Entries Tagged 'Increasing Traffic' ↓

I went through a period of low posting frequency on Net Writing. Ironically, at this time, I was being much more prolific with commenting on other blogs. I guess leaving a comment is less intimidating because it can be much shorter than a blog post; a blog post involves a bigger psychological effort. However, these are the reasons why I have largely stopped commenting on other blogs.

• If I have something interesting to say, I will post it on my own blog, rather than leave a comment on someone else’s blog. Leaving a comment on other blog, gives much less benefit than creating a post on your own blog.
• People give more importance to a blog post than a comment. On some blogs, the standard of comments is pretty high, like Copyblogger. However, people instinctively give a higher authority to a blog post than a comment. I usually read blog posts, but, don’t get round to reading the comments.
• I don’t read that many blogs anymore. I used to read many blogs to get ideas for posts, but, I find that reading many feeds, doesn’t actually give you that many new perspectives. Generally, I prefer to just use my own ideas.
• Opportunity Cost of Time. Leaving comments is time consuming. You have to find blog posts, think of something to say and then fill on all the captcha’s e.t.c. (BTW: Blogger blogs are the worst) If you spend an hour leaving comments, that is an hour you can’t be spending on your own blog or getting away from the computer. I’m not saying commenting is a complete waste of time; it just ranks fairly low compared to other things you could be doing.

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When writing articles most webmaster know the value of a good title. Choose the right keywords and you can help maximise traffic from search engines. There are various tools we can use to work out the best keywords such as wordtracker, but these are often expensive. Often looking at your own statistics can give a good idea of keywords that are working.

However, it is not just the article heading that can bring in traffic. Often I look at statistics and the popular keyword searches are not titles, but subheadings within articles. Therefore, when writing articles I often try to think of several subheadings with  related Keyword searches to maximise traffic from search engines Ironically, this can often be a helpful way to think of relevant things to add to the article.

Example of Increasing Traffic through Use of Subheadings

I was writing an entry on ‘Asymmetric Information‘ for my economics site (I know its not the exactly the most exotic example, but, it will do )

The first thing I do is to use the google search in Firefox; when typing in a search google offer suggestions of  popular and related keyword searches for asymmetric information. Google suggestions included:

• asymmetric information definition
• asymmetric information insurance
• asymmetric information in Financial Markets
• asymmetric information wiki

Therefore, in addition to the title asymmetric information, I have worked these other 4 longer keyword searches into the article. Therefore, the page has increased its capacity for attracting traffic. If I just focused on asymmetric information I would expect traffic to be low. But, by adding relevant subheadings I have increased the usefulness of the page with very little effort.

• Note: Many people search keyword terms and add wiki at the end. Here I have only added the word wiki by linking to wikipedia right at the end. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a subheading, sometimes just adding a keyword in the text is enough to bring in more traffic.

Using Subheadings that Work

In your statistics you may notice that some keyword searches are very popular, even though they are not titles. If this is the case, then it may be worth generating a page specifically for this keyword search. E.g. If I get a ranking of no.7 for asymmetric information insurance when it is a subheading, then making a page with title asymmetric information insurance is likely to give a much higher google ranking.

Other Benefits of Using Subheadings

• Adding subheadings is a good way of experimenting to see which keyword searches are good for bringing in traffic.
• Also, I feel that adding subheadings is good practice for readability. People like to scan articles and subheadings definitely make it easier to write.
• My initial entry for asymmetric information was quite short, but looking at related keywords gave me ideas to make it more informative

Related Articles

• How To Rank highly for a keyword
• Is it necessary to have keywords in title?
• 8 Blogging tips for a good article

Since I began blogging a few years ago, I have always been in two minds about whether it is worth trying to get my articles submitted to Digg. On the one hand, Digg can be a way to gain huge amounts of traffic and build up your blog, on the other hand the effort required to get a Digg homepage can leave you wondering whether it is really worth it?

How Much Effort is Needed to Get on Digg?

To get on Digg home page you need a way to attract at least 20-25 votes to give the article a chance. If an article is just submitted, it will in all probability disappear without trace.

One article, I wrote received over 50,000 referrals from Stumbleupon (over a 4 week period). From Digg it received 2. There are so many submissions to Digg, that most new submissions just get lost without anybody looking at the article.

To have any chance you need a submission to attract 20-25 votes pretty quick. This means it will then show up in the upcoming section of your chosen category and then at least you have a chance.

To get 25 votes means you will need to ask friends for favours to vote for you. This can be done through either digg shout system or emailing friends asking for votes. Alternatively, you could become a power digg user, who gets loads of friends and so people are more likely to vote for your submissions.

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It is one thing to get 10,000s of visitors from Digg, Stumbleupon e.t.c; it is another thing to keep and make them regular readers. These are some suggestions for making the most of any surge in traffic that may come your way.

Content Not Ads above the Fold.

If you really want to maximise the traffic from social media, it is best to sacrifice the optimal ad positions. Sometimes I am stumbling and the only thing I see on the screen is a logo and a 330*300 Google adsense block. Invariably I mark the content thumbs down, without even seeing the article. This is not to say you can’t have ads at the top of the screen, but, if the only thing that is seen by the viewer is ads, what impression does that give? It is helpful to view blog traffic as investment. The small return from short term advertising is worth much less than the potential benefit of attracting long term subscribers who will help grow the blog. If you really want to have ads dominating the top, you could at least remove them from articles that are targetted at high traffic.

Easy to Subscribe.

It is important that it is easy to subscribe. In my opinion this is the most significant benefit of getting traffic from social media. Visitors will not click on ads, most will never return. But, if you can get even 0.5% to subscribe then it’s all worth it. The obvious thing to do is to place an RSS subscriber link in a prominent place. Some people like to make a feature out of it and place it at the top of a blog post. This probably has a good conversion rate, although it does have the drawback that the content is pushed further down. Email subscription is also worth having.

