Looking for ways to increase your website traffic and generate over 2000 unique visitors daily?
What’s the essence of a website without traffic? It’s similar the old one concerning “the sound of one hand clapping” (if you must know, by the way, the answer is nothing).
Without traffic, your website is absolutely worthless.
That sounds harsh, but that’s the truth. If nobody ever visits to read your content, why then write it?
Wait, don’t throw in the towel and burn your blogsite in shame! You do not need to feel bad at all if you are not receiving enough traffic right now – you’re in good hands.
Every day, an overwhelming number of brand new domain names are being registered. Most of these websites will fizzle out in a year or two, lost to failure. And the major reason for failure is a lack of traffic.
Traffic is the main challenge that every blogger and site owner faces. It is the main difference between success and failure.
So it’s worth learning the process of how to generate traffic whenever you need it and this happens to be all the time). That’s why we put this information guide together. If you follow and apply all these steps each time you Publish a post, you will never need to worry about traffic ever again.
How to Use this Article
So, here’s the idea. We have listed a vast number of ways to increase website traffic. Just work through the various steps in sequence whenever you publish a new post, and your blog site will be flooded with keen readers.
Some strategies have their own subtle distinctions, so we have linked to people blog posts that discuss them in a more in-depth form – otherwise, this post would go on forever!
Some of the steps may require a little set-up to get the best results. For instance, we might tell you to send a broadcast to your email subscriber list. What if you don’t have one? You need to build one!
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Using The 80/20 Rule
We have a massive list of traffic generation methods for you here, and most of them are effective in all niches.
That said, some methods will work better for you and your audience than others. Over time, you’ll find that 80% of your traffic comes from 20% of your actions.
You can track which methods work best with analytics software (such as the free Google Analytics service).
This is precious knowledge. When you know which sources work best for you, you can focus your efforts in those areas and let the other 80% go.
If you spend 100% of your traffic generation time on those activities, you could increase website traffic by 500%. It’s just good math.
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Through Traffic Diversification
There’s another side to the “80/20” coin. You can not afford to put all your eggs in one basket!
If you rely on a single or two traffic sources, you are prone to be in trouble when they run dry. This happens more often than you might even think.
Once upon a time, it was easy to drive tons of traffic by submitting your site to the Yahoo directory. Today, it’s gone the way of the dinosaur.
Digg used to be a phenomenal traffic source – but today, it’s not even in the running.
Popular sites come and go. Most-times the public just abandons them – like MySpace. Sometimes they run out of money – they were never profitable (this could happen to Twitter).
In any case, if you have several streams of traffic, you can always weather the storm and keep the traffic rolling.
100+ Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website
In this comprehensive guide, we have covered a number of ways at which you could generate traffic to your blog or website just by spending a few minutes in routine.
95% of these methods are free and won’t cost you even any money from your pocket. These techniques are highly effective which you can use for almost all niches and kinds of blogs or websites.
100+ Killer Traffic Generation Methods
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Traffic Through Conversation Channels
1. Emails
Let’s start with a few incredibly simple methods you can execute in a few minutes. They may not be the last word in traffic generation, but they will help to get the word out and drive eyeballs.
Your Email
You probably send dozens of emails every day – and you certainly receive more than you send! You can use this to your advantage…
Your Signature
Every email client and web-based email service allows you to add a signature to the emails you send. You can add a link to your latest article here!
The “Traffic Vacation”
Most email services allow you to set up an automated message that goes out when people send you an email. You can use it when you go on vacation, so people know you’ll get back to them when you return.
Why not use it to promote your latest article?
Just add a simple message to say you’ll answer their email within 24 hours (or however long it usually takes) and then add a link to your latest article. Tell them why they should check it out – outline the benefit of reading it.
2. Skype
Skype is the world’s most popular Voice Over IP (VOIP) app. It’s a great way to make free voice calls. But can you really use it to generate traffic? Yes, you can, and it’s pretty simple!
Your Skype Status
You can add a link to your skype status. Then all your contacts will see the link, and you’ll get some traffic!
3. Chat Rooms
These methods can send traffic to your site within a few minutes – they won’t necessarily drown your server, but they’re fast and effective.
They’re a good match for new articles or posts because you can use them for fast feedback. It’s really useful to get some early reactions – you can use that feedback to enhance your content.
Chat rooms are as old as the hills, and they’re still around today (just about). There used to be chat rooms for every topic under the sun (most people used them to send suggestive messages to strangers).
Chat rooms may be on the way out, but there are new versions of the same idea. Mobile apps have risen to dominate the field in the last few years. These apps have become more sophisticated – slack is a chat app for teams, with a ton of bells and whistles added.
Using chat rooms to generate traffic is not a new tactic at all – chat rooms (and newsgroups) have been flooded with spam since the mid 90’s. Back then, spam was super effective. Today, it’s not.
Many chat rooms have completely banned link posting to prevent spam. But there are apps and tools that allow it.
Marketing in chat rooms can be very risky if you approach it the wrong way. You cannot just drop a link to your content or an affiliate offer and expect the community to be happy.
The key is to participate as a genuine member of the community, and only ever post a link if it’s relevant.
For instance, if you just wrote a post about the WordPress API, it would make sense to mention it when someone asks a question about some aspect of the API – as long as your article answers the question.
4. ICQ
ICQ was the world’s first stand-alone chat app, and it used to have more than 100 million active users!
It achieved explosive growth, but when the product was acquired by AOL (for $300 million) it suffered years of neglect. Even so, it’s not dead.
Today, it belongs to Mail.ru – and there are still 10 million regular users (and no, they aren’t all Russians).
Compared to today’s chat apps, it’s a little primitive. But you often find chat rooms with hundreds of live people. The biggest live chats have ten thousand live members! Posting a single link can send dozens of visitors within seconds!
GETTING STARTED
- Download the ICQ client.
- Set up your account.
- Find a live chat related to your topic.
- Say hello to the people there.
- Join the chat. Take a good look at the topics that are being discussed. Do you have anything to add? Any questions? Don’t just start posting links to your stuff
- Direct the conversation towards the topic of your content.
- Paste your link when appropriate.
If your messages are getting drowned out by the general noise, you can continue a conversation using private messages.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve written an article about WordPress security. You find a live chat for web developers.
Before you try to direct the conversation, you have to join it. Contribute to the discussion that’s already taking place. Maybe people are talking about designing logos. Add your ideas to the discussion.
After a few minutes, you can bring up the subject of security. Maybe you could ask them if they’ve had a site that got hacked. Or you could ask what their favourite security plugin is.
Now work out a good reason for mentioning your article. Maybe you want their feedback on it. Maybe someone asks a question that you’ve already answered in the article.
It should only take a couple of minutes for an opportunity to present itself. When it does, drop the link.
