This is a guest post from Wade Harman who owns and writes at Bloggers Make Money. He is an ex coal miner turned online rock star. Thanks Wade for your awesome contribution to Ramblings of a WAHM.
How To Get Fast Blog Traffic
If you own a blog, then one of your main concerns with that site is learning how to get blog traffic. If you’re like me, then the faster it comes the better! There are thousands, nay, millions, of blog posts on how to do this or that, and it really aggravates me that none of these really help the reader!
How am I going to benefit from buying someone’s product and promoting it on my site when I can’t come up with the traffic?
Hmm, that does pose a problem!
Without traffic, you’re not making any money. I want to remedy this problem in this post that Allie has allowed me to write for you!
Learning How To Get Blog Traffic
Really, there is a learning curve with getting traffic coming to your site.
The bad thing about this is it doesn’t all fall into your lap at the same time, you tend to learn as you go along. However, this post is intended to dump it all into your lap right now. So if you have a new blog and are having a hard time making money from your blog, then these are sure-fire ways to get more traffic right away!
Don’t forget the first step
Ask yourself if your blog could handle thousands of visitors per day. Do you have it monetized properly? Are you set up in the right way to build your list? There is no need to learn how to get blog traffic if your blog isn’t prepared to take that traffic to a conversion level.
That’s another post that I’m sure Allie will cover, or has covered before, and you need to do everything in your power to grab the readers attention with great content, well set up site, and properly displayed affiliate links.
There are basically 3 things that can give you traffic
- SEO or Search Engine Optimization- This basically means that your site gets traffic “organically” through the search engine or when your blog appears on the first page of Google for a particular keyword. Getting traffic this way takes a little patience and hard work because of the millions of people competing for different keywords that are perhaps in your niche. I don’t dissuade people from going this route, you definitely should, but be prepared to wait for these results.
- Social Media Platforms- This is probably my favorite form of traffic altogether because it is “right now” traffic and it can literally boost your blog into a whole new dimension.
- Other Ideas- I know that this is a broad range, but there are plenty of other ideas that work in getting traffic from different places. I am going to cover this below.
How To Get Blog Traffic Through Social Media
As I said before, I love this type of traffic! It is definitely the easiest traffic to get, especially if you have a large following or lots of friends. I have a free ebook that spells out how to get blog traffic through social media, bringing you traffic right away called Boost Your Social Media Traffic Overnight and I would like to show you some of those tips that are in that ebook right here.
Keeping up with the Joneses
First and foremost, in order to get social media traffic, you must not be a talking head. What I mean by that is never get on social media platforms and spew your URL’s all over the place. That’s the fastest way to get “un-friended” or “un-followed”!
Even the Bible has got it down to a science! Read Proverbs 18:24, it says, “A man that has friends, must be friendly!” That’s the way you have to be on these sites. When you share other people’s posts, photo’s, or links, you are building trust with these people. You are also allowing yourself to be remembered by the person you just shared or liked or retweeted. The next time you go to promote your post, people will remember you for that and do the same for you!
The two powerful social media platforms
One of the best secrets that I found to help me get blog traffic actually comes from linking two of the largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter.
This is where this post gets interesting. If you are doing the above, then you can apply this next tip to get the most out of your social media followers.
It’s not really a secret, like I said above, but it’s just something that people don’t really talk about. Once you link your Twitter and Facebook account together, there is great Twitter tools that you can use to post on your behalf. Yeah, you can stop worrying about staying on social media platforms 24/7 while trying to frantically post your URL’s in your updates. With a Twitter scheduler, like I show you in the above link, you can focus on sharing other people’s tweets and updates and being human for once!
Basically what this tool does is it posts your tweets to Twitter on a schedule. Since it is linked to your Facebook account, it is posting to Facebook too! You can actually schedule tweets to be sent out as close as 3 minutes apart, but I definitely don’t recommend doing this! What I have found that works for me is a scheduling of around every 25-30 minutes.
You can tweak it for your own benefit, but be warned that too much will cause a negative result because your social friends will only see you and get tired of it quick!
The “Other” Way To Get Blog Traffic Quickly
Having a new blog, you are up against a lot of things. You don’t have the necessary domain age that it takes to get noticed through your SEO efforts, you’re new so nobody knows that you exist…it’s a very aggravating time!
