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10 Little-known Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

Posted By Guest Blogger 5th of February 2011 Blog Promotion 0 Comments

This guest post is by Onibalusi Bamidele of YoungPrePro.com.

Getting traffic to a blog is the major challenge a blogger faces. Many have read about various traffic generation strategies, but they find it difficult to get traffic to their blogs because these tips are no longer as effective as they once were. For example, guest blogging used to be very effective, but now that a lot of people are doing it and talking about it, it’s no longer as effective as it used to be.

Here are ten little-known tips to get traffic that I’ve discovered from my own experience. Implementing all ten tactics at the same time isn’t that effective; the way to get the best from these tactics is to choose two or three tactics that you think you like, and focus all your efforts on them for a period of time. You will be amazed at the results you will get.

1. Secret blogging clubs

A major and underutilized way to get traffic to a blog is by joining secret blogging groups or clubs. Very few people are using this particular method, but it can be very effective if you focus your efforts on it.

Secret blogging clubs consists of a group of bloggers with one aim: to help each other spread the word about their blogs with a view to generating traffic for each others’ blogs. The concept is simple: you join a club with around 50 members, share each others’ post with your fans and followers (around once a week), and this will generate more traffic, since it exposes your blog to a wider audience.

You dont need to worry about spamming and the likes, because groups like these are heavily moderated. Also, it is not necessary to share every link that is posted to the group—you only need to share the links related to your niche, that you feel are valuable.

A great example of an effective secret blogging club is the DailyBlogTips Retweet Club by Daniel Scocco. A post of mine that went viral through a secret blogging club was my guest post on getting more blog comments—it presently has 97 comments and 87 retweets on a site that averages 15 retweets and 40 comments per post.

2. Social blogmarking sites

Another underutilized but effective way to get traffic to your blog is by making use of social blogmarking sites. Even though this concept looks similar to social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit, it operates differently.

A social blogmarking site can be useful irrespective of whom you are and your status on the network. All you need to do is write your best post and give it the best title. Submit it to your favorite social blogmarking site and, if it’s voted onto the site’s homepage, it will send a stream of traffic to your blog. The articles that make it to the front page are not determined by the authors who submit them, or dependent on the domain name of the author’s site. The quality and title of the article is all that matters.

I also respect social blogmarking because of the quality of traffic it sends. The visitors that come from the blogmarking site I’m involved with (Blokube) spend an average of ten minutes on my blog. Presently, this is one of my best traffic sources, as far as traffic quality is concerned.

3. Ning communities

Getting traffic to your blog through Ning communities is a great way to get traffic to your blog, yet few bloggers use this method. I learned this formula from Kim Roach and it keeps on sending me traffic, even months after I use it.

Like blogging, a lot of people have a version of themselves or their business on Ning.com. You can create a portal in the form of yourusername.ning.com, which can also be a great way to get traffic to your blog.

All you need to do is help community members with their questions, and reference your blog if necessary. There is also a place where you can submit your blog posts for the whole community to see—another great traffic source. If you plan on doing this, you don’t necessarily need to write new posts: you can submit some of your old posts with a link back to your blog.

Not all Ning communities bring results. Some communities will send you zero visitors, while some will send you hundreds, so it’s important to be wise when choosing a community you want to join. I have discovered that what works is to make sure you join a Ning community that’s related to your niche, and has over 5000 members.

4. Free, no-catch ebooks

This is another powerful but underutilized tactic to get more traffic to your blog. I didn’t use this strategy until recently, but when I did, I got awesome results.

To use this technique, write as many free reports as you can. A report is a simple, seven-to-ten-page ebook. Make sure you embed links to your blog in the ebook, and encourage readers to visit your blog. Then, distribute the ebook to free ebook directories, post it to your favorite forums, ask other bloggers to help you share it, and do as much as you can to spread the word about it.

What has worked best for me is sharing it on my favorite Internet marketing forums, like Digital Point Forums. After utilizing this particular strategy, I saw a spike in my traffic: I got an additional 60-80 visitors per day for some days, and over 100 new blog subscribers.

5. Content syndication

I’ve noticed that a lot of people are not using this particular strategy, but it can be highly effective to syndicate your blog content to big online portals in your niche. Most of these portals are visited by countless people every day, and syndicating with them will go a long way to give your blog a traffic boost.

