Getting traffic to your website is tough for a new blogger. If you don’t have strategies in place, you are bound to struggle with it forever. It is one of the leading concerns why bloggers quit soon after starting their blogs.
Imagine how many websites are on the web fighting and competing with each other. You have to adopt some strategies to get in front of the people who are looking out for your content or a similar one. So just writing a blog and expecting people to come and visit from nowhere is not going to happen.
Getting Website Traffic
Traffic to your website can come with two basic strategies – Free method or the Paid method. Free traffic strategies are based on your efforts and take a long time to build a substantial user base. Whereas, Paid traffic is instant when you reach the people through your paid means. Here the traffic may be fast, but if you don’t keep an eye on your analytics or reports, you may end up in financial losses.
Free Strategies:
As the name suggests, free traffic strategies demand your time over money. It needs your active participation in creating links and pathways for the visitors to your website. Given below are the traffic generating strategies using the free method:
Share with your people:
The first step is to announce it. Announce it loud and clear to your friends, relatives, and colleagues that you have a blog. Share it with you social platforms and messaging groups. You can also email your friends and colleagues about your website. It is the first thing you should start.
Update your Profile:
Once you have sufficient posts on your website, add the website link to your profile, wherever you have your details like your C.V, your business card, Social websites profiles. It is an excellent way to attract your visitors to know more about you. People who know you will probably visit your blog and may share your content with others.
SEO ( Search Engine Optimization):
You should gradually learn SEO – Search engine optimization to get organic traffic. It is a powerful method to get free organic traffic. SEO is relevant for any platform that uses a search engine. Google, Bing, Yahoo, Youtube, Amazon, and Pinterest are some popular platforms that use the search engine algorithms.
SEO is based on keywords. Keywords are the search term a user uses to find what he is looking for. If you learn few things about SEO, you can rank your posts on those search terms. If you rank your posts on some of the keywords, you will get free traffic as there are hundreds of people searching for that keyword around the world.
Forums:
Joining the forums of your niche as a member helps you to connect with like-minded people. You can engage in their content and invite them to your site as well. Usually, forums have an option to insert your website links on your profile.
If you participate in the communities and provide value in their forums and communities, you can in no time start getting visitors to your site.
Social Sites:
Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, and Instagram are excellent platforms to share your blog content. They allow you to build a following and once you have a significant following, you will have a constant flow of traffic to your website.
You can also join the various groups on Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest boards. Start sharing your views there and help few people out there. Then with the permissions of the admin, you can post your articles. It is a potent tool to get focused niche audience to your blog.
Youtube is another platform where followers subscribe to your channel, and if you post video content on your channel, in no time, you will become famous.
Reaching the influencers:
If you talk about being famous, there must be people in your niche who have a substantial following. If you contact them on social platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, some may promote your website or post it on their platforms, if they like your content.
If that happens, in no time your content is available to hundreds of people who belong to your niche. You can also collaborate to barter services to help generate traffic for both of you.
Guest posting:
If you have substantial content on your blog, you can reach out to similar bloggers closer to your niche and offer them an article you wish to write for their website. Some may oblige and agree to post your link. What happens is when they put your post you get a website link in your profile?
Guest posting not only helps in building your brand but also directs many visitors of that post to your website as well.
Generating Backlinks:
Backlinks are your website links available in other content on the web. It can happen when you put links intentionally or some of your user posts or shares it on his website or social site.
These links are precious as they direct users to you and they also provide link juice to the website. A term used in SEO where good backlinks increase the domain’s value in the eyes of the search engine algorithms.
One of the standard practices to create backlinks are commenting on similar blogs who have higher authority than yours. You either provide a hyperlink to the text or put a domain link there.
Emailing:
The emailing of newsletters is an useful method. It only works out when you are getting consistent traffic. By having a newsletter subscription option, the readers will opt into your email list to subscribe for your newsletter.
They come in handy when you have a good number of people on your list, and whenever you write a new post, you can intimate them via your email. Hence the readers are not lost, and you develop a free way of generating a long-term relationship with your readers.
Repurposing the Content:
People don’t always consume content by reading. There is a large chunk of people who consume content through videos and podcasts. So, if you have written a post, you should try to repurpose the same content by shooting a video through your smartphone and posting it on Youtube, Dailymotion, and Vimeo.
There are millions of video consumers, and they are rising incrementally every year. Similarly, podcasts are becoming popular nowadays. Many listen to podcasts while driving, exercising or traveling.
The best way is to repurpose your content into videos and podcasts. It doesn’t cost much to repurpose what is already there.
Paid Strategies:
Paid Strategies to generate traffic helps is getting instant traffic. The paid strategies mostly involve advertising on various platforms. They may appear as generic posts or feeds or can be in the form of banners and sponsored texts. Every platform has their way of advertising on their platform. So let’s have an overview.
Google Adwords, Bing and Yahoo ads:
Google AdWords, Bing and Yahoo ads have their ad platforms where paid ads are given an advantage over free ones. They are listed above the free posts with the Ads or Sponsored ads disclaimer. As an advertiser, you have to bid on keywords and you are charged on the clicks to the ad and not on the impressions. If you can optimize your ads, it can be quite cheaper than it may seem.
Many bloggers take help of these platforms to reach their audience fast.
Ad Marketing Companies:
There are many media buying and Ad marketing companies who send traffic to your website if you pay for keywords. Here you can target particular niche audience depending on demographics you think are likely to get interested in your content.
You can also buy or send emails to the niche-based audience from this ad networks.
Social Media Advertising:
Social Media advertising has become a significant tool to advertise your blog. Facebook and Instagram offer precise targeting where you can reach a specific demographic you wish to achieve. Almost all the social media platforms now provide paid advertising service to get traffic.
Through social media advertising, you can not only reach a specific audience of your choice, but also they turn out relatively cheap if your post gets the viral edge. If the article gets good engagement, you start getting a significant amount of organic traffic as well.
Banner Ads:
They are the oldest advertising medium in the online world. They are still useful especially for remarketing. The pixels chase the user where ever they go in the online world. It also helps in asserting your brand and has a good product recall advantage.
Another strategy you can adopt is you can advertise on the similar niche websites. You have to contact the owner and negotiate with them for your banner advertisement. It is reasonably easy to advertise on related blogs.
Paying the Influencers:
It is a similar process. Instead of the banner, you can send them an infographic, a video or a feature image with your post link. The influencers will share your content with their followers for a price.
Usually, it begins from $10 to anything under the sun. You should always check their profiles and platforms. You should find out whether they are still active and the engagement is still there. Many influencers can con you by sending posts to dead pages.
Sponsoring Events:
Offline networking with similar bloggers or experts in your niche based events, is a very reliable source to make your branding strong. You can even sponsor or organize small events related to your niche. Always mention your website on every occasion. You will observe people visiting your site directly.
It was an elaborate and yet a touchdown on the various traffic generating strategies. Each strategy plays a significant role. If you achieve success in at least couple of them, it should be able to produce sufficient traffic to keep you going.