If you’ve actually engaged the interest of the people in the room, you’ll start seeing traffic instantly. It may only be a few visits. It could be ten or more.
Keep the conversation going, and you’ll get more visits.
TIPS
1. You can chat in multiple rooms at the same time – put the windows side-by-side so you don’t miss anything.
2. It’s worth visiting the same chat room a few hours later. People log on and off all the time, so you may find an entirely different crowd.
Of course, you can’t spend your life pitching the same article over and over in the same rooms. But it’s a good way to get an initial burst of traffic for a new post.
5. Slack Groups
Slack is a powerful chat tool for teams – think of it as a fully searchable chat room on steroids. Although the tool is mainly designed for the workplace, a number of people have used it to create community groups.
Most of these groups are still small, but they are very active. A group may have only 1000 members – but 100 or more of them will be online at any time.
This can be good for a quick burst of traffic – although it’s not going to flood your site. Nevertheless, if you’ve done a good job of engaging the people in the chat session, they’re quite likely to interact with your post – leaving comments, sharing or liking the content, etc.
Slack groups are search-able, so there’s a possibility that other users will find your content in the future. A post in a Slack group on a popular evergreen has the potential to send a trickle of traffic for some time.
GETTING STARTED
Slack marketing is a pretty unconventional method, so there are no detailed guides online. You should take a little time to “learn the ropes” before you start to drive traffic. Sign up for slack, join a few groups, and just interact like a normal person. Get into chats, swap opinions, etc.
Here is a list of 1000 active slack communities in a number of niches:
Only a few niches are active on Slack. New groups are popping up all the time.
After you have got a feel for the site and some insight into your communities, you can start answering questions on subjects relating to your content. Don’t just drop a link to your article – answer the question well, and tell the users they can learn more from the original post.
TIPS
It can be hard to find questions that line up perfectly with the topic of your article. Sometimes a question will cover a weird edge case that you didn’t write about.
You could quickly add the information to your article, but that’s pretty time-consuming.
Here’s a tip you can use to drive traffic from virtually any question. Use sniply to add a call-to-action to someone else’s content!
Sniply is a link shortening service with a difference. When you share a link, you can add a message and a link to the page you share – even if it’s from someone else’s site.
Just do a quick Google search and find a good article that answers the question. Then feed it into Sniply, add a message promoting your content, and add a link.
When Robbie Richards of Digital Marketer tested Sniply, more than 57.7% of the people who clicked the Sniply link visited his page.
6 Blog Comments
Blog comments were the number one link building technique in the mid-2000s. Of course, they weren’t exactly great comments. They were usually a bunch of spammy gibberish with an embedded link.
This gave blog commenting a bit of a bad reputation. This is why Google came up with the rel=”nofollow” attribute – to deter this type of spam.
Blog comments may not be a very reliable SEO link building technique, but they still work for traffic generation.
GETTING STARTED
1. Do a Google search for recent blog posts related to your content. You can focus on recent articles by clicking on the “tools” link on the search results page.
2. Then select “any time” – a drop-down menu appears.
3. Select “past month”. You now have a list of results from the past month.
Some of these articles will be old ones that have been altered recently. Others will be brand new.
The key is to make thoughtful comments and only link to your content when it’s actually relevant. Don’t approach blog commenting with a purely self-serving attitude. Try to add real value to the blog post with every comment you make.
Each blog comment may only drive a few visitors to your site. But sometimes they’ll drive a sustained stream of traffic – this happens when the blog post gains a good ranking and continues to get organic traffic for months or years.
When it comes to traffic, every little count!
By the way, BuzzBundle includes a blog commenting feature – it can help to save time.
TIPS
If your comment is the first one, you’ll get more attention. You can increase your chances of being a top commenter by:
- Searching for articles published in the last 24 hours.
- Subscribe to popular niche blogs using an RSS feed reader.
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Traffic Through Social Media
Social media sites dominate the web – and they’re a great place to reach your audience. In this section, we cover the most popular social sites and how you can use them to drive traffic to your site.
7 Facebook Pages
Facebook pages (“Fan pages” to the old-timers reading this) are meant to be your official presence on Facebook. People who like you will like your page.
Back in the good old days, you could publish a post and all your followers would see it.
Today, it’s a different situation. Some (not all) of your followers will see the post – usually, it’s just a small fraction.
Of course, you can “boost” your post. Boosting means paying advertising fees to Facebook to show your message to more of your followers.
As you can imagine, this situation has got more than a few bloggers quite aggravated. So you may wonder if it’s worth building a Facebook audience.
Even with the reduced reach, Facebook gives you access to a large audience. With the right tactics, you can build a large following quite quickly.
You can increase the engagement on your pages by implementing Facebook chatbots. Here is a quick definitive guide you can refer.
Post to Your Facebook Page
Every time you publish a new article, you should post it to your site’s Facebook page. This is almost too obvious to mention – but there are plenty of bloggers who don’t do it.
As long as your page has a good following and high engagement, you’ll get some traffic to the new article.
Schedule Multiple Page Posts for Each Blog Article
When you blast out a Facebook Page post, a large percentage of your followers will never see it. It’s not just because of Facebook’s algorithm, either.
Quite often, your followers are too busy when you post. Then your post gets buried on their newsfeed under a huge pile of updates and stories.
Even if they do see the post, they may not be interested enough to click.
So you should schedule multiple posts for each article you write. Each post should cover a different angle or benefit that your article offers.
For instance, this article (the one you’re reading) covers a ton of different ideas and tactics. We could probably write a hundred different posts covering each aspect (social media traffic, SEO traffic, email marketing, etc).
Schedule at least 5 posts, spread out over a month or two.
8. Twitter
Twitter is still one of the most popular social media sites, although it has always suffered from a plague of bot accounts. There are over 317 million active users per month – and most of them are real humans!
Twitter is very noisy, and it’s easy for your message to get buried under a ton of tweets. That’s why it’s a good idea to make several tweets in a day.
You can avoid annoying your followers by highlighting different angles from your article in each tweet (we mentioned a similar idea in the Facebook section above).
You should use an app like Buffer to line up multiple tweets for each new post you make. With Edgar (meetedgar.com) you can set your scheduled evergreen tweets to repeat, driving more traffic to the same article in the future.
ClickToTweet
There are many times when you post a small quote or a phrase in your blog post that you believe people would love to tweet. ClickToTweet helps you do just that. Simple create a pre-made Tweet on ClickToTweet.com, generate a unique, and put it on your website so that people can just click it to tweet it. Sounds simple. It is, and it is one of the most popular strategies for generating buzz on Twitter.
9. Facebook Groups
We’ve covered Facebook Pages – which you own and control. But they aren’t the only way to reach readers on Facebook.
