I wanted to share this nifty little infographic and article below, all about how to drive more traffic to your website using an online blog.
Blogging Increases Website Traffic
According to Hubspot.com, companies who create, optimize and promote their blogs get 55% more traffic and 70% more leads than those who don’t. As many say, content is king, but it’s what you do with it after that will make all the difference.
Even if you have loyal followers, generating traffic to your blog will require some work on a consistent basis. To create visibility for your content, you’ll have to promote it after you click on the publish button.
Distribution Channels
After publishing your blog articles, you should systematically distribute your content through several channels. The exact channel(s) which you should use will depend on your target market. Knowing exactly who you’re trying to reach and where they are on the web will make the process much more efficient.
Social Media
The most obvious social media platforms to distribute your content are the big four social media sites, but don’t restrict yourself to these if your market hangs out somewhere else on the web.
- Facebook has more than a billion monthly active users (source: Facebook.com)
- Twitter has over 200 million monthly active users (source: Wikipedia.com)
- Google+ has more than 135 million monthly active users (source: Google Blog)
- LinkedIn counts more than 160 million unique monthly visitors (source: LinkedIn.com)
Other Social Sharing Communities
There are countless other social sharing communities you could be using to get some visibility for your business. Your approach should reflect the platform’s purpose, unique qualities and best practices.
Triberr
connects like-minded bloggers who are interested in reading and supporting each other. Tribes are formed around a certain topic and Tribe members share blog content that appear in their Tribal stream. Content can be shared to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, StumbleUpon and Pinterest.
When joining a Tribe, make sure the subject aligns with your blog topic to ensure that your fellow Tribe mates share your content to their own social networks.
Watch the Complete Video Guide to Triberr
StumbleUpon
This is a Bookmarking site. StumbleUpon allows users to share and recommend content and websites they find. StumbleUpon will show you web pages based on your feedback as well as what similar Stumblers and the people you follow have Liked or Disliked. Keep in mind that it’s best not to only Stumble your own website but to try Stumbling other websites in your niche as well.
Read Social Media Examiner StumbleUpon Guide.
Scoop.it
This is a curation publishing platform. You can distribute content across the web according to particular interests in a digital magazines style format. Users can follow your topics and easily share your posts on several social media platforms.
According to Scoop.it
- Reached 5 million uniques in 11 months
- 25% average growth per month
- 75% of our users have post-secondary education
- 44% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher (vs. 13% for Tumblr; 24% for Pinterest)
Repurpose Content
Reusing your content in other formats can help you reach difference audiences and can also help you increase your content output. Turn your regular blog articles into:
- Videos
- Presentations
- Infographics
- Emails
- Podcasts
Blog Commenting
After publishing each post, find blogs in your niche market and leave comments on recent blog articles. Make sure that you bring value to your comments and never hijack their comment stream with self-promoting messages.
This can be helpful to position yourself as an expert in your niche. It can also help you connect with your target market and other leaders in your field. As well, it can provide beneficial links back to your website.
Remember
Consistency and Frequency Is a Major Factor
Avoid long period of inactivity. For best results, I believe that you should write (at a minimum) one blog post per week.
Although the following is often a time issue and might not particularly sound realistic for most small businesses and solopreneurs; according to Hubspot.com, businesses that blog at least 20 times per month generate 5 times more traffic and 4 times more leads than those that only blog a few times per month. This shows that frequency is also an important factor to consider.
Keep Your Content Relevant
Keep your content relevant to your target market. Keep in mind who you’re writing for when creating content.
Make Your Content Easy to Share
Make sure your blog has sharing buttons to make it easier to spread your content around the web.
Your Blog Title Makes All the Difference
Use blog titles that really grab your readers’ attention without misleading or using unrelated titles. Your blog title may be the only reason why readers decide to click or not on your article.
