This post has been submitted by Neil Patel. Neil is co-founder and CTO of ACS) and writes regularly on social media issues through the company’s blog, Pronet Advertising.
Traffic, traffic, traffic! We all want more traffic but sometimes it can be hard to sift through all the things you can do and figure out the best way to increase your traffic. For starters, here are five proven things you can do that will increase your traffic.
1. Hit the GYM
A great source of traffic is search engines, so why not leverage them to their fullest before worrying about anything else. Getting your website placed high within search results is determined by three main things: code, links, and content. Because you are a blogger, content isn’t the biggest problem however the other two might be. By following these simple steps, you can increase your rankings and increase your search traffic.
2. Don’t be shy
There is always something hot in the blogosphere, just keep an eye out for what’s hot and make sure to join in on the conversation. This can boost traffic and links almost immediately. Sites like Techmeme feed off of what’s hot in the blogosphere and are a great place to put on your watchlist for the latest hot topics. One great example of this is the 5 rules of social media optimization. This article was taken by a handful of other bloggers and ended up becoming the 16 rules of social media optimization. This did not only create tons of links for the original article, but it also created tons of links for all the other bloggers who added to it.
3. Create some buzz
Social media sites like Digg, Del.icio.us and Netscape are all great sources of traffic. If you can get on the homepage of any of these sites you will get thousands of visitors within minutes and potentially thousands of new regular readers. These sites are mainly driven by votes so make sure your readers can vote for you by placing social bookmark buttons within your posts in order to have the best chance of success. Keep in mind that you’ll need to write content that is actually appealing enough to be voted to the top, not just anything will be successful here. We’ve seen a lot of how-to guides, resources, and lists become popular quickly so these might not be bad categories to play around with first. Just try to add value with your content and you’ll have the best chance.
4.Don’t be a link Nazi!
By linking to others within your blog posts and showing some link love, other people will likely link back to you. The more generous you are the more generous others will be to you. When linking out give it some time and don’t expect the majority of the sites to link back to you. And most importantly make sure to only link out when it will benefit your readers. Sooner or later this tactic will increase the number of sites linking to you which can ultimately help drive traffic.
5. Be a drama queen
By being constructively and tastefully confrontational you can get tons of traffic. Even if you don’t have a popular blog, calling out certain companies or individuals who are tracking their buzz will certainly get you a little traffic boost.
Most of these items almost deserve a post on their own to explain why they work and what they are really doing however sometimes it helps to keep things simple. The overarching theme here is really about being as proactive as possible and putting some work into getting out there more. If you put more energy behind getting your voice out there, your traffic will respond.
Read more from Neil Patel at Pronet Advertising.