Facebook Groups are like discussion boards or forums, hosted on Facebook. There are around 600 million of them, covering just about every topic under the sun.
People love to get together to discuss the things they’re interested in, ask questions, and share great content.
Groups are a good source of traffic, as long as you don’t spam them. If you do, you’ll get banned pretty fast!
Share Your Page Post in Groups
When you share your page’s content to a warmed-up group, you’ll get traffic and page likes. In other words, you can expand your audience while getting immediate traffic.
When your page gets followers who are also active group members, it’s likely that they’ll share your future posts to the groups for you. Especially if you increase your engagement with them!
The push from your fans sharing posts in groups can be very strong – Facebook’s algorithm pays attention to these signals. Often it is enough to make your content go viral.
Facebook Groups are an incredibly effective way to reach people who are interested in a specific topic. But they should never be abused. Spamming a group is a quick way to get banned.
The right way to market to groups is:
- Contribute to the group before you post anything. Comment on people’s posts, answer questions, like comments, and act like a model group member.
- Engage individuals – get them talking, comment on their comments or posts, and when they reply once or twice, send them a friend request. Don’t send friend requests to people you haven’t spoken to – you’ll get spam complaints.
- Post useful information without links – let the group moderators see that you’re there to share.
- Post links to content that other people have written, when it’s relevant to the conversation.
- Promote your own content, but only if it’s relevant to the needs and interests of the group.
It’s worth spending the time to warm up a group – if they know you, they’re much more likely to click on your links. They’re less likely to complain.
A single post in a single group isn’t going to set your server on fire. And posting the same URL to dozens of groups quickly will probably get your domain banned as spam.
However, a single group post should drive some traffic to your site (every little count). And you’ll be building your audience at the same time.
Refer the following link to choose from more than 500 Facebook groups to join and promote your content:
Create Your Own Facebook Groups
Creating a group is a great way to build an additional audience on Facebook.
But there are a few things to keep in mind.
Nobody will join your group if it’s just a giant mass of links to your own content. So you should try to encourage actual discussion and engagement. In other words, build a real community.
TIPS
Building a huge Facebook group takes hard work, but it’s a good investment. You’ll have to dedicate time to greeting new members, stimulating discussions, and promoting your group.
1. If you keep your group members engaged and happy, they’ll love you for it. They could become your most loyal fans!
2. Cross promoting other groups can be an effective tactic. Here’s how it works – you promote their group, and they promote yours.
3. Get in touch with the people who run other Facebook groups, and ask if they’d be interested in a cross-promotion. Maybe only 1 in 10 will be interested. But there are more than half a billion groups on Facebook, and it only takes a couple of minutes to ask.
10. LinkedIn | Ways to Increase Website Traffic
If you cover Business-to-Business topics, then LinkedIn should be a key part of your traffic generation strategy. LinkedIn is a social network for professionals.
You can target people by profession, seniority within the company, and much more besides. The traffic from LinkedIn can be very profitable.
Advertising on LinkedIn is expensive, but there are plenty of free ways to generate traffic. Let’s start with the simplest:
Add a Link On Your Profile
Your LinkedIn profile is yours – you can write almost anything you want. Most people use it as a type of digital resume, hoping to get juicy job offers. It’s a good tactic if you’re looking for a job – not so effective if you’re trying to drive traffic.
If you want to get hits from LinkedIn, you should focus on what you have to offer to readers in your field. Use your profile to briefly introduce yourself, but focus on the benefits your readers will get from your content.
And, of course, add a link to your site!
The link won’t be clickable, but people will copy-paste the address into their browser.
If you use any kind of free giveaway to get new subscribers, write a compelling description. Highlight the benefits, and link directly to the “squeeze page”.
Browse the Profiles of Your Ideal Readers
When you’re logged in to LinkedIn, you can see who has visited your account recently.
When you see a stranger has looked at your account, it’s only natural to check out their profile.
The same thing happens when you browse someone else’s account.
So by visiting people’s profiles, you can get eyeballs on your profile page. If you’ve done a good job of promoting your blog, some of those people will click through.
Browsing LinkedIn profile pages is a very low-effort way of driving extremely targeted traffic to your blog – you can literally hand-pick your readers!
Post Your Content in LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn groups are very much like Facebook groups.
If you have content that appeals to the group’s members, you can get a decent number of clicks from a single post.
It’s important not to spam a group. You should follow the same advice as to the “post to FaceBook groups” section. Be a good community member, and you’ll be well received!
11. Instagram
Instagram started as an image-sharing app – one of the reasons it took off was the amazing filters built into the app! The result was explosive growth, and Facebook acquired the company in 2012.
Instagram can be seen as one of the ways to increase website traffic by generating a massive following, but there’s a major obstacle to overcome – you can’t put links in any of your images! In fact, there’s only one place you can put a link – in your profile.
The way around this issue is to tell people to visit your bio and click on the link. It’s not ideal because people have to go through 2 clicks to reach your content. But if your readers are motivated, they’ll click twice.
So, what content does well on Instagram?
Unsurprisingly it works very well for visual subjects, such as e-commerce products. But you can apply visual storytelling to any subject – infographics are a great example.
TIPS
- Infographics work great on Instagram
- Use a “cliffhanger” to bring people to your site. Leave your followers wondering what happened next – the only way to find out is to click on your link.
- You can also post videos to Instagram
12. BuzzBundle
BuzzBundle is a Social Media Marketing (SMM) and content marketing app that makes it easy to join conversations on hundreds of locations over the web and with that serves as one of the major ways to increase website traffic.
It scours hundreds of blogs, forums, Q&A sites and social networks to discover when people are discussing your site, your content, your competitors, or virtually any other subject.
You can join the conversation and get direct the readers to your content (where they can learn more about the topic).
GETTING STARTED
Start by downloading the app (it’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux) – you can use it for free. The free app limits the number of conversations you can join – for 15 days, it will show you 70% of the active discussions.
After the 15 days has passed, you will only be able to see 30% of the online discussions. Even with only 30%, you can still drive good traffic.
TIPS
1. Make a keyword group for every evergreen article you publish. As your list of subjects grows, you’ll have an ever-increasing number of opportunities to drive traffic to your stuff.
2. To get the best results, you should set aside some time every day to engage with potential readers. Matthew Woodward recommends two hours a day – you can do more if you’re getting good results from it.
3. If you publish an article on a hot news topic, you can use BuzzBundle to get the word out. If the news story is really hot, there will be lots of discussions to join, and you can potentially get a ton of traffic this way!
Try to spend a few hours with BuzzBundle every time you publish something new – Matthew Woodward spends between 3 and 5 hours promoting each new article.
Traffic from your answers and comments will not vanish entirely the moment you stop – plenty of forum threads and blog posts continue to get organic search traffic for months or even years after the discussion has ended.