Great examples of some of the best content syndication sites I’ve found are Alltop and The Daily Brainstorm.

6. Blogging collaboration

It pains me to see that this particular traffic strategy is not better utilized. In 2010 I collaborated with a lot of well-known and respected bloggers to give my readers some entrepreneurial advice.

I was able to work with 24 successful online entrepreneurs, who contributed to the post, and shared it with their Twitter followers and Facebook fans when it went live. This sent me double my usual number of daily visitors and, eventually, more subscribers and followers. It is also one of the most shared posts on my blog.

Collaboration is a great tool and every wise blogger will use it sometime. Try to get some of the top bloggers in your niche to contribute to your blog; once the contribution is live, encourage them to share it.

7. Online podcasts

This is another great and underutilized way to get traffic to your blog. Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income is very popular for his podcasts, and has been able to build a successful blog based on this and other methods.

While the podcasting technology is not new, very few people utilize it. Yet you can get more eyeballs to your content by creating a great and informative podcast relating to your blog. Submit it to the iTunes podcast directory and as more and more people search for podcasts relating to your topic area, they will end up discovering yours and, if it’s good, might end up visiting your blog.

8. Online groups

This particular approach is almost as old as some of the biggest websites on the Internet, so I’m amazed to see that very few people use it. I didn’t realize the power of this tactic until the day I woke up to see a spike in my website traffic generated by a LinkedIn group.

A lot of people still congregate and look for solutions to questions in online groups; many of these groups are also highly respected by Google, so they are indexed and ranked quickly. Thus, you have a great potential of getting traffic to your blog by utilizing good groups. The post I published to the LinkedIn group I mentioned attracted over 200 visitors from that group in the week it was published.

Two of the most popular online groups are Yahoo groups and LinkedIn groups—check them out.

9. Authority sites

I didn’t realize how powerful authority sites were until I interviewed successful entrepreneur Raymond Lei. He wrote a Wikipedia page in which a link to my interview with him was listed as one of the resources. This link sends me continuous traffic from Wikipedia even today.

You can use this strategy with some of the biggest websites on the Internet; since most of these sites find it easy to rank for competitive keywords in the search engines, you may find it easy to get traffic from them. For example, you can read and review some of the top books in your niche on Amazon while including a link back to your blog. Or interview the top bloggers in your niche, then include your link as a resource in their Wikipedia page.

10. Webrings

This is also a very effective traffic generation strategy that many people overlook.

A Webring is a collection of websites that are linked to each other. A major advantage of using a Webring is that it also helps you get high quality links which means both short term direct traffic and long term search engine traffic for you. Probably the most popular Webring is Webring.com.

These are my favorite little-known traffic tactics. What are yours? How have you got traffic to your blog? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Visit YoungPrePro.com to learn how Onibalusi makes over $3000 online monthly and how he gets over 10,000 visitors to his blog every month. Download his guest blogging guide to learn how to get thousands of visitors from guest blogging. Also, make sure you follow him on twitter @youngprepro.

About Guest Blogger
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Comments
  1. Hi Onibalusi,

    This is such an informative and insightful article! From the free ebooks, to online groups and Webrings, these are all great traffic boosters, half of which I was not aware of. What makes their effectiveness even more convincing is the real personal examples you have accompanied them with. Off to Webring.com I go to check how it works….

  2. thanks for sharing, not know many of the things as you mentioned here. Going to check out each and very of them

  3. This is a great list Onibalusi. I use many of these tactics myself, but I hadn’t considered using online groups – that’s a great idea! I’ve used secret blogging clubs to get a new blog off the ground, and that works very well indeed, but I’m wondering how useful it is for an already well-established blog? Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

    Thanks for giving me some more traffic generation ideas to consider!

  4. This is so much great information for me to boost up and get high ranking in Google Page Rank. Thanks so much…

  5. Nice Tips Onibalusi. Webrings are still new yet could prove powerful enough starting this year.

    • Webrings are not so new. I used them back in the 1990’s on my first websites. They sort of fell out of favor because you could not control the links that would display on your site, plus those visitors would often leave to look at the next thing in the webring.

  6. I really loved this post. It gave out some great traffic generation methods that i have never heard of before. This is the kind of post is one that all internet marketers will be interested in reading

  7. I must admit, I haven’t yet tried much in the way of promoting my blog and getting more traffic so your article contains a lot of things I have yet to try.

