“Tell us how you ‘really‘ get traffic to your blog?”
After presenting to a group of bloggers at an event recently I was surprised to be asked this question by someone in the audience.
I wasn’t surprised that people would want to know about how to get traffic to a blog – it’s something most bloggers want to know about – I was surprised to be asked it at THIS event because i’d just finished speaking for 30 minutes on the topic of ‘getting traffic to your blog‘.
After 30 minutes of sharing how I generate traffic to my blogs – I was asked to share what ‘really’ works. Hmmmm – was my presentation that bad… or was there something else going on here?
I sat down for a coffee with the person who asked me the question to dig a little deeper and as the conversation unfolded it became clear to me that the blogger was after a ‘silver bullet’.
He wanted some secret method of generating traffic that would flood his blog with new readers, some new technique that most bloggers had not cottoned onto yet that would lift him above the rest and propel him to blogging super-stardom.
He told me that he’d tried all the normal tips on how to get traffic – some had worked and had found him new readers and others had not – but now he wanted something new. What advice could I give?
I decided to share my ‘real’ secret to big blogging traffic.
Identify What Works…. and Do it Again…. and Again….. Improving it Each Time
Here’s the thing – there’s no one technique that is going to bring every blog new traffic.
But if you try lots of different approaches and identify what does work – even if it only works a little – you’re on the way.
Find something that works for your blog, your niche, your demographic and then build upon that.
Here’s an example of how this worked for me:
- A couple of months after starting my photography site (a few years back now) I started a Group on Flickr which allowed readers to share their best shots – to show them off, get some critique on their work and see what others on the site were doing with their photography.
- Readers LOVED sharing their shots. We soon started a forum with a specific area for sharing of shots – (ingeniously called the ‘Share Your Shots‘ section).
- This section of the site became so popular that we expanded it and started a ‘Critique‘ area where people could not only share a shot but get feedback on it.
- This section was so popular that we started multiple critique areas – for different types of photography (eg: Landscape photography, Portrait photography etc).
- Also early in the life of the forum we started doing Weekly Assignments to let readers all go out and take shots on the same theme each week and then come back and share their best one.
- To this point all the sharing of shots happened in the forum – but I began to realize that not all of the blog readers visited the forum so on a whim one day I asked readers on the blog to share their best shot ever. We had 300 comments left – most with links to their favourite shot on Flickr or a photoblog.
- I continued to invite readers to occasionally share a favorite shot on the blog in comments – usually when we posted a tutorial on a specific type of photography. Each time I did this we had heaps of comments left.
- Earlier in the year I decided to give readers a ‘photographic challenge’ – to photograph something within 10 meters of them. People really responded to the idea of a challenge.
- As a result I decided to start ‘Weekend photography Challenges’ on the blog – similar to weekly assignments on the forum but for those who either didn’t become forum members or those who wanted two challenges a week. At first they were only every few weekends (the first was a Landscape one) but as readers responded so well to them we made them weekly.
- The challenges continued to become popular so we added a plugin to the blog that allowed people to share photos IN the posts (see this in action in our Pet Photography Challenge) – not everyone uses this feature but it increased participation a lot. We also improved the challenges by getting people to tag their photos on Flickr with a common tag and link to the challenges.
What started as a fairly simply idea (giving readers a place to share their shots – not even on my own site but using Flickr – evolved into multiple ideas that built upon that initial idea. Each time we evolved the idea we created buzz, reader engagement, traffic and site stickiness.
Keep in mind that this process has taken us over 3 years. The changes have been gradual, we’ve made mistakes along the way, but instead of spending all our time trying to find a ‘silver bullet’ that we could just drop into the site to bring heaps of traffic – we improved something that showed promise in the early days.
A further example of this would be the site’s email newsletter list. In the early days when we first tried it I remember wondering if it was worth the effort of sending a weekly newsletter out to 100 people… but I saw some potential in it and each week it grew, each week I learned something new about improving the newsletters and each week it became more worth the effort. Today it drives hundreds of thousands of visitors to the site each week.
Some questions to help identify what is working (or what might work) with your readers and niche:
- What topics generate most comments on your blog?