You’ll have to let some time pass to get an accurate picture of how the residual traffic performs in the long run – you could find the long-term traffic makes BuzzBundle a very valuable traffic generation tool.
Some of the tactics on this list are a “one-shot” deal – for instance, if you post your article to a link roundup, they’ll include it once. But you can’t submit the same article to the same roundup next month!
BuzzBundle is an evergreen traffic source. You could literally sit there and grind out traffic for years on end.
13. ViralContentBee
Whether you want to increase your social media traffic or social authority, ViralContentBee is the perfect place. You have to put out your content and ViralContentBee will make sure that it is being shared by influencers who are eager to spread your content with their audience.
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Through Content Discovery Platforms
Content discovery platforms are apps and websites that people use to find new and interesting content. There are many of them – some cover a broad array of interests, and others are focused on a specific niche or interest.
Every day, millions of people browse these sites and apps for new content – make sure it’s your content they find!
14. Pinterest
Pinterest started out as an image sharing site, grew into a shopping recommendation app, and eventually became a content discovery engine.
Two-thirds of the items on Pinterest are product or brand related, but 14 million articles are pinned every day. That means it’s a great site for driving traffic to articles and blog posts – as long as you’re in the right niche.
The audience is quite skewed – some markets are very well represented, and others are completely missing.
To get the most of Pinterest, you need to understand the user base. Their predominantly female (86%) although this is changing – 40% of new sign-ups are men. Most Pinterest users live outside the USA – only 70 million out of Pinterest’s 150 million monthly users are in the US.
60% of Pinterest users are under 40 years old.
So, is it worth posting to Pinterest? There are blogs that get tens of thousands of daily visitors from Pinterest alone. What’s more, a single “pin” can send traffic to your site for months – so this is a short to medium term traffic tactic.
GETTING STARTED
Pinterest may be a great traffic source for you. But it’s not for everyone. Before you leap in, take a few minutes to test the waters.
Busy group boards are the best sign that your audience hangs out on Pinterest. A group board is similar to a Group on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.
The big difference is that group boards exist for one purpose – to share content with people who share your interests. There’s a very little actual discussion (although you can comment on “pins”).
Pinterest’s interface makes it difficult to find group boards with a simple search. You’ll find a lot of individual boards (that belong to a single user) when you search. Some of the boards will be group ones – there’s a “group” icon on top of the board image.
It takes a while to filter the list manually, and it can feel like you’re hunting for a needle in a haystack.
Pin Groupie is a searchable database of Pinterest Group boards. Just visit the site, type a word in the search box, and it will show you all the related boards, together with the number of subscribers.
If you find a large number of boards serving your niche, then you should definitely target Pinterest users.
TIPS
1. To get the best results, you need to sign up for a free business account. This gives you access to rich pins – enhance pins that are more eye-catching and include more information from your site.
2. Don’t forget to add a link to your site on your Pinterest profile! People will find your profile when they search the site, and this can add an extra stream of hands-free traffic.
3. Pinterest search traffic can be a substantial source of long-term traffic, as long as you use the right keywords. You can put keywords in your board titles and descriptions as well as the titles and descriptions of your pins. You can even put keywords in your business name!
4. Check out the pins that get the most “repins” and reverse engineer them to see what they’re doing right. Look at how they design their pin images, where they share their pins (which group boards they use). Which topics are the most popular?
Model your most successful competitors, and grab a giant slice of the Pinterest traffic pie!
15. Flipboard
FlipBoard is a content discovery site and app for mobile platforms (IOS and Android). It aggregates news and content from Blogs and other sources.
You can follow topics and “magazines” – which are curated articles from other users.
The key to getting traffic on FlipBoard is to create your own Magazines, covering the topics you discuss on your blog.
GETTING STARTED
Read this article by Harsh of Shout Me Loud.
16. ScoopIt
ScoopIt is a platform for content curators – people who showcase the best content they find online. It’s a great place to discover new content ideas, and it’s an amazing source of traffic.
There are thousands of channels on ScoopIt, some of them get millions of views per month! The channel owners are always on the lookout for new content to post.
Scoop.it’s interface makes it extremely easy to suggest your content to the channel owners. With a few clicks, you can put yourself in front of thousands of new readers!
17. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is like channel surfing on the web. Users randomly browse sites, looking for something that will interest them. Behind the scenes, an algorithm tracks their progress, noting the sites they like and the ones they hate. Over time, it learns to show them the sites they’ll like.
So, what does this mean to you, the blog owner? Well, if your blog covers a popular topic, you can get a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon very fast. A lot of that traffic will bounce (channel surfers who keep “flipping through” the options). But a decent number may stick around.
Is it worth getting StumbleUpon traffic?
If you can engage the viewers, it can be very valuable. It’s unlikely you’ll sell much on the first visit, but you can get email subscribers and web push opt-ins. And StumbleUpon users can share your content through their social accounts, too.
Believe it or not, people have generated thousands of visitors to their blog using StumbleUpon. The next paragraph will show you how to do it in the most effective way.
Brian Dean wrote a case study about viral traffic – “Viral Marketing Case Study: How a Brand New Blog Generated 17,584 Visitors In One Day”.
In the case study, Brian shows how Chris Gimmer got more than 200K visitors from StumbleUpon (over several days), and how they started a viral wave on other social media channels (including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).
GETTING STARTED
Here’s a simple recipe for StumbleUpon success:
- Sign up as a user
- Start browsing through articles in the same category as your content. Like the articles you genuinely like and downvote the ones you’re not interested in. Do this for a few minutes every day.This step is very important – StumbleUpon uses the data to learn what kind of content you like. When you submit content, StumbleUpon will show it to other users who like the same kind of content. Act like your ideal reader, and that’s who StumbleUpon will share your content with.
- Install the browser extension.
- Every now and then, submit a new article from the web (content from other sites).
- When you publish a new article, add it to StumbleUpon using the browser extension (or bookmarklet). Also stumble other related sites at the same time (otherwise you’ll look like a self-promoter, and your content may get penalized.)
Training StumbleUpon to recognize your browsing habits is a key step. StumbleUpon doesn’t read the contents of the pages you submit – it’s a behaviour-based system, like Amazon’s recommendations.
TIPS
You should optimize your content to appeal to “channel surfers”. Use an eye-grabbing design.
TV commercials are a great example – they’re designed to stop channel surfers in their tracks and keep them engaged.
Start your article with a powerful and compelling headline. It should create curiosity and communicate a benefit.
Adding a video background can help to grab their wandering attention and draw it into the article.
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Through Q&A Sites and Discussion Boards
Forum sites are great places for discussions, but they can get very noisy. People hijack threads, flame wars take their toll, and often the original question is never answered.
Q&A sites provide a safe place to ask questions on any topic and get answers from the community. You can even use various discussion boards and groups for the same purpose.