    Most of my current traffic comes from forums I visit and just from having a signature back to my blog. I noticed a big spike in visitors yesterday and someone else had posted a link back to my site in a popular forum so that works well but it isn’t something I have control over.

    Thanks for the tips.

  8. Secret blogging clubs sounds kinda interesting and Social “Blogmarking” too.

  9. I belonged to a secret blogging club, but we called it a network :-) It was pretty small, I think 12 or so bloggers, and we all promoted each other. But the coolest part was our forum, in which we chatted about not just blogging, but family, life, etc. I’m not sure what it did for my traffic, but I formed some great relationships and it made me a better blogger.

  10. I’ve also been able to experience more traffic due to blog comments and submitting to article sites like Ezine and Articlesbase. It’s a great way to re-distribute your content. As you say, you can get overwhelmed with trying to do everything at once, so you need to pick one or two to start with and monitor the results over time. Great tips, Onibalusi, especially for beginners.

  11. I have started using social bookmarking sites for my blog posts. I can tell a difference in the traffic to my blog just from that avenue. Driving traffic, I think, can be one of the hardest areas in marketing. This is a great list to keep in mind to get visitors to your site!

  12. yeah this is help me because i’m a new blogger, i hope with this i can get more traffic to my blog

  13. Onibalusi,

    I love the idea of secret blogging and Twitter clubs a lot!

    I’m going to focus on videos for 2011 to boost traffic, but will put to practice a number of tips in this blog.

    Thanks,

    Krizia

  14. Hey Onibalusi,

    Awesome Post. You’ve made some awesome points.

    #Retweets Group – They are awesome and one of the best way to get retweets and little traffic.
    You can also use FaceBook Tribes to get social shares and traffic.

    #Social Bookmarking sites are one of my favorite way to get traffic. These are just much more then social bookmarking sites. For me it’s a great place to connect with other bloggers and build relationship with theme.

    #Ning communities – Hearing first time about it. Will going to check it out.

    #DigitalPoint – I have a great success with DP Forums. DigitalPoint was one of my top traffic source last month. Getting Traffic from DP Forums isn’t a hard task, you just need to be very active.

    Thanks for sharing this great post and including my blog. Keep up the awesome work oni.

    ~Dev

  15. Syndication is something I could certainly do more of, but big thumbs up for the first point on ‘Secret Blogging Clubs’, although they don’t have to be that secret! I regularly attend events in person organised by the two blogging groups that meet locally in my city. Both of them are organised through meetup.com so it might of benefit for you to check whether there are groups where you live.

    They’re a great place to meet interesting new people and make those all-important personal connections. If there aren’t local to you you could even start one up… not that I want to give anyone ideas :)

  16. I’d love to start or join a secret blog club or network using the facebook group feature — it’d be fun to get together and chat … Kinda like #blogchat, only less chaotic and more chartroom like.

    Anyone interested? Let me know: @creativeblogger

  17. Great way to increase website traffic. I heard this first time so its a nice tips for it. I like it..

  18. I haven’t known WebRing before. This is a good idea! But I like quality backlinks. I will place this post into my ” TechSharing Weekly Link Posts”

  19. I like tips number 8. Thanks for the special tips

  20. Secret blogging clubs? How do I find them if they are secret?

    This post is a useful resource.

  21. Wonderful tips!. Despite my experience with blogging for about 3 years now, some ideas mentioned here are those which I never though would work.

    Well, it reminds me that there are many things which we don’t know despite our experience and that’s why ‘ We needs keep our antennas of learning OPEN’ !.

  22. Nice collection. With this list even the ‘very new and focus’ blogger can go from 10s to 100s visit. I’m currently experimenting on the secret group. It kinda works.

  23. Great post! I think number 6 is the best. But all 10 tips are very helpful.

  24. It’s funny you mention the blogging group, I just started one with this same sort of practice, after seeing mommy bloggers execute on this so successfully. Here’s hoping it works well for us, too.

  25. Thanks for sharing this post Onibalusi,

    These traffic driving methods really surprised me. I’ve already tested some with and see results already.

    Way to go, keep up the good work.