- What topics generate most comments on other blogs in your niche?
- What other sites do your readers visit a lot? What activities are they doing there?
- What features are readers asking for?
- What was your biggest traffic day – what brought it about?
- Which of your posts seem to get Retweeted most on Twitter and passed around most on other social media sites?
- Which of your posts are getting linked to most from other blogs/sites?
- What other sites send you most traffic? How can you build relationships with these sites?
This list could go on and on – really it is about looking for points of life on your site (even small ones) where there’s some kind of energy or positive outcome happening – and then repeating them in some way – looking for opportunities to build upon and improve what you previously did.
Got any examples to share of where you’ve done this on your own blog?
I find the most difficult part isn’t necessarily generating the traffic but getting it to stick. While this will heavily depend on the type of visitor, my company; jitZul, struggles to keep our visitors tied down. We found that almost 90% of our traffic finds us by searching for a very specific piece of information on Google and once they find it; they leave. We continually experiment with different options for keep “leech” traffic engaged and have seen some results but it seems like an endless grind.
just my 2 cents :D
I believe that the ideas for your Digital Photograph School is only for a well known published site or blog, when you have a certain number of traffic, your readers will be driving in more new traffic to the site as your regular readers will be writing about the photo in their blog or site and link to the forum (I believe that they will add a link), but for a new site, that’s not that easy.
Anyway, Darren you do have nice strategy for the forum.
Regards,
Lee
Lee Ka Hoong – it certainly helps to have traffic – however when I started DPS I only had a small group of readers. When I started that first Flickr group I remember it only had 40 or so members – but the energy I saw their among readers was good – I saw potential to grow it so went for it. The same was true for my email list – it started small but grew.
This stuff doesn’t just work for big sites – they all start small and in my case it was about identifying the type of posts and features that my readers were responding to and then adding to them/repeating them. This is how the site became bigger. As it grew the momentum grows and it does get easier, but it all starts with small things.
I really like your email list tip. I’m at that point where I have a small group of readers and I finally decided to send them a weekly newsletter.
Glad to see there is benefit in this even at such a small scale.
Great post. Commenting regularly on other blogs is another way that really works.
You never know what will work until you work at it. Maybe Digg will work for some blogs but not for others. I have noticed at my new blog Cyber Smart, many people have picked up my podcast feed. Many more than have picked up the main blog fee!
This tells me that people like my podcasts, so, since I love podcasting anyway, I’ll do more. Give the readers what they want.
Darren is correct, there is NO one thing that will work- and each blog will be different. It is finding what does work through trial and error and building from there. Time- Hard Work-…
MyCyberSmart – exactly, you’ve noticed a spark which could become a fire which could become an inferno! Your podcast could be the beginning of something that brings a lot of life to your site – go for it!
Hi,
Really useful tips. I am new to blogging. I have read your tips for beginners too. I am hoping to get good traffic on my blog too. I will implement the tips you have mentioned.
Thanks again!
Best Regards,
Raja,
http://www.about-dog-breeds.blogspot.com/
Couldn’t agree more. Often the people that are looking for a silver-bullet haven’t been taking action enough. They say it doesn’t work, but when you really dig deeper, they haven’t applied what they’ve read. For me guest posting is my favorite way of promoting my blog and getting traffic. I also comment and spend a lot of time in forums, which helps spread my name and blog. It’s all about taking action!
great stuff Henri – keep doing that stuff – if it’s working now it’ll continue to work!
I run a bipolar support site/blog detailing the challenges that my wife and I go though in our own bipolar marriage. As expected, the posts that really seem to hit hard and get attention are the posts that cover the dark side of bipolar disorder and how it can affect a relationship. Some of my posts touch on some hard topics and although it’s difficult to talk about, it’s one that many can relate to and bring in quite a bit of traffic, although more stealth type visitors.
Thanks again for the great information, Darren!
Rich – thanks for sharing that. While I don’t blog about anything near as serious as that I too notice that it is often posts where you share honestly and in a personal way about a problem you had or a mistake you made that seems to touch people and draw people in. People like stories, they like to feel that they’re not the only ones with issues/problems and they’re looking for hope – tap into that and you’ll certainly keep connecting with people! Thanks for sharing that!