18. Quora
Quora has done a great job of building a huge audience and keeping it engaged. When people ask questions on the site, they get great answers from experts. People vote on the quality of the answers. Good ones rise to the top while bad ones sink.
Quora also makes it easy to subscribe to questions – and it’s not uncommon for thousands of people to subscribe to a popular question.
Whenever someone answers one of these questions, all the subscribers get an email notification. That means you can reach an audience of thousands with a single answer!
Quora pages rank very well in Google too. So your answer will continue to draw traffic – maybe for months.
19. Yahoo Answers
Yahoo Answers was one of the first Q&A sites, and although it’s lost ground to Quora, it can still drive a decent stream of traffic.
The quality of the questions and answers is a little lower than Quora. This video sums up the worst case:
But there are plenty of valid questions and decent answers on the site, too!
GETTING STARTED
Visit Yahoo Answers, and do a quick search using your most important keywords. If you can’t see any recent questions, it’s probably not worth your time to focus on Yahoo Answers.
20. Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange started out as a single site (Stack Overflow) where programmers could ask complex questions and get fast, detailed answers.
Today they have a large number of sites covering a broad array of topics, from Ubuntu to SciFi novels, freelancing to accountancy. There are plenty of markets that are not covered, so it may not be a great match for your blog. They have a strong tech/geek focus.
If you do find an audience, it can be a great source of traffic! StackOverflow’s most popular question has received over a million views…
GETTING STARTED
Stack Exchange users often ask very deep questions, and they expect detailed and precise answers. So don’t try to guess the right answer – ignore the topics you don’t fully understand.
They have a low tolerance for spam – the moderators and editors will delete it almost instantly, and possibly ban you from the site, too!
Any answer you provide should stand on its own. But it’s OK to include a link to an article where the reader can learn more about the topic.
Make sure you don’t include a link with every answer, or you’ll come across as a self-promoting spammer.
The key to succeeding on all of these community sites is to be a good community member!
21. Reddit
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are huge sites that appeal to a wide range of users. They all have their own little cliques – Facebook groups, Twitter chats, and so on. But these features are tacked on to the main site – it’s not a core part of the way the site is designed.
Some sites are built around the idea of communities. These sites can be a major source of traffic.
Sites like Reddit cover the full spectrum – if a niche exists, you can be sure there’s a subreddit for it. Other sites, like Slashdot, are focussed on a specific field.
There are social networks for almost every group of people. Love tea? Then take a look at Steepster.
There’s no way we can list every niche network here – there are thousands of them! Here are the sites you should start with:
Post on Reddit
Reddit is a potential goldmine of traffic – but it’s vital to play by the rules! There are many, many communities on Reddit (called Sub-Reddits). You can join an existing one, or create a new one.
As a rule, Reddit users hate self-promotion and spam. But they can be very responsive to an on-topic post.
TIPS
- Always read the subreddit rules. Each community has its own set of rules, and they’re strictly enforced. Some completely forbid you to link to your own content – most are more tolerant. In some subreddits, you can’t link to anything!
- Be an active participant. Don’t just go there for free traffic. Engage with people, vote on posts and comments, and join the discussion.
- Check out what works on each subreddit. View the most popular posts and links, and reverse engineer it to see what the users will respond to.
- Timing is very important if you want to see big traffic spikes. There are two approaches that work:
- Post at peak times (when the subreddit is most active).
- Post late at night to avoid competition from other new posts (the night owls have a better chance to see your content and upvote it).
- Don’t share too much content from a single domain too fast. Reddit tracks the history of links from a specific domain – if you get too many links too fast, they’ll “shadow ban” you. You’ll be able to see your own posts, but they’ll be hidden from the rest of the world.
Host a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything)
AMAs are a Reddit institution. It’s a type of event where a famous or notable person will answer any question from the public. AMAs can attract thousands of readers – some will just lurk and read the comments, others will participate.
There are influencers in any niche – these people are ideal candidates for a Reddit AMA.
Your mission is to organize the event and get the influencer online at the right time!
A successful AMA will result in increased exposure for you and the influencer. You’ll gain better brand recognition and traffic – especially if you can connect the AMA in with the subject of your recent article (which you will link to, of course).
For instance, here’s how the Reply All hosts linked their recent podcasts with (their AMA].
An AMA can also continue to drive traffic for a long time after the event has ended. Reddit ranks very well in Google, and the AMA thread lives forever.
TIPS
During the AMA, don’t be too pushy about your products or blog – as we said before, Reddit users hate self-promotion!
Annoying thousands of potential readers in a short period of time is not your goal. Redditors are not a passive crowd, and they’ll make you wish you left them alone.
That said, if you have great content that answers the reader’s questions, it’s OK to refer to it.
22. Hacker News (ycombinator)
Hacker News is a Reddit-like site for tech enthusiasts. It has a very critical audience – they’ll tear your article apart if it contains factual errors, or if it’s poorly written.
They’ll tear it apart if it goes against their values, too. If your post praises Microsoft and slams Linux, then this is not the right crowd for you.
Getting on the front page of Hacker News can send thousands of people to your site per hour – it’s a potential “server melter”. But most posts never get near the front page. There’s still plenty of traffic to be had from the search feature.
When you post to Hacker News, you should be prepared to answer comments. Don’t just fire and forget.
23. Slashdot
Slashdot is very similar to Hacker News. It’s better organized, with a variety of sections covering a host of “nerd news” topics (their words, not mine).
Follow the same advice from the Hacker News section. Choose an appropriate section to post to.
24. Growth Hackers and Inbound.org
Growth Hackers and Inbound.org are community sites for growth hackers and inbound marketers.
If you have any actionable guides, case studies or dazzling insights in the field of Growth hacking or marketing, this is the place to share them!
25. Niche Forums
Forums may feel a little “old school” compared with the flashier social networks. In fact, most of them look like they’re stuck in the 20th century.
But they’re extremely popular – some boards boast millions of active users! And there are thousands and thousands of forums out there.
Every forum has its own set of rules, and you’re expected to follow them. Some ban users from posting any links (that’s not much use for us). Others allow you to post links – but only in your signature (which goes under every post you make).
There are even boards that don’t care where you put your link.
And sometimes you can play by the rules and still get banned. There’s no way to guarantee fair treatment, but the safest path is to be a good community member. Don’t treat a forum as your own private ad playground.
Post links when they contribute. If you’ve done your job well, you’ve written content that solves real problems or gives readers the information they are looking for. People in forums are actively searching for this kind of content, so when you post it should be welcome.
GETTING STARTED
Matthew Woodward used forums as a key cornerstone in his “no-SEO” experiment. Matthew’s well known as an SEO expert, and that’s how he made a living – ranking sites for clients or as revenue vehicles.
