When I first found out about the traffic generation contest, I knew there was going to be a big buzz about it. I was expecting to find out some great tips on traffic generation. And I was right.
- Wong aka The Bad Blogger shared with us some often overlooked traffic sources and told us how to create viral content.
- Lisa advised to think outside the box but keep things simple.
- Mavis told us how to stay on top after the recent changes with Google.
- Brankica shared with us a whopping 50 traffic generation sources.
- Michele reported on the most effective traffic generation techniques with 3 golden stars.
All posts were great, with awesome insights, arguments and ideas.
But I was a bit disappointed by the fact that no one approached the subject of targeting your traffic and knowing your audience. This is the first thing a blogger should consider when planning his traffic generation strategy.
So, I decided to take a chance and participate in the contest with my own guest post. In this article I will talk about:
- Determining your target audience;
- Finding your target audience;
- Making your audience find you;
- Measuring the results.
And without further ado, let’s go back to the start!
Determine who your target audience is
This one is a no-brainer and quite an obvious step when starting a blog. But is it really that simple?
Here are some simple questions to ask yourself:
- What gender are the majority of your audience?
- What is their education? Their social class or income?
- If you plan on selling something through your blog, will your audience be willing to buy it?
- Is your audience structured in different segments? Does each segment have different needs and behavior?
Know your target audience as best you can. What they want, how they act, what is their common interest. These will all help you when working on your traffic generation techniques.
Drag your potential readers to you
First, you get yourself out there. Gain exposure and let them know you. Remember! Targeted traffic. How exactly can you do this?
Hang where they hang
Forums
Most forums have a “links” section where they allow you to announce your site to the community. Provide a nice description, include a link to your site and make sure you subscribe to that thread through your e-mail so that you may respond whenever you get a response.
If you decide to become an active member of a forum, you will also be able to get traffic through your signature links.
Blogs
Find blogs in your niche and get traffic through commenting or guest blogging.
Remember step #1. Let’s say your blog is about dating advice. You can find blogs and forums in that niche. But those looking for a date would also be interested in looking good right? Fitness, healthy living, fashion, cosmetics… all possible niches for you to explore.
Analyze the competition
- Find your competitors and do what they do.
- Go to Yahoo Site Explorer and find out where they get their backlinks from.
- Are they active on a specific social bookmarking site? Consider joining them as well.
- Do they have a blog? Start spamming them!
Make your potential readers find you
SEO
- Go to Google AdWords or use a paid service to find out what kind of searches are made that could relate to the topic of your blog;
- Pay attention to your title tags;
- Install SEO tools which can help you on your blog;
- Get quality backlinks to your site;
- Write quality and informative content.
Of course, Seo is much more than this. These are just some basic things to get you started.
Social networks
In order for your audience to find you on social networks, you have to be present on those social networks. Also, make sure you keep your current readers in mind and you encourage them to share your content.
When someone is sharing something on Facebook, they are actually recommending that to their friends. That can be a very powerful message.
Measuring the results: did you attract the right audience?
After successfully attracting traffic on to your site, it is time to measure your results. Some things we would need to find out at this point:
- Who are your readers;
- How did they find you;
- What they want from you;
- How they act on your site;
You can find this by:
- Using Google Analytics: find out how people are reaching your site, which pages are the most visited, what they are searching on your site, what links they click on, etc.;
- Checking your blog’s comments: talk to your commentators, visit their site, find out who they are, what they do, etc.
- Measuring your blog’s social impact: use bit.ly or backtype to see who tweets your posts, use TweetEffect to see which twitter statuses made you loose or gain more followers;
- Ask them: put up a survey and politely ask your readers what you want to know about them.
The last method is my favorite, since you can gather a lot more insight from it. Besides, surveys are fun to take.