You just opened my eyes!
For last several days, I have been hunting for a “method” that could get me more traffic. However, what I ignored was that the traffic has already risen a lot(and that too, without much work from my side!).
I have just checked what caused the growth and now, I know how I will get more! Thanks! :)
Silver bullet…yeah, I see that a lot. There will be an article on all the different traffic building techniques, yet there are people who still think there is one magic answer. The real answer is it’s hard work. I think that’s why people tell you to focus on your passion…or at the very least, something you’re extremely interested in. Anyone can slap up a simple website…that’s not the hard part. The hard part is doing the leg work after that. Providing good content, participating in the community in your niche, working on traffic building, etc.
Thanks for the reality check here!
Dear Darren:
Thank you for sharing the “real” secret to building traffic :)
Time tested truth that you just have see what works for yourself. I think the most important thing is guest posting and engaging with your readers and getting their feedback.
Just like you said, many of the brilliant ideas start out as one simple idea and everything else just grows on top of it depending on what the readers want.
For example, my blog started out being on Blogger, then it moved to WordPress, I have changed the design many times, I erased various articles to make the blog conform to what I wanted it to be about. It’s a never ending process.
I am sure you are working on improving your current site as I am writing.
Thanks :)
Best,
Tomas
An interesting post with lots of thought provoking ideas.. Thanks.. :)
You seems do hard work there because it took 3 years to achieve the success. So, there are no silver bullet as conclusion.
Btw, i already aware of most commenting content post and it is work when i optimize the theme.
Isn’t it more important to have interaction than traffic? For me it is!
Why the traffic is such a big issue?
A blogger has to be active FIRST. Not just sit and wait.
(I’m not talking about making money online, that’s a different case.)
BLOGitse – I guess it comes down to your goals as a blogger – sometimes traffic is more important to a blogger than interaction – in other cases bloggers prioritize interaction or something else. Guess it comes down to why you’re blogging.
Great point about success in general. It’s so easy to just go through our day on automatic pilot. But when we stop and ask, “What is working?” it completely changes our results.
The awesome thing about blogs (and the internet) is it allows us to accurately measure what is working. And then by simply doing more and measuring we can improve.
Great post!
Darren,
I really like your ideas to generate interaction with your audience.
I’ve been playing with a few ideas in my head and your post made me realize that until I test a few of those ideas there is no way of knowing what will work.
Thanks so much for sharing.
Krizia
This article got my brain working this morning, and I’m now kicking around some more unique ideas for a promotion to get some new eyes on my marriage blog. I still think content is king, and the new readers won’t stick without it. However, after you have some interesting things on your site, I think a strategy aimed at getting more eyeballs to see it can pay off big.
My blog is growing well, and the single biggest thing I’ve done to date to get new readers is form a blog network with somewhat related (and much larger) blogs. Our cross-promotion power is significant…and it’s fun to have more cyber-friends!
Really useful Darren, but this more like a theory I was wondering if you could provide practical traffic generation methods.
Vishal – check out my Finding Readers archive page – lots of articles on that page with many that are more ‘practical’.
Great tips, thanks. I’ve noticed that among the social networks, the ones who redirected more readers toward my blog are StumbleUpon and increasingly Twitter, while I’ve found Digg and Reddit less useful.
I write about travel and sometimes I do notice some posts attract more audience than others, even if I didn’t expect so much interest in those particular topics. Other times, instead, my high expectations were cause of disappointment, as there were only a few readers or comments in posts I put greater research and time on.
I guess it takes a lot of time and patience, especially for small bloggers like me, who need to build a name, too.
Cheers
Angela
Hey Darren,
Fail often to succeed faster.
Like with any goal, there’s no hidden tricks to growing traffic.
You just selectively try as many things as possible, see what works, do more of that while dropping what doesn’t, test again, rinse and repeat.
With time, like you demonstrated with DPP, your site has more and more of what builds quality traffic and less of what doesn’t. Articles that you like to write and people want to read, projects readers want to get involved in, products people want to share, and so forth.