When he launched his now-famous blog, he decided to ignore SEO and generate traffic by promoting his blog directly to the people who needed the information.
He found these people on forums. You can read how he did it here.
26. Yahoo Groups
Yahoo Groups is actually older than Google Groups – though only by a few days. Yahoo started the ball rolling back in January 2001.
Yahoo Groups and Google Groups are very similar, and you should approach them in a similar way.
When you search for groups, you can see how many members there are and when they were last active. Some groups are dead – they may have thousands of members, but no activity for 2 years or more.
You’ll need a free Yahoo account to sign up for groups – it only takes a minute to register. After that, you can follow the same procedure as Google Groups.
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Through Outreaching to Bloggers and Influencers
Whatever your niche, there are large established sites. Sites with huge audiences, tons of Google rankings, and an almost never-ending stream of traffic.
It’s easy to think of these sites as “the enemy”, because they have everything we want – traffic, subscribers, fame and fortune.
But a wise blogger can see opportunity where it exists, and that’s exactly what these established sites represent: the opportunity to drive traffic to your site.
These tactics will get you started:
27. Influencer Outreach
If someone else has a big audience, you want to get in front of it. We’ve already talked about guest posting. And that’s great for getting onto blogs.
But there are plenty of influencers who don’t accept guest posts. Some don’t even blog – think of people with huge social media accounts but no other online presence.
While there’s no way to get a guest post from these guys, you can still get a mention on their social channels. And that can drive lots of traffic – or even start a viral wave.
Here’s one tactic you should always use whenever you publish a new piece of content:
Reach out to People Who Shared Similar Content
The idea is simple – find some articles similar to yours, which got lots of likes or shares. Find out who shared them. And reach out to the most influential ones (the ones with the biggest audience).
Of course, most people will ignore your message. You may only get a mention from one in ten people you contact. But those mentions can drive a lot of traffic to your site.
GETTING STARTED
Build a List of Influencers Who Responded
Reaching out to hundreds of influencers every time you publish a new post is time-consuming – it’s worth doing, but anything that can speed the process up is a great idea.
Here’s a simple concept: make an email list of all the people who shared your content in the past. When you publish a post on a similar topic, reach out to them first.
Of course, you don’t want to always ask for favours. So you can help to build the relationship by occasionally promoting their content – send them a quick message to tell them you did it.
Over time, you could win a powerful new friend!
Tell People When You Quote Them
If you quote or mention influencers in your article, send them a message to tell them you did it. Don’t ask them for a share – that’s a little too transparent and self-serving.
Instead, ask them if they want you to change anything in the article. Sometimes you may have accidentally published “alternative facts”, so it’s a legitimate request.
If they like the content, there’s a good chance they will share it with their audience.
TIPS
Why not mention influencers in your content just so you can reach out to them later? Not only does it give you extra opportunities to reach a new audience, but it will also probably make your content better.
Often you can get a better response by contacting them on Facebook or @mentioning them on Twitter.
28. Blogger Outreach
Influencers have big audiences, and they can send you a deluge of traffic. But they aren’t the only players in your niche. For every big influencer, you can probably find a couple of hundred bloggers with a modest audience.
It’s worth getting your content in front of these folks – true, no single small-time blogger is likely to break the Internet with the traffic they send you. You’re more likely to get a tiny trickle of traffic from each blogger you contact.
The thing is that all these little trickles soon add up. And it doesn’t take much time to reach out to bloggers – especially if you use the tools I mention in the “Tips” section.
Finally, even if the traffic from each blog is tiny, you’ll be generating signals that improve your Google rankings. Links and social signals are the two most important off-site factors, and blogger outreach generates a lot of both.
GETTING STARTED
There are all kinds of guides out there for outreach, and they even have example email templates you can use. Most of these guides are rehashes of the same information – and that means the templates are the same, too.
What do you think happens when everyone does outreach using the same template (or a similar looking one)?
It comes across like a Tsunami of spam! That’s a great way to get your outreach emails deleted.
TIPS
Outreach is kind of like a sausage maker – if you want more sausages, you need to put more meat into the machine. If you want more links, mentions and traffic, you need to reach out to more people.
You should think in terms of hundreds of emails, not one or two.
Now tracking all that email outreach with a spreadsheet is messy and eats uptime. So it’s worth using a dedicated tool that can reduce the stress and make you more efficient.
Two top tools are Buzzstream and Ninja Outreach. Here are the respective guides to use these tools effectively:
Both of these tools have a very similar feature set. They allow you to create an outreach campaign (one for each piece of content), find outreach prospects, locate their contact details, and email them.
29. Guest Posts
Guest posting is dead – Matt Cutts said so! Actually, no. Spamming the web with barely legible junk just to get a few SEO links is dead – just like “mass article syndication”.
Well-written guest posts that appeal to the readers and provide real value will always be welcome. It’s a good way to kill two birds with one stone – you get immediate traffic, and a great link which will improve your site’s rankings.
There are a couple of variations on guest posting – let’s go over them one by one, starting with the most obvious:
Write Guest Posts for Popular Sites
Popular sites publish content often. Producing content is expensive and time-consuming, so they can be very responsive to a guest post offer.
So, what’s in it for you? Popular sites have lots of traffic and many subscribers. New posts can get a ton of clicks, and that can drive traffic back to your site.
TIPS
Make sure you have some high-quality content on your site before you approach popular sites. They will want to see examples of your writing before they say yes to your offer.
If your site is brand new, focus your writing energies on fleshing it out a little before you look for guest posting opportunities.
Often guest bloggers only include a link in their bio (the box at the end of the article). This is often buried below other links (that belong to the popular site). And many readers completely ignore the bio box.
So don’t rely on bio-links.
A better approach is to work in a few links to your content within the article. Do it in a way that makes sense, and creates a genuine desire in the reader to find out more.
For instance, if you’re writing about fishing techniques, you could mention that you wrote a “buyers guide” for choosing the right fishing rod. Link to it, and mention that choosing the wrong fishing rod will scare all the fish away (if that’s true).
Publish Guest Posts (on Your Site) by Popular Authors
When you get your guest posts on someone else’s site, you get traffic from their subscribers. And you get a nice link that boosts your SEO rankings. That makes sense.
So why would you want to let another blogger post articles on your site? Won’t they steal your readers?
Well, there are several reasons. Firstly, you can add great content without having to actually write it. Writing stunning articles is hard work, so it’s always great when someone else does it for free! Guest posts on your site can rank nicely in the search engines, increasing your organic traffic over time.
But that’s not the biggest advantage. When you get a popular blogger to post on your site, two things happen:
- They usually announce it to their subscribers and on their social media channels, sending you traffic
- People who search for the famous blogger by name will find the article on your site
Popular bloggers are Googled by their fans. Their followers want to read more of their stuff, and people often use Google instead of bookmarks.
