people's blogs, sending bulletins on myspace, links are in my siggie in the forums I frequent, i answer related questions on yahoo answers and include my link... I ping when I update... I send my articles to ezinearticles.com w/ my links in it...

Granted I only started it a week ago, but still, I get only 30-40 unique visitors a day

What else can I do to get folks to my blogs? Would love some ideas

thanks

I have a different take on this. Everything said here to this point has been right IF you want to get readers. Just bear in mind, readers in most cases won't pay the bills.

The real "secret sauce" ingredient is to get ORGANIC traffic. Organic traffic is extremely targeted because usually the person googling a search has something very particular they are interested in.

After that, you just need to test to see which monetization strategies you will need to take.

[RandX]

Originally Posted by Danyelle

WOW! Thank you so much guys n gals! I've got to get a webcam or borrow someone's camcorder stat!

You can also just make a slideshow with camstudio and a microphone and put it on youtube, works as well.

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Also, you can try guest posting on other blogs. That can get you more exposure than the comments, as more readers will read a post than read the comments.

[Dana_W]

You're doing really well for your blog only being a week old! As your blog gets older and you include more content you will naturally start rising in the search engine rankings.

Have you tried press release services yet? They're not just used to get newspapers interested in your blog - which is actually quite hard to do - but they also provide backlinks and can send some traffic. There are a bunch of free press release services, I can dig their names up for you if you want.

Have you taken advantage of Twitter yet? I've gotten really good traffic from Twitter. Here's what I would do if I were you: go on Twitter Search. Search for keywords like fitness, exercise, nutrition...then follow the people who seem to Tweet frequently about fitness...and also check out who they are following, and who is following them. You will find a whole bunch of people interested in fitness that way. You could also look for moms and follow them. As a mom, I can tell you I'm always struggling to stay in shape.

The point of this is, when you follow people, a bunch of them will follow you back.

I've gotten several orders for my ghostwriting services from Twitter with very minimal effort on my part. It's really been awesome.

You want to include a link to your blog in your bio, and then every time you post to your blog, go on Twitter and say something like "10 Best Outdoor Exercises For Winter" and include a hyperlink to the post.

Works a treat for me, as the Brits say.

[juliemackenzie]

Hi There-

I would also suggest videos, you may want to use something like traffic geyser. When you upload to youtube, you only get traffic from there. But if you use something like traffic geyser it will go out to 30 site.

Also, if you like social sites, twitter is great. Its a little strange at first trying to figure out what is going on.. But once you get the hang of it. You can tweet what you are doing, then tweet about your blog. You will definitely make some good connections there.

Have a great night.

Julie MacKenzie

[Danyelle]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

You're doing really well for your blog only being a week old! As your blog gets older and you include more content you will naturally start rising in the search engine rankings.

Have you tried press release services yet? They're not just used to get newspapers interested in your blog - which is actually quite hard to do - but they also provide backlinks and can send some traffic. There are a bunch of free press release services, I can dig their names up for you if you want.

Have you taken advantage of Twitter yet? I've gotten really good traffic from Twitter. Here's what I would do if I were you: go on Twitter Search. Search for keywords like fitness, exercise, nutrition...then follow the people who seem to Tweet frequently about fitness...and also check out who they are following, and who is following them. You will find a whole bunch of people interested in fitness that way. You could also look for moms and follow them. As a mom, I can tell you I'm always struggling to stay in shape.

The point of this is, when you follow people, a bunch of them will follow you back.

I've gotten several orders for my ghostwriting services from Twitter with very minimal effort on my part. It's really been awesome.

You want to include a link to your blog in your bio, and then every time you post to your blog, go on Twitter and say something like "10 Best Outdoor Exercises For Winter" and include a hyperlink to the post.

Works a treat for me, as the Brits say.

WOW!!! What a fantastic idea. I didn't know this twitter business was so popular! Thank you so much.

[lakshaybehl]

But here's a quick tip... Have a squeeze page up and running ASAP and send people to thereand start building your list!

As they say- MONEY IS IN THE LIST!

[lakshaybehl]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

You're doing really well for your blog only being a week old! As your blog gets older and you include more content you will naturally start rising in the search engine rankings.

Have you tried press release services yet? They're not just used to get newspapers interested in your blog - which is actually quite hard to do - but they also provide backlinks and can send some traffic. There are a bunch of free press release services, I can dig their names up for you if you want.

