Attracting Traffic/Readers Instead Of Chasing Them...

This is a very important post which spawned from a thought I've had in my head for quite a while, so I figured it's time to materialize it into words... and what better place to do so than at my favorite idea-generating hang out spot?

I don't claim to be the greatest writer of all time. A few copywriters that hang out on that section of the forum are true wordsmiths... however I HAVE figured out a few things that can be effectively applied to your blog posts or articles that you write for Ezine etc. If anything, it might help you get a loyal following.

Since I blog, I'll be using blogging terminology. Modify the lingo to float your boat.

Stop The Goose Chasing!

I look around, I look around, and WAY too many bloggers are over-the-top chasing for readers and eyeballs instead of truly attracting them to their page. They...

• Write with keywords in mind instead of people... "hoping" that this will somehow bring PEOPLE to their blogs because some SE robot found the massive barrage of puke inducing text relevant. (Can you spot the foolishness here?)

• Write about the same old general useless information that's been regurgitated over and over instead of pushing the envelope or (god forbid) taking a damn creative risk!

• Try so hard to be different, that they end up being the same (cuz everyone's trying to be different). All in the hopes that maybe someone will buy their crap, or leave a comment, or link to them, or maybe follow them on Twitter.

..and on and on. These trends are becoming very apparent and it's watering down the content quality of the information available. And then people WONDER why it's so hard for them to get traffic or make their posts go viral.

They rip their hair out trying to bookmark, post comments and linkbacks and before they know it 8 hours as gone by and all they've done is mindless grind work. It's needy, its pathetic and quite frankly it's time for a change.

Look, bookmarking to one or two important sites and doing some RELEVANT commenting (not for the sake of getting links) for 10-15 minutes a day is good... but there's no need to over-do it. There is a better way...

Attracting Instead Of Chasing

It's time to ATTRACT the readers to your blogs and to your content instead of GOING to them and being like "HEY! Please check me out and tell me how awesome I am!"

So the big question is, how do you attract? Well from experience in REAL life as well as online, here's what I've found to be effective. I reverse engineered this by carefully creeping the pros (Insert your favorite IM guru name here).

1. Be REAL. If there's one thing I know, its that everyone's personality is unique in one way or another. SO THEN WHY THE HELL DO SO MANY BLOGS READ THE SAME WAY?! It's boring an unexciting. Let go of ridiculous expectations and the "what ifs" and the "what nots".

Instead, write for yourself and you'll end up BEING yourself in your posts. Why is this important? Well think about it. Who is more attractive? A person who lives in their own reality and is always joking and being themselves around you... or the needy clinger, always desperate for an ounce of attention and recognition.

2. Provide Practical Value. F*** general information! I couldn`t have said that more passionately. If you are going to post or thinking about posting some general doo-doo on your blog then let me tell you something... squidDOO HAS YOU BEAT. EZINE ARTICLES ALSO HAS YOU BEAT. And both these sites get more traffic than you could ever dream of so why bother? Blogs like ProBlogger and CopyBlogger are a perfect example of good posts with content you can walk away and USE.

If someone can't read your post and walk away with a profound thought, or some practical knowledge that they can implement or apply right away then there is work to be done. This step is harder said than done, but it can be done. Will it mean that you'll be posting a few LESS times per week? Yes. Will it mean that it will take more work? Yes. Will your hunk of text finally have a 10x higher chance of going viral? Better believe it!

3. Keywords belong in TITLES... not in every other sentence of your article! This is self explanatory. HUMANS read and truly comprehend your content, not robots. Humans decide to follow you or email you or buy what ever minor things you might be selling using affiliate links... NOT ROBOTS. And you should be writing for you and being yourself anyways so this is a no brainer.

4. Interact More Than Usual. Just replying to comments or posting them on other blogs then forgetting about it only goes so far. You gota do more... people like to have a sense of "belonging" and "connection". As an example... on my blog if there is ever a question in the comments that is too long to answer, I'll just straight up email that person. 99% of them are like "wow you took the time to email me". I'm like "well you DID ask me a question didn't you? So here's my response."

If you can't see the potential of a person like this becoming your future customer, you need get your head out of your behind. Seriously. The opportunity is SO obvious it's ridiculous. I've made SO many sales this way.

5. Eye Candy. This one is superficial, but oh so true. Don't tell me book covers and blog themes don't matter... I've refused to read plenty of blogs in the past because the layout was so painful I wanted to stab myself in the eye.

You don't have to be over the top, but simple, elegant and eye pleasing themes are a MUST. Nice looking blogs are also memorable, which makes them *drum roll* ATTRACTIVE. They bring the peeps back to your crib homie! [article writers who submit content, you obviously don't have to worry about this one]

6. And Lastly, Have Patience No ultra successful blogger/writer became what they are today overnight. Not even over weeks or months. It took a year or more of effort. They had to grind away, post after post without stopping and before they knew it... they had something BIG. It also has to do with the fact that when people see that you've been around for some time, YOU ARE THE REAL DEAL. Not some fly-by-nighter.

I say this to everyone while helping them get in shape... "ordinary actions done over a period of time provide extraordinary results".

...And that's all I got for now. This was my brain dump, something I needed to put out in words so that automatically becomes memorized. If you have techniques to add that you KNOW work for sure, the do so.

Cheers.
-FJ