These tools can help you in creating a survey for your site:
- PollDaddy.com which does have a free version you can use;
- Online services such as eSurveysPro.com or the free trial version from SurveyGizmo.com. You can announce it on your site through a widget, a post or HelloBar or you can send out emails if you want only your subscribers to complete it;
- Use Google Docs to create a form and embed it on your site. Just go to “Create New” and select “Form”
And, since we’re on this subject, are you willing to complete the small survey below? It’s about a topic which I’m sure everyone will find interesting. You guessed it! Guest Blogging.
I promise to share the results in another guest post after the traffic generation contest ends.
Please take a moment to fill out this survey.
Thank you! I would love to hear your thoughts on the survey.
Twitter: LoveThatBug
says:
Lots of good ideas – I think people sometimes give up before they’ve really tried. Getting traffic is not easy in the beginning and you need to persevere. However once you reach a certain size it does start to happen on its own as people link to you and share your posts.
I like your idea of analyzing your competitors and this is one that I frequently do. You get all sorts of good ideas on where you might find back links just by seeing who they have back links from. Get enough back links and the traffic takes care of itself.
lovethatbug´s recent blog post ..Mar 22- What Are Probiotics- What Is Probiotic
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Bug,
Thank you for your comment. Yes, it’s hard to get traffic to your site, especially if you are new, but no one said it would be easy. If people like what they read on your site, they will share it to their friends because it’s possible they will also like it.
And yes, spying on the competition is important. You can get a lot of ideas from that. People should do it more often.
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to complete the survey.
All the best,
Cosmin
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
I agree that it’s hard to get traffic to your site, especially if you getting started, but no one said it would be easy. The more important is your content. People loves unique content as well as search engine.
Thanks,
Mandel from Core Bit
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Mandel.
Indeed content is very important. If people don’t like your content, all of your efforts on getting traffic on to your site would be useless.
Thanks for leaving your input, Cosmin.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Hi there Cosmin,
Your post is complete considering the highlighted entries of brilliant bloggers! Thank you I am learning with your tips and insights. It’s about finding where people are talking about your niche and finding ways to engage with them. We can do that by using search engines and social media networks effectively. I believe this not only taking people knowing your niche but this can also help you being there for people when they need you.
Search and social media monitoring for your niche is a thing many have disregard , but if we’re going to think about it, essentially we could find out that it’s really important.
Regards,
Kira Permunian
kirapermunian´s recent blog post ..Finding the Right Business Partners – DigitalFilipino
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Kira!
Thanks so much for your comment. I’m glad you found this post useful.
Indeed it’s as you say. Why do big companies spend so much for marketing research? Because it doesn’t pay to take shots in the dark.
Thanks again for your comment Kira.
All the best, Cosmin.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
You are welcome Cosmin! Keep in touch and Goodluck.
kirapermunian´s recent blog post ..Finding the Right Business Partners – DigitalFilipino
Hello!
When I began writing my blog, I was only thinking about having a great and interesting content and I was very preoccupied about how it would look. But all the effort put into that, is not worth it, if the audience to whom you are writing isn’t reading what you have posted, that’s for sure…so I will try to use some of the tips you gave, and let you know how did this work for the traffic on my blog.
Regards,
Anna
Anna´s recent blog post ..Kaffee am Meer
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hey Anna,
Thanks! Can’t wait to hear your results.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Thanks for the great post. It’s a lot of information to digest, and probably could be broken down in to much greater detail. For example, using keywords effectively has always eluded me. It’s a bullet point here, but I bet an entire textbook could be written about it.
Also, with all these different points of action, staying organized would seem to be a big problem. It’s getting so complex these days, keeping up with changes in algorthims, technologies, etc . . .
Maybe there is a system that helps with all this, or maybe someone needs to develop one. Another great potential!
timmilli´s recent blog post ..Greek Island Getaway
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Timmilli,
Thank you for your comment. If you want to rank well for a keyword you can do the following (as I know it):
- Put the keywords in your title tag;
- Put them in your url;
- Put them in your h1 tags;
- Put them in your text (not more then 4-5% density), make sure you also use synonyms and variations;
- Backlinks from other sites with anchor text as your keywords.