One other way that you can learn how to get blog traffic quickly is through guest posting on other, well-known, blogs. This is probably the easiest way to get fast traffic because you are riding on the coat-tails of bloggers that have already set up their audience, all you have to do is submit your guest post and wait for the traffic to start rolling in!
Here are some great blogs to guest post on
My Blog, Bloggers Make Money
Tips for guest posting
The easiest way to get booted from your guest posting gig is to totally disregard the owner of the blog’s guest posting rules. Make sure that you read their rules for posting and that you follow the to the “T”!
As far as getting traffic from these guest posts, it’s basically inevitable, people that like what you have written will more than likely come to your site and see what else you have to say. That is why your content should be the most important thing in your blog. I know that we all want to make money with our blogs, but when you put an affiliate link before your reader, they are going to know!
Don’t do that. Learn how to get blog traffic by writing perfect posts that will benefit you AND the reader.
One Last Promotional Traffic Tip
Aside from the Twitter tool that has boosted my traffic tenfold, the second best thing that has made my blog more visible is when I got the nerve to join the best blogging community online, Blog Engage.
When you join communities, you are putting yourself and your blog out there for others to view it and you. There are many that you can join, but none have the perks as the one I promote on my blog. You are basically killing a bunch of birds with one stone with this one. You are building SEO backlinks, boosting your sharing compatibility, and making friends. Give that one a read too before you log off of this post!
In Conclusion
Learning how to get blog traffic isn’t really all that hard, there’s just a lot to it. The most important thing that you should remember is creating great content and building relationships with people.
You can’t do this by yourself, and if you think you can, you may as well pack it up right now. You are reading this post from me because of the relationship that has been cultivated between myself and the blog owner.
The more people you meet, the more opportunities that you will have in the future!
Over to you…
What are some of your ideas on how to get blog traffic?
Do you have a great tip that you can show the rest of us?
What is your primary strategy for getting traffic now?
Latest posts by Wade Harman (see all)
- How to Get Blog Traffic: Guaranteed Results That Work Fast - January 15, 2013
Welcome! I'm Allie. I help WAHMs get their businesses noticed online. Feel free to look around. New here? Check out 
Great tips Wade. I would add Triberr and blog commenting. Commenting I believe is a form of social media too. It’s a great way to get to know your readers too.
Lisa created this awesome post: Manage Your Social Network Settings Easily
Triberr is something that I’m just getting familiar with, and you’re right…commenting is a great way to bring more interaction on a blog that can really get you noticed!
Wade created this awesome post: The Psychology Behind Traffic From Social Media Sites
Excellent post. Your tip to write shorter posts is one that has made a world of difference for me. If people know that most of my posts are going to be about the same length (usually 400-500 words) and that I am going to be consistent in posting, my traffic goes up and up. Great, simple list. Thanks!
Manisha created this awesome post: Why Investing Money on Real Estate is a Safe Option
I will try guest posting. D you also allow guest post?
yash created this awesome post: Schedule Automatic shutdown in Windows 8
@Manisha- Posting at least 500 words is going to ensure that the search engine will be able to recognize you as well. It’s not that you should always post like that…when I first started blogging, 300-500 words was about the most I could come up with, but as I grew as a blogger, I found that 500 words really don’t even begin to scratch the surface! It doesn’t matter how many words you write, as long as it helps the reader.
@Yash- I do allow guest posting, however, you’re gonna need to change your avatar or rather, gravatar picture to something that shows your face. Most bloggers will not allow cartoon images.
Wade created this awesome post: Lose Adsense and Push Affiliate Marketing
Wade,
An excellent article. Thank you!
To answer your question, I’ve been working on SEO as my primary strategy of getting traffic so far. I am still working on it and rightfully as you said, “It is hot hard to do, it’s just a lot to do.”
Enjoyed your post. I will keep dropping by.
Regards,
Kumar
Kumar Gauraw created this awesome post: Online Social Media – How To Leverage The Power Effectively
Thank you Kumar, everything that is done should be done consistently every day to get the best results.
Wade created this awesome post: Why You Need to Use Pinterest for Business
Bookmarked this articles for future reference as there is so much to take in – for me at least.
I’m trying to get away from the old-school thinking of SEO and concentrate my efforts elsewhere, such as social avenues. I am new to social media promotion of my blog, and I have only a few dozen followers. Although slow, it does work.
Kathleen, social media is one of the best ways to promote your site online. I have had recent great success at really driving traffic from social sites to my blog.
Wade created this awesome post: 4 Social Media Marketing Tips To Get More Shares