Thanks for sharing your results, and also reminding us to not focus on “silver bullets” but instead just keep on trying new things, finding what works, and doing more of that.
Never stop testing and bettering our site,
Oleg
Great post. There really IS a secret to blogging…and it ties in a little bit to hard work and watching what works best. Brilliant. The secret is valuable, but knowing how to schedule myself to actually USE the secret didn’t happen until I started following the “30 Days” workbook.
Very helpful post to get people started on the right growth plan.
Joe – glad you found the 31 Days Workbook helpful – its interesting how many people have reflected back to me that the workbook gave them structure to help them actually do what they previously knew but never did.
Best logical explanation of organic growth I’ve ever read. Superb!
Also Darren, I forgot to mention that it’s important for you to write that it tool 3 years to get to this point.
When we start a blog we often thing that results should happen within a week or so … that’s really not possible and this post shows that it takes time to become a problogger!
Krizia
If You own a website to promote it and to get traffic, you need to get plenty of one-way links pointing to your site and for that to happen article marketing is one of the best way.
haha, you should ask him to get a hearing aid! If he tries all methods and fail to get traffic, probably his blog is full of nonsense.
Darren I have to read your blog because your posts always put me back on target. Its so easy to become discombobulated and distracted, however reading your posts always help me regain my focus. Thanks for being you Darren.
Hello Darren,
Too many people are looking for the fast way to make cash. I see one of the best ways to build traffic to my blog is through great content and posting everyday. I post on a average 6 days a week.
I just started my blog, http://www.im-organizer.com/blog at the end of Sept. and I am slowly building a readership. I am not looking for huge amounts of traffic yet, but looking for it to build over time.
This is only one way to build traffic, and we all need to use many other ways also. I love the idea of looking at my biggest vistor days and see why they all showed up. I will be checking this out soon.
I understand if most of bloggers want to get lots of visitors to his blog, but what they don’t realize is, everything needs hardworking and time. I’m not surprised if your blog gets so many visitors, because I see that you are very details in maintaining your blog and watching all the progress, and your writing style is also enjoyable. It’s not always easy to imitate someone’s method, so willing or not we should make improvisation to get visitors.
Getting comments is vital for the morale of new blogger.
Coincidently, I just published this last week: How I get more comments than blogs that have 10 times more traffic.
Thanks Darren. There’s always the old standby of, dare I suggest it, writing good content and trusting that your audience will find you and spread the word. But your experiences clearly demonstrate that smart and thoughtful strategy and a willingness to be flexible can help you reach the stars that much faster. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Darren, thanks for finally sharing your ‘real’ secret to getting traffic to your blog ;)
It’s true what you say about monitoring my blog and other niche blog posts for the amount of comments they generate. I have been surprised sometimes at the amount of comments a post will generate for days after.
I find something like commenting on ten other blogs a day generates traffic, as well as offering information and help for free, like a fee webinar.
I’m now considering guest posting and hope to expand my network as well as get more traffic.
I recently developed my first quarterly marketing plan for my blog, and using some of the questions that you have listed there, I identified that certain sites were sending alot of very sticky traffic to my blog. While they may not have had the highest volume in terms of referral traffic they were sending people who were spending quite a bit of time at my site. So I reached out to the owners and asked for a once a week guest posting opportunity. Even the lesser known blogs can be of tremendous value to you in terms of traffic, especially if it’s sticky traffic. To me 10 users who stick around your site for 9 mins, is better than 2000 who stay for 10 seconds.
For me, it’s Twitter, Facebook and a little bit of Google, but mainly social networking is where most of my traffic is delivered from.
Thanks for this great post Darren. I knew this could be your answer when first time I ask myself “What is Darren secret weapons in bringing massive traffic to his blog”.
But, always I do keep in mind that it ain’t easy and it does takes a long day to work it out. (Problogger took some hard time too isn’t it?).
Anyway, there is no use having a massive traffic if you don’t know how to maintain those traffic. Thats why you need to have a superb content and personalize yourself to keep you off from the competitors.