GETTING STARTED
1. Make a list of the top bloggers in your field, and begin building a connection with them. Visit their site, comment on their stuff, and follow them on social media.
2. Sign up for their newsletter and drop them an email – talk about their content. This “warms them up”, so you aren’t just contacting them out of the blue.
3. When they know who you are, you can approach them and ask if they’d like to write a guest post for your blog. As long as you have a decent-sized audience, they’ll probably say yes.
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Using Your Website Content
Content curation is a very common practice in all niches. There are people who have built a huge audience without writing any unique content of their own. Instead, they share the best niche related content they have found with their audience.
The web is a very confusing place, with tons of content – more than anyone could ever read. Content curators help their followers to cut through the noise and discover the best content.
The goal here is to get the curators to notice and recommend your content. Not only that, but they’re also various other ways using which you could market your content without spending a penny.
Here are some tactics to do that:
30. Link Roundups
Link roundups are like a weekly (or monthly) newsletter with links to the best content. For instance, there are roundups of the best designed new websites. There are roundups for the best programming articles – and so on.
If your content is good enough, you deserve to get mentioned in a roundup. And it can be very beneficial – some of these roundups go out to tens of thousands of regular readers. A single mention could send a big surge of traffic to your site.
GETTING STARTED
The first step is to discover which roundups are going on in your niche. You can find them with Google. Just do a quick search for “KEYWORD link roundup”. For instance, we would search for “WordPress link roundup” or “blogging link round up”.
If you don’t find any results on the first attempt, try a different keyword.
If you’re in a popular niche, you might find hundreds of roundups!
The next step is to discover how to contact the person who runs the roundup. Just visit their site and look for contact information. Most sites have a contact form or at least a link to a social account.
Now reach out to the roundup owner, and tell them about your new content. Ask them to check it out and include it in their next roundup if they like it.
It’s really that simple.
31. Listicles
“Top 10” lists have been around for ages, and they’re still as popular as ever. In every niche, you’ll find someone publishing these on a regular basis. Just do a quick search for “top photoshop tutorials” and check out the first 20 pages of results!
Whenever someone publishes a list like this, they usually just do a quick search on Google and regurgitate the results with a little blurb.
But sometimes they put some effort into it – and, when they do, the results are quite often dramatic. They get lots of social buzz and traffic.
Of course, that’s no good to you – unless you get your new article included on the list!
What you need to do is find a good list article that has recently been published and is getting plenty of attention on social networks. It’s no use trying to get your post added to an article that’s five years old!
GETTING STARTED
1. BuzzSumo is your tool of choice in situations like this. Just type in your topic, together with the word “top”. For instance, if we were trying to get traffic to this article, we would type “top traffic”.
2. Now, look at the left-hand side of the screen. There’s a set of filters – you can select the most recent articles only. If your niche is really hot, you may find articles that have taken off in the last 24 hours. More realistically, you can find good targets by limiting the results to the last 30 days.
3. You can see how much activity each article has had since it was published – BuzzSumo tracks multiple social networks. You’re looking for an article that has had a decent number of shares or likes – this indicates it is getting traffic.
4. Visit each article and find the contact details for the writer. Send them a message (email or social, or use the contact form as a last resort).
5. Tell them what you like about their list, and suggest your new article to them. Ask them for feedback – you don’t have to be blunt and demand they put it on the list! Of course, you can gently suggest it.
32. Syndicate Your Content
Your content is a valuable asset. You want to protect it and jealously guard it. In this section, we’re going to show you how to give it away – to let other sites publish it for free.
Don’t worry, we haven’t lost our minds. Republishing your content on busy sites is a great way to reach a whole new audience.
Back in 2005, content syndication blew up. Suddenly thousands of article directories appeared from nowhere, and website owners started submitting dozens of articles per day. Often, they were pretty dreadful (it’s hard to write dozens of world-class articles in a day!)
For a while, it worked really well. And then it didn’t.
Turns out people didn’t appreciate the unending stream of spam and advertorials. So Google started penalizing sites that used the tactic. And it fell out of grace.
But content syndication wasn’t a new concept. It was a valid method of distributing content – magazines and newspapers have been doing it for decades. And there are still some very large websites that do it.
Often, top news websites publish press releases without changing a single word. Sometimes ten or more sites will publish the exact same article. And they don’t get penalized by Google for doing it.
It really comes down to the intention. When a site nobody has ever heard of suddenly gets syndicated on a thousand other sites (and many of them are brand new sites too), it looks fishy. That’s a very quick way to get a Google penalty – and it’s unlikely anyone will see the content.
But syndicating your content the right way is a legitimate tactic to drive traffic back to your blog.
GETTING STARTED
Syndicate Your RSS Feed – 2018 Style
RSS syndication used to be a really big deal. Enterprising bloggers used it to get a mass of backlinks and rapid rankings. Google caught on to those shenanigans, and links from RSS farms soon lost their ranking power.
But the underlying technology is solid – RSS is still a powerful traffic generating tool – if you know how to use it.
Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website Through Press Releases
A single press mention from a popular news site can lead to a massive spike in traffic. Getting into the smaller publications is worthwhile, too. It can send a good stream of visitors to your site, and you’ll get a high-authority link.
So, how do you get your site mentioned in the press?
33. Press Release Services
Press releases are the tried-and-true method of getting media attention. But they’ve been abused, and new bloggers treat them with suspicion.
A few years ago, press releases were widely exploited to build backlinks. Many press release sites publish the release online, and search engines read these pages. Other sites scrape the content and republish it. So a single release could generate hundreds or even thousands of links overnight.
As you can imagine, Google wasn’t happy about that and started penalizing unnatural press release backlinks. So submitting dozens of press releases to hundreds of sites is not a good link building practice.
But there are good press release distributors. They send your release to the journalists who are likely to read them and may decide to write a feature.
Typically, the best press release services are the ones that charge you real money. They’re working for that money – they send your release to press offices, so it’s worthwhile.
For example, e Releases charges up to $499 for a single release. But here’s what you get for that money:
- Your press release is sent via “wire” to top press offices across the country.
- They distribute the release to their curated list of journalists via email.
- The press release is published and listed in Google news.
Obviously, $499 is a little steep for many bloggers. You can shop around and find a better price, with more limited distribution.
34. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
HARO is a service for reporters and self-promoters. It’s a very simple idea. Busy journalists don’t have time to find expert sources for their articles. So they send their questions to HARO.
HARO emails these questions to their database of “experts” (that’s essentially anyone that applies). These experts reply to the journalist, and if they like the quote, they’ll use it. Often they’ll publish the answer with minimal editing – or even reproduce it without any changes.
Sometimes answering a HARO request can lead to an interview or even an in-depth feature.