Have you taken advantage of Twitter yet? I've gotten really good traffic from Twitter. Here's what I would do if I were you: go on Twitter Search. Search for keywords like fitness, exercise, nutrition...then follow the people who seem to Tweet frequently about fitness...and also check out who they are following, and who is following them. You will find a whole bunch of people interested in fitness that way. You could also look for moms and follow them. As a mom, I can tell you I'm always struggling to stay in shape.

The point of this is, when you follow people, a bunch of them will follow you back.

I've gotten several orders for my ghostwriting services from Twitter with very minimal effort on my part. It's really been awesome.

You want to include a link to your blog in your bio, and then every time you post to your blog, go on Twitter and say something like "10 Best Outdoor Exercises For Winter" and include a hyperlink to the post.

Works a treat for me, as the Brits say.

There are WP plugins that do just that automatically... So get them and install them and you won't need to post a Tweet update everytime you create a blog post!

[Dana_W]

Good idea, Lakshay.

Also: ping.fm allows you to update about a dozen different social networking sites at once. Facebook, Pownce, Tumblr, Twitter, Jaiku, and I can't remember what other ones. You have to have an invite to join ping.fm because it's in Beta; message me if you want an invite. It's free. There's probably other services that do this too.

My Pownce name is also Dana_Willhoit if anyone would like to befriend me there. I haven't worked very hard on building up a friend list on Pownce so I only have one friend there. I'm lonely.

[lakshaybehl]

Pownce? I haven't heard of that Dana!

but how does it help you to get a social networkjing account at so many diffenet networks?

I mean each of them requires time unless you are outsourcing the whole damn thing!

-Lakshay

[cottpfoc]

Write articles and post them everywhere. Dan mentioned guest blogging, that's a great idea. And by writing articles, you'll find that your article will end up on various blogs.

[Dana_W]

It does require time upfront, just like any SEO or traffic generating strategies. But when you use something like ping.fm, every time you post, your post goes to a dozen different social networking sites simultaneously. So you don't have to sit there and type up a dozen different posts.

The advantage of this is that different people use different networks, so you can greatly increase your reach by posting to different networks.

In the beginning, you have to go to each network and send out a bunch of friend requests or requests to follow or whatever that network has.

Then, you should set up your social networking accounts so you are notified when someone sends you a direct message or responds to one of your posts/tweets/updates, and you should reply to those messages and responseswithin the day as long as they're not spammy. This saves you from having to check in with each social network every day.

I learn a lot from people's posts on Tweet and I have had a couple more inquiries about my services in the last couple of days - I haven't had to run a WSO for ghostwriting in about two months now and some of that is due to Twitter.

The social networking thing, if you are checking on your messages and responses, does take a little time every day, but I find it to be worth it.

Originally Posted by lakshaybehl

Pownce? I haven't heard of that Dana!

but how does it help you to get a social networkjing account at so many diffenet networks?

I mean each of them requires time unless you are outsourcing the whole damn thing!

-Lakshay

[lakshaybehl]

Originally Posted by cottpfoc

Write articles and post them everywhere. Dan mentioned guest blogging, that's a great idea. And by writing articles, you'll find that your article will end up on various blogs.

Guest blogging might not be possible right now as you are just building up a name and brand for yourself! But yes, later on it will be great tool!

[leekhinc]

I did a youtube video 10 months ago and I am getting about 2 to 3 subscribers almost everyday. And the best thing is traffic is free!

I also did some paid advertisement on blogs like carlocab.com, johncow.com.

Hope that helps.

[Dana_W]

That is awesome! How did you publicize the youtube video? I did one and didn't have a lot of success with it, I have to admit.

Originally Posted by leekhinc

I did a youtube video 10 months ago and I am getting about 2 to 3 subscribers almost everyday. And the best thing is traffic is free!

I also did some paid advertisement on blogs like carlocab.com, johncow.com.

Hope that helps.

[Damien Roche]

First of all, 30-40 uniques already is quite an achievement. Don't beat yourself up over that. Commend yourself.

Hmmm....

You could do some article marketing. Whatever you post on your blog, use that content, twist it, and post it to ezinearticles.com

You have to put the time in, but if you have capital you could, instead, hire someone else to do it. Going rate seems to be around $4 an article if you buy quite a lot (10-20). With that, you could squeeze around 40 articles out of $100. Think about what you could do with all that unique(make sure it is unique) content.

There are so many ways to generate traffic it can become nauseating.

Here's a great link to an old-time kick ass thread:

The Warrior Forum - 65 Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Site!

Hope that gets the cogs turning!

-Damien.

[Danyelle]

Thank you all so very much! I'm going to be quite the busy bee.