To your success,
Aqif
Hi Darren,
You’re right and got it all in a nutshell on one single post. In fact, you’ve listed all the critical success factor for an enduring and ever growing blog.
Thanks for your contribution, it’s always a pleasure to read your opinions and experiences.
Regards from Portugal.
Antonio Caldas
‘Try which works and improve it’ sounds simple but not many people realized it before. I like it Dareen:-)
‘Try which works and improve it’ sounds simple but not many people realized it before. I like it Daren:-)
Sounds just like to produce a product, follow the consumers’ need.
I have found that you really do have to try a variety of methods. Some will work really well, and some won’t. It does seem to depend on the subject matter, the product, the goals of driving traffic. I just discovered an avenue that is successful in driving traffic to a free Ebook I offer. Since this one method is working, I’m spending all of my traffic-driving time on that method, and I’ve stopped spending time on the others. That is not to say that the others aren’t good, they just aren’t good for this product. Perfect advice to find what works and do it over and over and over.
You’ve given me lots to think about in this post Darren. I’m not lacking in creativity, mostly just need to be pointed in the right direction. This is a great post for that. Thanks.
Denise
ps. Where exactly are you that it’s December 15 for you? Just curious.:-)
Denise – I’m in Australia.
Great post and all very good points. I’ve found that techniques that work for some bloggers don’t necessarily apply to every blog. It is important to experiment and find-out what really works the best for your blog.
Interesting post. I just do a personal motorcycle travel blog but I also get a fair amount of my traffic from photography forums that I participate in, mostly specific to Canon and my model.
After one of my trips I’ll put up a forum post of my best pictures from the series and ask for feedback with a link to the bottom to my blog post on it for the background story and more pictures. I found as I did more of these forum threads they drive more and more traffic to the blog, the old ones continue to drive some traffic and as you build up more forum links it ramps up over time.
Another way is from my motorcycle forums. If I do some customization, repair or mod to one of my bikes and do a blog writeup on it I’ll also do a short forum post with a link back to the blog for more. These drive huge spikes in traffic but taper off and peter out more quickly than the photography ones. However, if someone asks about doing the same thing in another thread later I can always link back to my article again.
There is lots to think about in this post. Traffic is something I’m VERY intersted in generating, and if I can do it for free then all the better.
Obviously, there cant be a single silver bullet which fits everywhere. Only one thing iis common everywhere and that is hard work.
You need to work on your blog each and every day in one way or the other to make it big.
Obviously, there can not be a single silver bullet which fits everywhere.Only one thing iis common everywhere and that is hard work. You need to work on your blog each and every day in one way or the other to make it big.
People tend to think traffic first before the content/service of their site. Without anything for people to come to your traffic result will always be the same. You need content and an analytical mind. With that you can create something, analyze the outcome and make adjustments.
This is how we should engage readers to our blog……..
Thank you, Darren, for once again writing a post that reminds us of what should be really obvious, but seldom is.
I have been actively blogging for over a year, but only since September this autumn have things really started to take off – I (apparently) needed a lot of time to learn the craft and figure out the true identity of both my readership and the blog before it started working.
Now, things have really started happening. My blog is dedicated to professional computer gaming and electronic sports – a field that has few to none bloggers but several very well established community sites. My traffic numbers have never been very high, but after I started doing audio interviews with various celebrities within this niche and publishing them on Youtube numbers have rocketed. After ten weeks of interviewing, I have had close to 20,000 video views and heaps of comments.
Granted, a very small portion of these visitors travel all the way back to my blog despite many inviting links to do so – but Youtube has never the less brought me hundreds of more visitors every week, and continues to do so. As my library grows, so does the average percentage. This formula certainly works for me, and it can be tweaked and improved a lot – and so I wanted to share this idea.
Sorry for writing a minor novel, call it a severe stroke of blogger enthusiasm :)
Sebastian – thanks for sharing your story. That kind of thing is exactly what I’m talking about. Now the key is to build on it and look for ways of drawing people back to your blog and leveraging the interviews! You’re on the right path!
i need to re-read this when i have time. It’s a really good post though.
find a good topic, hot topic and hot keyword. With that, it also will hep to grow traffic.