1.) Target Your Content to an Audience Likely to Share:
When strategizing about who you're writing for, consider that audience's ability to help spread the word. Some readers will naturally be more or less active in evangelizing the work you do, but particular communities, topics, writing styles and content types regularly play better than others on the web. For example, great infographics that strike a chord (like this one), beautiful videos that tell a story (like this one) and remarkable collections of facts that challenge common assumptions (like this one) are all targeted at audiences likely to share.
If you can identify groups that have high concentrations of the blue and orange circles in the diagram above, you dramatically improve the chances of reaching larger audiences and growing your traffic numbers. Targeting blog content at less-share-likely groups may not be a terrible decision (particularly if that's where you passion or your target audience lies), but it will decrease the propensity for your blog's work to spread like wildfire across the web.
2.) Participate in the Communities Where Your Audience Already Gathers:
You probably already know a few blogs, forums, websites and social media communities where discussions and content are being posted on your topic (and if you don't a Google search will take you much of the way). From that list, you can do some easy expansion using a web-based tool like DoubleClick's Ad Planner:
Once you've determined the communities where your soon-to-be-readers gather, you can start participating. Create an account, read what others have written and don't jump in the conversation until you've got a good feel for what's appropriate and what's not.
3.) Use Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to Share Your Posts & Find New Connections:
Twitter just topped 465 million registered accounts. Facebook has over 850 million active users. Google+ has nearly 100 million. LinkedIn is over 130 million. Together, these networks are attracting vast amounts of time and interest from Internet users around the world, and those that participate on these services fit into the "content distributors" description above, meaning they're likely to help spread the word about your blog.
Leveraging these networks to attract traffic requires patience, study, attention to changes by the social sites and consideration in what content to share and how to do it. My advice is to use the following process:
- If you haven't already, register a personal account and a brand account at each of the following - Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn (those links will take you directly to the registration pages for brand pages).
- Fill out each of those profiles to the fullest possible extent - use photos, write compelling descriptions and make each one as useful and credible as possible. Research shows that profiles with more information have a significant correlation with more successful accounts (and there's a lot of common sense here, too, given that spammy profiles frequently feature little to no profile work).
- Connect with users on those sites with whom you already share a personal or professional relationships, and start following industry luminaries, influencers and connectors. Services like FollowerWonk and FindPeopleonPlus can be incredible for this:
- Start sharing content - your own blog posts, those of peers in your industry who've impressed you and anything that you feel has a chance to go "viral" and earn sharing from others.
- Interact with the community - use hash tags, searches and those you follow to find interesting conversations and content and jump in! Social networks are amazing environment for building a brand, familiarizing yourself with a topic and the people around it, and earning the trust of others through high quality, authentic participation and sharing.
If you consistently employ a strategy of participation, share great stuff and make a positive, memorable impression on those who see your interactions on these sites, your followers and fans will grow and your ability to drive traffic back to your blog by sharing content will be tremendous. For many bloggers, social media is the single largest source of traffic, particularly in the early months after launch, when SEO is a less consistent driver.
4.) Install Analytics and Pay Attention to the Results:
At the very least, I'd recommend most bloggers install Google Analytics (which is free), and watch to see where visits originate, which sources drive quality traffic and what others might be saying about you and your content when they link over.
As you can see, there's all sorts of great insights to be gleaned by looking at where visits originate, analyzing how they were earned and trying to repeat the successes, focus on the high quality and high traffic sources and put less effort into marketing paths that may not be effective. In this example, it's pretty clear that Facebook and Twitter are both excellent channels. StumbleUpon sends a lot of traffic, but they don't stay very long (averaging only 36 seconds vs. the general average of 4 minutes!).
Employing analytics is critical to knowing where you're succeeding, and where you have more opportunity. Don't ignore it, or you'll be doomed to never learn from mistakes or execute on potential.
5.) Make sure that your blog design draws readers in:
You don't have to spend a fortune on the layout of your blog. A simple design that's modern and clean will encourage readers to check out your content. Don't underestimate the power of images; they can attract readers and increase your chances of being found by search engines.
6.) Publish quality posts on a regular basis:
As Google and other search engines refine their algorithms, stuffing content with keywords is no longer a guarantee of a high search engine rankings. Publishing quality content that is useful, interesting and even controversial will attract readers, and make them want to come back for more.
7.) Provide in-depth content once or twice a month:
In addition to short daily posts, publish articles once or twice a month that provide added value in your blog niche. Examples of in-depth content include lists of resources, how-to guides and detailed analyses of important issues. Spend extra time on these articles since your goal is attracting other bloggers who will link to your articles and readers who will return to your blog.
8.) Use outbound links:
Provide links to useful content elsewhere on the web as a service to your readers. Outbound links can also help your blogs get noticed by the owners of the sites you link to and increase you search engine ranking.
9.) Build relationships with your readers:
Allow your readers to comment on posts and ask questions (use an approval mechanism to thwart spammers). Foster two-way conversations, and build reader loyalty by posting responses.
10.) Invite readers to subscribe:
Provide standard mechanisms to allow readers to get updates through e-mail and an RSS feed. Your blogging platform should already have the tools to do this.
11.) Be Consistent and Don't Give Up:
If there's one piece of advice I wish I could share with every blogger, it's this:
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