Also, keep in mind that branding is also important. Sometimes, SEO and branding don’t match.
Hope this helps, thanks again for your comment.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Twitter: musicblogtips
says:
These are nice way to get quality traffic. I am newbie its gonna help me lot.
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Suraj. Thanks for your comment. Glad you found it useful.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Twitter: freebiest
says:
CommentLuv is a great way to increase the quantity of comments on my site, it means I get more traffics. Thank for nice tips above!
Freebiest´s recent blog post ..Free Kaspersky AntiVirus 2011 6 months license code
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Thank you for reading it.
Indeed I’ve noticed that sites with ComLuv seem to have more detailed and insightful comments.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Twitter: hupseymedia
says:
The prolem with most traffic generating methods are that they take time you could use on content on your own blog. I was hoping to get some traffic from Google, but my rankings are just going down after panda update…
hupsey´s recent blog post ..My favorite WordPress comment plugins
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Hupsey,
Thanks for the comment.
What you say is true but it takes time to get good rankings in search engines. That’s why guest blogging, social media, etc. can be good traffic sources (especially for new sites).
Hope you get your rankings back.
All the best, Cosmin.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Twitter: hupseymedia
says:
I am currently spending a lot of time on Social media, especially Twitter. I am trying to get the traffic up by being on the social arenas.
hupsey´s recent blog post ..Why you don’t need a mobile theme on your WordPress blog
Twitter: techwork_dk
says:
Hi Cosmin
Nice post. It is important to stay focused on your audience and what they are looking for. If you want to beat your competitors it is not enough to copy what they are doing, but it is a good start
Thomas´s recent blog post ..Change the channel on your access point or router
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Thomas.
Thanks for your comment and the nice words.
All the best! Cosmin.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
I’m trying to use more twitter and facebook to help boost traffic. Facebook has helped alot!!
Chi´s recent blog post ..Carlee Bridal Portrait Middleton Plantation
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Chi! I just saw your site and it’s very beautiful! No wonder you have so many fans on Facebook.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
I’ve only just started to experiment with social media promotion, so it’s too early to tell if the it lives up to the hype.
Ryan´s recent blog post ..Afghanistan- 68
great ideas!
you mentioned some things that I have not yet tried out
thanks
zoopco´s recent blog post ..FREE CO Domain Auction
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Zoopco! Thanks for the comment and glad this was useful to you.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Twitter: brphollis
says:
Cosmin,
Hi, nice read. I must say that the one idea that I should really pay more attention to is the knowing my audience and considering better tracking efforts. This may go a bit off-topic, but my email marketing, for example, has so many tracking methods (demographics), and I just overlook these and just say “I’m happy to have someone else on the list”. I have a degree in Marketing and don’t even use these crucial tools.
Bryan
Bryan Hollis´s recent blog post ..China Search Portal- Sina Says Good-bye To Google
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Hello Bryan,
I have a degree in marketing as well.
I think tracking can give more insights on what your audience needs. Wish more bloggers would talk about this more often.
Thanks for your comment!
Cosmin.
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site
Twitter: brphollis
says:
Hi Cosmin,
I have been giving this post even more thought today because I have been laying the foundation for my affiliate marketing campaign. I have built several websites over the course of about 6 to 8 months, with one site being the core of the rest (if this makes sense – trying not to spam Andy’s site!), but interestingly enough, without even thinking about it, all of the sites that point back to the core site are diversified. Deeply different demographics. Interesting….
Bryan
Bryan Hollis´s recent blog post ..China Search Portal- Sina Says Good-bye To Google
Twitter: cvos
says:
“Go to Yahoo Site Explorer and find out where they get their backlinks from.”
This single tip has been one of the most effective strategies we have used to dominate the competition.
Netpaths´s recent blog post ..Good Old Forums Tops For Inc 500 Social Media Success
Twitter: _cosmin
says:
Indeed, even the most successful bloggers are using it. Thanks for commenting!
Cosmin Stefan´s recent blog post ..3 Tools to Check for Broken Links on Your Site