How to Get More Traffic by Providing Incentives?

We have talked about Incentives and its role on a blogger’s role. Until now, we have only talked about Incentives – that are related to your blogging schedule ; I mean we have talked about different types of motivation and incentives to keep us on track – to keep blogging.

We haven’t talked about using incentives to drive traffic and maintain in your website. Well, in this blog post, we will talk about the importance of incentives on driving traffic – how we can use them to drive more traffic, and maintain them (traffic) for a long time.

Let’s not waste time (since time is precious and important), let’s start our post :

Psst : This is a long post. Please take time and read it fully and throughly to absorb all the details. Thanks ! I would recommend you to get a cup of coffee before you start reading this article. Thank you for dropping by !

Incentives ? Huh ?

Before we start, let’s take a look at what an incentive is. Skip this part if you already know what incentive is. Incentive is something that drives/motivates you to take action. Incentives play an important role in our lives.

There is an incentive behind all of your actions. Aren’t all of your actions choices ? Don’t we choose to do something ? And why exactly do we choose a certain element/way/path/thing from a group of things ? Because they are rewarding. Think about it. Each of our actions are motivated my reward.

For example : I blog because I consider blogging as fun. Here, fun is considered as a reward. So, do you get the definition of incentives ?

Before I start, let me explain the power of incentives:

Incentives can be very powerful. According to an experiment done by New York School system, students did better (better grades) when they were offered money for their grades. See ? Incentives can be very powerful. If incentives weren’t as powerful it was, we don’t have done anything – all of us would have been lazy and the world would have been different. Let’s start our post :-

How to get more Traffic with Incentives ?

There are plenty of incentives through which you can attract new readers, get more traffic. This post is a little different. Instead of looking on to “traffic generation” from a blogger stand point of view, we will be looking from a neutral point of view.

This perspective will enable us to understand (in a better manner) what the basics can do for you.

Below are the reasons why people visit your website :-

Incentive #1 : Excellent Quality Articles

To get more traffic, you must have great content. By great content, I mean quality. You must have some extra ordinary tips, advices and other sorts of stuff (that are related to your niche) in your article. You must have something that is useful and vital to your readers. Another thing to note here is that you must write new content. Yes, I do agree that well-written old content is important. But, new content is what people want. New content is what that drives most traffic. Think about it. Even if you are a supporter of writing old content, think about it.

Think about what new content can offer you. Consider an easy example : If you are tech writer. Would you want to write about the old software now ? Well, it may earn you some traffic, but not that much. If you want to create a good influence over the blogosphere, then you must have new content.

To explain this further, let me ask you one question. Why did you start blogging ? To give tips/news/article about your niche, right ? (yes, there was an incentive). But, would you want to write old tips again and again ? A “pro-old content writer” would say that we have to write for newbies – so we need to write old content. Here is what I have to say : What are the achieves for ? If the blogger is really that interested in your content, let him check out the old articles ? Why write the same thing again ? Don’t Leave a reply if you have support/reject my argument (Note : Include why you support/reject the idea).

Tip : Write excellent quality articles. Great articles can earn your more traffic (don’t forget to promote them after you have written the articles).

Result : Providing great new content can get you lots of traffic.

Incentive #2 – Influence Over Your Readers – Be the networking blogger and help out others

Do you have the REPUTATION ?

Another thing to consider is your popularity in the blogosphere. There are a lot of things that go with reputation. But, before we start let’s take a look at the definition of reputation. Reputation is what others think you are. From a blogging perspective, reputation is defined by your influence over others.

Are you popular ? Do you have an influence ? Do people trust in you ? These are some of the questions that you could answer for yourselves to find out whether you are a reputed blogger or not. The main thing that is associated with your reputation is your networking skills.

i) Are you a great Networker ?

If you are a wide spread engaging blogger, then you would have a lot of reputation to go with your name. Consider, for example : Nicholas Cardot of SiteSketch101.com. Why is he so successful in terms of reputation and blogging ? Because he is an excellent networker. And you can clearly find it from the different articles people have written about him. From my personal experience, I can tell you that he has a lot to teach you, so does many other bloggers (we will talk more about this later). People love bloggers who are great networkers.

Great Networkers are people/bloggers who are able to maintain an active spot in the discussion. You can find their influence everywhere. Due to their amazing skill to network, they are known for their blogs.

I mean, don’t you love to talk to those people who actually network with you. The amazing thing with networkers are that they are great addictions (People bond to them easily ; therefore, they remain to be popular. The tip I can give you here is to engage with others, whether its social media, forums

or some other place. Ask others how their lives are, talk to them. Don’t be the formal guy. Be friendly and act accordingly.

ii) Are you the GUY Next Door ?