Registering for HARO is free. Then it’s just a matter of checking your emails regularly. You won’t get an opportunity every day, but good opportunities will come along with time. Just be ready to answer fast when they arrive!
35. Networking With Contributors
Many large publications rely on freelance journalists to fill out their pages. This is especially true in the web age, where readers expect hundreds of in-depth articles on a wide variety of topics every week.
The old-fashioned publication just can’t keep up with the demand! Fortunately, freelance journalism is a well-established field, and there are thousands of workers who can take up the slack.
Online publications refer to these writers as “contributors”. These guys usually write for a variety of publications, although some of them only work for a single site.
Working as a contributor is pretty demanding. You’re expected to produce a high volume of writing with short deadlines. The writing has to snap, and the editors can be demanding.
Research is the most exhausting part of the job. That’s why successful contributors lean on their sources.
Your mission is to become a trusted source for the contributors in your field!
GETTING STARTED
Here’s a simple process you can use to become a trusted source:
- Identify the publications that frequently appear in your search results
- Pick out the most active contributors
- Connect with them on social media
- Recognize the subjects they write about
- Engage with them on these topics – make sure you also mention them on your blog
- Pitch them story ideas
You’re looking for big super-blogs (like the Huffington Post), traditional Publications like Forbes, and online magazines.
Look through the Google results for your most important keywords – and check out Google News, too.
After you’ve found a good target, visit the site. Navigate through the categories to see if you can find your subject – otherwise, use the site’s search feature to find the articles you need.
Next, look over the articles and note down the author. You’ll soon see that some names keep popping up over and over again.
Check out the author bio on the article. It’s usually quite easy to tell if the author works for the publication directly – if they don’t, the Bio will probably mention their day job or outside interests. They may link to their own site or social media profiles.
If you’re uncertain, go to LinkedIn and check their current job listing.
The next step is connecting to them through social media. The easiest way to do this is on Twitter – but you can also message them through LinkedIn (it’s free if you’re in the same groups).
Connecting with a random stranger on Facebook maybe a little creepy, so it’s not the best network for this step. At least not until they know you a little better.
After you’ve found them, start the process of engaging with them. Comment on their posts, send them private messages if appropriate. Show them you’re an expert in your field.
If you keep this up, you’ll eventually reach the point where you can start pitching story ideas to them.
36. Bribe Contributors
If that sounds like too much work, there is a shortcut. It’s not for everyone – it kind of flies in the face of every “media and ethics” class. And it can get the contributor fired.
You can get mentions and links by bribing contributors.
Most contributors are paid very little for their time. For instance, Forbes pays its contributors a basic wage of $200 for 5 articles per month. They pay a bonus of $0.01 per person who reads the article and $0.05 for each returning visitor.
That’s not much. It’s certainly not enough to live on.
For many contributors, the idea of being paid a little extra to write an “unbiased” feature is a no-brainer. That’s how many marketing agencies are able to guarantee a mention in these major publications, by the way.
As we mentioned above, bribing contributors can get them fired – maybe even sued.
So, who do you know if a contributor is corruptible? Usually, they tell you. When you reach out with pitch ideas, they send a reply asking for money. Here’s proof that it happens. And here’s another one.
If you decide to go for it, you need to understand the risks. There’s no guarantee they’ll actually write the piece (since they’re already willing to betray their employer).
On the other hand, they’re taking a big risk by sending you the request. You could always report them if they failed to deliver.
Become a Contributor
Getting contributors to write about you or mention your blog takes persistence, but it’s far from impossible. Bribing a contributor can work, but it’s risky and a little unethical.
There is an easier way to get regular exposure – become a contributor yourself! These publications are always on the lookout for new talent. If you think your writing skills are up to it, you should try to get into their secret kingdom.
If that’s too short for you, he also offers a premium invitation-only course – he guarantees that you’ll get at least one article published by a top publication. The course isn’t for the faint of heart – it costs over $1000. But it’s worth it if you can tap into that precious big-media traffic.
37. Creating a News Story
Journalists thrive on news, and sometimes, there just isn’t enough of it. PRs have known this for centuries, and so there’s an entire industry that exists for one purpose – to invent news that reporters can cover.
We’re not talking about fake news – not exactly. No, we mean manufactured news – events, publicity stunts, and so on.
GETTING STARTED
This tactic has been so successful that it’s become the cornerstone of their SEO link building strategy.
38. Newsjacking
Newsjacking is the art of using current events and news to grab the limelight and direct traffic to your site. It’s a little too hit and miss to use as your only traffic method, but it can produce amazing results from time to time.
As the name suggests, you hijack a news event to get in front of potential readers.
The key is to move fast. You have to:
- Discover popular news items the moment they happen
- Collect information about it
- Work out an angle FAST
- Write your content FAST
- Publish it immediately
- Saturate every available channel to get the most attention
The reason why you have to move fast is simple. Whenever a big news story breaks, there’s very little information available. Journalists and ordinary people scrabble around to find any information they can find on the topic.
Because there’s very little info available, your message stands a good chance of getting noticed.
Wait a day or more and the news-stream will be saturated with information. You’ll have missed your opportunity.
Newsjacking can have unexpected benefits – if you do it well, you can earn dozens or even hundreds of inbound links, boosting your site’s Google authority and increasing your rankings for a host of keywords.
GETTING STARTED
To get the best results, you should newsjack stories related to your industry. For instance, if you’re a web designer, it wouldn’t make much sense to jack a story about Lady Gaga. You might get a million page views, but how many of those people are likely to subscribe to your newsletter or buy your services?
Get to know your niche – hang out at some forums and Google groups and see what they talk about. Which news items grab their attention?
Keeping track of lots of news items can be hard – to use an RSS feed reader and Google Alerts to get a daily digest of newsjacking opportunities.
When you find a new news story you can put your spin on, try to link it to your existing content. Add links to the article to drive traffic deeper into your site, where you can convert visitors into subscribers and sales.
Be prepared to have some losses as well as wins. Don’t invest all your time and effort in newsjacking – it’s too unpredictable to rely on. On the other hand, if you’re prepared to take advantage of it, it can produce massive traffic spikes.
How well your article performs depends on how well you promote it – the more exposure you get, the more traffic there will be. So mention your article all over the web!
Post a tweet with the trending hashtags, post comments on blogs and news articles hit the forums and Facebook groups – don’t just publish and wait for people to show up!
If you’re serious about newsjacking, you should read David Meerman Scott‘s book on the subject (he’s the one that invented the name).
TIPS
This method works VERY well when combined with the Facebook streaming video hack. Check out the tactic in the video section in the second part of ways to increase website traffic.
Continue to Part II – 100+ Ways to Increase Website Traffic.
The full article was first published on MythemeShop.