Getting constant traffic is the lifeblood of your website or blog. We’ve all heard about how Search Engine Optimization does wonders but the problem with SEO is that it takes time and effort to work on. You might also have to spend on a Google AdWords campaign to make it more effective. There’s also the saying “Content is King”. However, you can’t really rely just on what you write for your blog or website to get decent traffic. You have to market your site to the right people so that you can get quality traffic. This short article will tackle 7 free and effective ways that I’ve used to drive traffic to the sites of my clients as well as my blogs. Check them all out after the break.
1. Subscribe to Mailing Lists
This tip was shared to me by my good friend, Diwa De Leon. I can’t believe I didn’t think about doing this before he told me. Basically you search for mailing groups (Yahoo for example) and just apply to join. There are mailing lists that have more than 1,000 members. That’s potentially 1,000 new readers for your blog. Once you join, send a message promoting your latest entry every now and then. Make sure though that you join groups that are related to your topic and that you don’t spam the hell out of them.
2. Build Relationships to Get Links
I can’t remember who said that “Links are the currency of the Internet“. This means that the more links, the more referral traffic you get. This becomes even more significant if you get linked by popular bloggers in the same niche. However, you don’t just get linked for writing good stuff. You have to build relationships with fellow bloggers so that they might eventually link to you. Another good tip related to this is for you to start the link-love process. Link to articles from your fellow bloggers and maybe someday they’ll link to you as well as a sign of thanks.
The last thing you want to do is to start e-mailing bloggers asking them to read and link to your most recent article. You’ll just annoy them to death. Go to blogger events, and start real relationships. Not only will you get links, but you’ll also get to expand your personal network.
3. Participate in Forums
This is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic. However, it can be a little tricky. The good thing about forums is that they’re really categorized per niche. If you’re writing about anime in your blog, then you have a lot of anime forums that you can visit. For the Philippines, you may want to check out Pinoy Exchange, the 25th biggest forum in the world. If your a gamer, then you might want to try the various game forums of Level Up.
What’s important here is that you don’t just make new topics with links to your site. That will label you as a parasite and as a spammer. It would be better to link to your articles as responses to topics – or you can quote text from your blog entries and just add links after. Don’t hard sell in forums or you’ll fall flat on your face.
4. E-mail Blast
Over the course of your life, you’ve probably amassed hundreds of calling cards and contact information from your personal network. This includes your classmates in school, friends, family, and various organizations that you’ve worked with. Now this is the time to put this to use! Organize your virtual phone book and e-mail them links to your articles that may interest them. It’s crucial that you send e-mails that are either: interesting, funny, or relevant. Otherwise this will backfire and you’ll get branded as a spammer.
5. SMS Blast
I’m a fan of Direct Marketing, and nothing can be more direct than a text message in the Philippines. This isn’t really free but it can be “semi-free” if you subscribe to the UNLIMITED text services offered by various networks. What you want to do is to promote only your best articles. The chances of them visiting your blog will be higher if the article you’re sharing is relevant to them. If you have a marketing-based post, then send it to your friends who work for agencies.
6. Guest Blog
This is one of my favorite ways to increase traffic because it’s really a win-win scenario. You offer quality and good articles as guest blog posts to fellow bloggers in the same niche. I regularly do this for Inquirer.Net’s Blog Addicts and I also did a guest post for my good friend, Noemi Dado’s About My Recovery. Note that while Noemi isn’t really into tech or marketing, the post I made for her was a personal experience of mine (Gunshot incident) that was a fit for her blog.
May I also suggest that when you send guest articles, code it already in HTML so that the blogger will just have to copy-paste and review it. Make it as hassle-free as possible for them. Also, don’t drown the article in links to your previous articles because that won’t really look good for you.
7. Social Media Marketing
Another favorite of mine. You can easily configure your social media tools to broadcast your latest blog posts to your persona network. I use Ping.fm a lot so that I don’t have to log-in to all of my networks one at a time to promote posts. Ping.fm will just update everything for me with a link for my contacts to click. Other than Ping.fm, I’m also very aggressive in promoting really good articles on Facebook. I do this by having the RSS Feed of my blog publishing snippets of my latest posts on my Notes section. The bigger your social network, the more potential readers for your website. I wrote a more detailed post on this here.
And that’s it! Hope this article will help you drive traffic to your site. Cheers!
great tips bro! galing!
I should guest blog one of these days!
Wow! About time you shared another tip on how to promote blogs. Let me know if I could help you with something. Kudos to you bro!
Great tips as always. Thank you for sharing them, this will help a lot.
I hope this does’nt sound silly, sir. But how do I become a blogger/contributor of Inquirer.com?
By the way, as always, great tips, sir.
Hi Carlo! I saw your blog post link come across one of my feeds (since it had SMS marketing) and I enjoyed reading your material! Yes, very relevant to me and great tips! My name is Riza Ayson, located in Los Angeles, California and our biz is called TextingForward!
If you ever want to do a piece strictly on text messaging- let me know! Otherwise, keep up the great posts!
Riza
I’m glad you guys appreciate the post! Hope it can help you in your blogging.
@Riza: Thanks! Definitely interested in coming up with an article for SMS Marketing. Maybe you’d like to do a guest post on this blog?
@arbee: Try sending them an e-mail. Check out all the Inq.Net blogs, most of them have contact information on the sidebar.
@Noemi: Would love to have you guest blog!
Great tips!
great blog , good advise. how do we get advertisers into our blog and start earning money. should I have a blogspot blog. my blog is on relationships, abuse and legal. I wrote a book ABUSED AND THE BATTERED MAN available at the self-help section of National Bookstore
adrian sison ( hilman1108@yahoo.com)
Hi Adrian! I wrote an article before on how to make money from blogging. Here’s the link for your perusal:
http://www.newmedia.com.ph/make-money-with-blogging/
Hi! Great blog, very helpful. Galing!
Another way to drive traffic is to submit articles from different directories there are hundreds of directories you can submit your articles. You can start with the top 10 search engines for article submission.
viral videos is another way to increase traffic
thanks for the tips, it’ll surely help a newbie like me
Nice tips! I have been using some of the things that you have mentioned.
If you get the chance, feel free to visit my site!