Are you a helpful blogger ? Do you help out others ? Do you care about your readers ? You could build a whole lot of influence by helping others. I don’t have much to write here. The tip I can give you here is help others. Be a helpful blogger. You could help a visitor in different ways :- rewards, offering services, visiting, commenting and promoting their (Reader’s) blogs.

Result – The greater your reputation/influence, the greater the chance that others will find you. If you have a good influence, then you will get a better exposure because people will be promoting you (people will be willing to promote others who they find interesting, helpful and influential).

Incentive #3 – Miscellaneous

i) Learning, Applying and Commenting And Have a commenting system on your site.

Do you learn from others ? Are you a learning blogger ? An excellent blogger is someone who is able to learn new things and apply it to their blogging. To gain more traffic, you need to learn from others, follow their blogs, subscribe to their list (optional) and comment on their site. You might ask me how this can get you more traffic. Well, if you comment and engage in others blog, I am sure that they will at least check your blog (50-60% of the time).And if your blog meets incentive #1, then you have got yourself a regular reader. Along with all these, you may even get a backlink to one of your articles (Commentluv). Isn’t that juicy ?

As a blogger, you must also be willing to learn, apply and teach others. These three factors have an indirect relationship with getting more traffic. Another thing I would like to mention here is having a full equipped commenting system. Having a commenting system is like giving the power to the readers. It means that you are offering the freedom of speech to your readers. If you offer commenting system to your readers, then you will surely get comments (depends on other factors, too).

The main thing that you should focus on (when it comes to commenting) is building a community within your website. If you are able to do that, then you will get more traffic (and new visitors to your blog will stay as regular readers). Building a community is a hard task. The key to building a community is to provide good content and comment on other blogs. These two things serve as a base for your “community-building” task. After that, everything else is a breeze (if you follow your commenting rules).

Result : Learn, Apply, Teach, Comment and Offer a Commenting System. Commenting is a great incentive to get more traffic.

ii) Offer Different Tools, Sharing Options, E-books and Other Services

Offer different tools to your readers. E-books are great incentives because they can help you with building your list. People like E-books because they are Books, because they contain a lot of tips (usually). Nowadays, you can see an e-book writing revolution in the blogpsphere (Although I can tell you one thing : E-books are getting shorter while the number of e-books per blogger is increasing). Sharing options can help you with promotions and greater exposure. Implementing all of these techniques can help you with getting a lot of traffic. There are a lot range of tools you can use to make your website user friendly. There are also many other tools that can offer you unique services like automatic content promotion via Twitter. All of these tools are great, and you should use them to an extend. They will help you greatly when it comes to getting more traffic.

Incentive #4 – Organize and Participate in Guest Blogging Contest

This is one of the most effective ways through which you can get lots of traffic. People love the prizes. The incentive is especially strong when the prizes are in hard cash. Another reason for the effectiveness of this Organize a Guest Blogging Contest or participate in one. Let me tell you the advantage of organizing one contest :-

• Traffic & Subscribers – New Subscribers/visitors for your blog
• Vacation – Take a break from writing articles.
• Massive Exposure
• Others – depends upon your contest rules

The advantage of participating in one is huge :-

• Traffic and Subscribers
• Huge Exposure
• Prizes
• Increased Reputation

The list goes on. Why wouldn’t you “not” participate in a guest blogging contest ?

Result : Guest Blogging Contests are huge incentives for people to come and visit your blog.

Incentive #5 – Create Your Own !

Create your own incentives to get more traffic. There are tons out there. Let your imagination go wild. You could do all sorts of experiments to find out the best incentive for getting more traffic. To think of an incentive, you need to think like a visitor. Think about what lures you into a site. Is it the great headline (that’s another incentive) or is it the content  or is it the person who promoted it ? What is it ? There are a lot of incentives out there (trust me). If I list all of them here, it would take me more than 1 millions to write it all down (that’s a bit exaggerating but still the list is very long).

How to get more traffic through incentive :-

1. Find the things that drive traffic to your blog
2. Find out why these sources (#1) earn you traffic (and decide whether your source is an incentive or not).
3. Revise, Plan and Experiment with your Incentive
4. Let the world know of your technique  – write an article or even an e-book about your incentive – how it helped you !

Conclusion

That puts an end to our post. All of these incentives are great for getting more traffic. They will also help you to maintain your existing traffic. Now, I am offering you a great incentive to comment on this article, by doing so, You are:

• Increasing Your reputation
• Adding to Your comment luv links
• Increasing your exposure and influence
• Letting know of your ideas, your values, your voice
• So, comment ! Let me know of your valuables incentives !
• Allow me to try out your ideas, experiments ! Comment now !
• Don’t Wait ! Your Time is limited, and so is mine ! Did you learn something

Now! What do you think of this article ? Is there anything that you want to add ?

This article is part of the Traffic Generation Blogging Contest, please add a comment and share it to support the author.