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ProBlogger: 5 Unique Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic

ProBlogger: 5 Unique Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic

Link to @ProBlogger

5 Unique Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic

Posted: 21 Sep 2014 05:57 PM PDT

5 unique ways to increase your blog

This is a guest contribution from SEO expert Zach Radford.

Today, you don’t gain blog traffic by paying for backlinks or by swapping them like the old days. Instead, you need to focus on creating quality content that is beneficial to your visitors.

We know that. But how do you do it? And do it consistently?

The content should solve main problems faced by your reader. It should be actionable, specific and relevant to the audience. If you do this, your audience will come to trust your site, and visit it regularly looking for new content. They will also engage with you, which helps you to improve your blog.

To that end, here are five new ways of looking at increasing your blog traffic.

Create quality content and mention other bloggers

Your blog is the main avenue for communication with your audience. While your main purpose for the blog may be to promote your business, yourself, or some other product or service, you need to focus on providing quality content to the reader. Just focus on providing information that readers will find interesting to read, without trying to be overly strategic about it. Look for trending topics in different areas and create amazing content on those topics. Your audience will not only keep coming back for more if they find your posts interesting, they will also share your posts with their friends. You also need to mention other bloggers that you follow in your posts. You can quote them if you feel the information is interesting to the reader or just mention their names in the post. This will create good relationships with the bloggers and they might return the favour. Lifting each other up has the added benefit of leading to increased traffic.

Share your blogs on social networks

This is a no-brainer, but cannot be ignored. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin are where your readers are. Give them your posts. After creating your post, you can share a link of the post through Facebook or Twitter and then ask your friends or followers to comment. This will expose your blogs to thousands of social media users and eventually lead to increase in blog traffic.

Syndicate your posts

Syndicating your blog posts will expose them to more readers. You can use RSS feed or syndicate the blog to applicable high-traffic sites. RSS feeds allow your audience to keep track of your blogs without having to bookmark it. The readers only need to open their RSS reader and all your posts will be displayed there. Syndicating your blog to high traffic sites will also popularize it. This will also give your post more credibility, which could lead to high traffic.

Involve your readers

After posting to your blog, you need to ask your readers to leave a comment after reading the blog. Research shows that people will do (mostly) what you ask of them, and will comment where they might not have before. Read the comments that are left and try to reply all of them. Readers feel more valued if they are treated well and respected by the bloggers they engage with. They will keep on visiting your site to look for more content and to engage you as well. This will also build trust with your readers.

Use Pinterest Individual or Group Board

Pinterest allows bloggers to post on individual board and collaborate by posting on contributor boards. The main benefit of pinning your blog on contributor boards is that your blog is exposed to other contributors. Those contributors also have followers who will also see your post, leading to increased traffic.

The bottom line

Your blog will attract more readers if it is of good quality. Above all, this has to be the main aim. Therefore, it is important that you focus on quality more than selling your products or promoting your business through the blog. You also need to network with other bloggers and create good relationships with them. This will help you gain new ideas of increasing traffic to your blog.

Zach Radford is an SEO content expert, working as an SEO consultant and Sales manager for the past 10 years. He strives for success in everything he sets out to do. He believes that high-quality keyword-rich content is the key to running a successful online business. Currently starting his own venture: an SEO Content Company, aiming to provide quality SEO content to the masses.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
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5 Unique Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic

3 Steps to get Started with Email Marketing - DailyBlogTips

3 Steps to get Started with Email Marketing - DailyBlogTips


3 Steps to get Started with Email Marketing

Posted: 19 Sep 2014 10:24 AM PDT

“The money is in the list.”

I am sure you heard this motto before. It basically says, correctly, that an email list is one of the most profitable assets you can have as a webmaster or online entrepreneur.

Why?

Because email is still the most used and most direct channel for communications, and therefore having an email list is the best way to engage your readers and customers.

Despite being an essential part of any website/online business, many people still don’t have an email list. The reason, probably, is because they believe it’s hard or complex to get started. If you are in this same situation, well, this article is for you. Below you’ll find 3 easy steps you need to follow to get started with email marketing. And don’t worry, you won’t need to spend any money to get started!

Step 1: Get an Email Marketing Provider

The first thing you need is a provider that will take care of managing your subscribers and delivering your emails. In theory you could get an email delivery software and run it yourself on your server, but this is a terrible idea because delivering email is a tricky business.

Email marketing providers focus on doing just that, and they make sure all the technical specifications are in place to make sure your emails will reach your subscribers.

Most people think that those services cost a fortune, but this is not the case. On top of that most providers offer a free trial, so you can test everything without spending a dime and without committing to anything. There are several good ones on the market. If you want a recommendation, try GetResponse. They offer a 30-day free trial, and the plans start at $15 monthly, which is pretty affordable. Another advantage of GetResponse is that they have tools to help you build your landing page, which you are going to need on the second step, below.

Step 2: Create a ‘Subscribe’ Page on Your Site

The second step is to create a landing page on your website which will have the goal of getting new subscribers to your list. Ideally you want to explain what your subscribers will receive from you, and why they should subscribe (i.e., what are the benefits of becoming a subscriber). The more reasons you can list, the better. At the bottom of this page place the subscription form that your email marketing company will provide (you just need to copy and paste the code). You can see an example of a ‘Subscribe’ page here.

Bonus tip: Nothing works better than offering a freebie. Create a simple eBook or report and offer it as a gift to anyone subscribing to your list. This will do miracles to your conversion rate, and it will also help gain a lot of good will, as your subscribers will get some value from you right away.

Step 3: Promote That Page

Now that everything is in place, you just need to get visitors to your ‘Subscribe’ page. You can put a “Newsletter” link on your navigation menu, for instance, and you can also guest post on other sites and point your credit link to that page.

Bonus tip: It would also be a good idea to place your subscription forms around your website. The top of your sidebar and the bottom of your posts are two good spots that tend to convert well.

That is it. You should be able to complete these 3 steps in a single day, and after that your email list will already start growing. I’ll talk about what kind of content you should send to your subscribers on a future post. Stay tuned.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!