    Cheers,
    Togrul

  26. Onibalusi,
    Thank you for making me aware of ‘new to me’ ideas. I have learned from you.
    With gratitude,
    David

  27. I like the Free no catch e-books, as its a win win situation, your giving something free which will benefit and provide value to your readers, and hopefully get them to become readers of your blog.

  28. Very good stuff and helpful too :)

  29. Thanks for these tips. Several I had never heard of before. Will definitely be checking them out!
    Bernice
    Letting go of who I thought I was supposed to be

  30. Every time I think I have a handle on traffic building strategies, I read a post like this which shows me how much more I have to do.

    We have been podcasting once a week, and get a nice lift from that, now I need to work on the eBook strategy. Thanks for another great to do list!

  31. Joseph says: 02/05/2011 at 10:21 am

    These are good tips. I’ve a question about the blogging clubs, though: would Blog Carnival meet this description? I’ve submitted a few articles to Blog Carnival over the years. It seems underutilized, in my opinion. Also, what about article directories? When I started my first website I submitted articles to Buzzle, Ezine, etc. I get some traffic from it even these years later, but I wonder how effective it will be now since Google’s new algorithm.

  32. I have found the best way to build traffic almost instantly is strategic commenting… think before you comment and think about where you want your traffic from, seek it out and then comment purposefully. Aways works to build traffic and even if it is a spike it never returns to the level you were at… spikes always build your reader base.

  33. I WOULD LOVE TO JOIN A SECRET BLOGGING CLUB OF 20 TO 30 PEOPLE, IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED EMAIL ME FROM MY BLOG OR REPLY. I’M SERIOUS! Such a great idea!

  34. This post is so helpful! As a new blogger, I find it very challenging to sift though all the noise to find actual useful ideas for traffic driving. This post has given me some innovative direction. When I read other traffic driving suggestions posts, I felt like it is a lot of common sense stuff. Thanks for sharing some fresh ideas!

  35. Great tips! It’s amazing how many of these tips aren’t utilized as often as they should be, since they’re such a logical approach to gaining more traffic. Have already opened several links in your post to check out. Thanks! :)

  36. Great advice that you shared here. I tried ning.com, yahoogroups, and linkedin. Thank your secret blogging club will also work.

    Thank you.

  37. Was trying to find more information on content syndication. Does it syndicate the entire post or just an excerpt?

  38. Nice one Oni…. I am so much into secret blogging groups. A friend of mine started Bloggers Lab on Facebook and it has been a huge source of traffic for him, myself and every members of the bloggers Lab. Anyone interested can read about it here: http://makemoneyonlineng.com/bloggers-lab-facebook-group-pro-newbie-bloggers/

  39. Great list, there are three in there I wish I’d added into my last book!

    Great share.

  40. Thanks! I like no.5

  41. Thanks for these tips Onibalusi – they will be very helpful as I journey out on to the blogosphere.

    Much appreciated sir : )

  42. Hooray! Finally, some fresh advice that is outside the box. I’ve already picked my three that I am going to focus on. Thanks for your help~

  43. Great tips…

    I had tried the Wikipedia route, and got an email that someone flagged me (or something) because I had self-promoting links.

    Possibly i did something wrong?????

  44. I use SocialOomph and it helps me out tons. Thanks for this post. The tips are awesome! I will use them.

  45. You give some good insights here, but I have a quibble:

    The quality and title of the article is all that matters.

    I am currently the top user at a blogmarking site, Blog Engage. I’ve had 169 posts voted up to the home page, but it really has little to do with quality. Some of my very best posts only got a few votes and a handful of pretty marginal notices got published. In addition (perhaps more importantly) it’s about niche. If you blog ABOUT blogging (aren’t we swarmed with that?) you’re much more likely to get votes than if you blog about anything else, no matter the quality.

  46. Where do you find secret blogging clubs? You can’t just google them if they are secret.

  47. What I love about this post is that how you can execute them right now without paying a cent.

    Paid traffic is not mandatory.

  48. Outstanding suggestions for the new blogger, glad I bought the book, I know I will be self sufficient one day!

  49. Amazing tips, and more than half of it are unheard of! I can’t wait to join a secret community ;)

  50. Lol. Secret blogging. Sounds like the masons or something. Seriously though, thats a great idea, to get into a good neighbourhood.

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