Best Articles

I have found that on a strategically designed blog a stumble visitor can visit an average of 2.3 pages. (this may not sound a lot but, it does disprove a theory that stumble visitors have a high bounce rate. However, to get a low bounce rate requires an effort to keep readers. An excellent way to do that is highlight your most popular articles. You can do this with a plugin or manually add the articles. Recent articles are also good to highlight as long as they are not just average page fillers.

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(This post is part of Blogging Tips - Group Writing Project)

When I first began blogging, I didn’t give much priority to RSS readership (partly because I didn’t know what it was :)) but now, increasing RSS readership is one of the main goals for my different blogs. These are some methods that have worked for me; I’ve placed them in a rough order of usefulness. None of them are quick and easy; for them to be effective it is also essential to be able to write good content. If you would like to suggest other methods please add in comments.
Guest Blogging

Probably the most effective way to increase RSS readership is to write guest posts for well established blogs. Recently, I wrote an article for Pick the Brain - 6 characteristics of happiness. With 11,000 subscribers you do get a good return in terms of traffic and boost to RSS subscribers. It is hard work because the articles need to be of a high quality. Also don’t just write 1 guest blog, if you keep guest blogging it creates a cumulative effect and you will become better known within the blogosphere. This personal branding is quite important. - If you keep appearing on top blogs people will want to subscribe to your own. Another benefit of guest blogging is that the article will often rank highly in google, I now get a steady stream of traffic from old guest posts. Therefore, there is a cumulative effect from guest blogging, the more you do it the more powerful it becomes. Zen Habits is an example of a blog which made extraordinary growth in RSS readership through guest blogging.

Commenting on blogs

Commenting on blogs is a slow but steady way to increase your readership. When leaving a comment I try to say something worthwhile because this will make people want to find out more about the commentor. If you just leave ‘nice post’ it is hardly suggests enticing content on your own blog. A good question is whether to leave your URL on a comment. I’m often in two minds about this. For blogs where I regularly comment I don’t put a signature as it might start to irritate people. However, for new blogs, I do often leave a signature or even link to relevant blog post -it helps to create a higher click through rate. Traffic from comments may be low, but the traffic is highly targeted and these are the most likely people to subscribe.

Tips for Commenting

1. Choose Popular and / or relevant blogs and try and get in early.
2. Use Google Blog Search for your keywords, this helps find new blogs. (I often search ‘Economics’ on google blog search for my economic blog.)
3. Say something useful

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I have used various social bookmarking. In my own experience I have had a much better experience with Stumbleupon than Digg. These are some of the reasons I prefer Stumblupon to Digg. I would be interested if people have a similar or different experience.

1. Stumbleupon Rewards the Best Articles

Stumbleupon seems more democratic. You can submit a good article to digg but it can fly off the new section as quickly as you submit it. Generally stumbleupon is better at picking up on good articles. At digg everything counts on the 24 hour window after first submission, and your network of friends. At stumbleupon it seems less important who are your friends and most stumbles I receive are good quality. Spam doesn’t seem a real problem at Stumbleupon.

2. Stumbleupon doesn’t ban the best sites.

Many times I have seen my favourite sites getting ‘banned’ by digg, usually because they are ‘too successful’ Examples that come to mind include Pick The Brain and Copyblogger. (true sites can come off the banned list, but it can take a long time)

3. Stumbleupon has more Positive Pages.

It seems that on Digg stories that do best are the negative ones. See article at We The Change on Digg At times, the negativity can be overwhelming. When browsing the internet, I like to see some positive stories and articles of inspiration.

4. Stumblers Like Stumbleupon

Whenever I goto Digg the top stories seem to be complaining about Digg, which I find completely uninteresting. At Stumbleupon you aren’t bombarded with articles complaining about rigging of Stumbleupon e.t.c.

5. More Diversity of Interests

Stories that do well at Digg tend to be fairly narrowly focused on a small number of aspects. Stumbleupon enables a greater diversity of topics, it is also easier to choose the topics you are interested in. If you like topics like self improvement or minority interests you will find greater coverage at Stumbleupon. Continue reading →

I was speaking to a friend about RSS feeds. He made the point that for his favourite blogs he prefers email subscription, rather than RSS.

• Often people subscribe to many RSS feeds, but, then it becomes difficult to read them all. I know that I have subscribed to many RSS feeds, but rarely read any blog entries.
• Getting an email, increases the chance they will give the notification there attention and actually go to the blog.
• Just because established bloggers, have worked out what RSS is, and how it works; - it doesn’t mean your average reader has. Email provides an option for those who don’t want to work out another thing. Ask non bloggers if they know how RSS works, I’d be surprised if many do.

Net Writing Subscriptions

• Subscribe via email
• Subscribe via RSS
  

How To Offer Email Subscriptions

1. Set up an account with feedburner. - This makes it easy to manage and track your RSS readership and email subscribers.
2.  Goto your Account and click on Publicise. On the left navigation bar is an option - offer email subscription.
3. Feedburner give you code to paste into your blog. (probably best as a page)

Increasing Traffic to Your Blog - Part 2

In a previous post, I looked at how to increase traffic from an SEO point of view: Increasing traffic through search engines. However, this is only one aspect of creating a successful blog, if we are focused only on search engines we may struggle to develop the blog in other ways.

Growing your blog organically doesn’t mean using lots of horse manure (apologies for feeble play on words). Organic growth comes through attracting a regular and loyal readership. This is visitors who come to see your latest posts, because they expect good quality content. In many ways, this kind of traffic is preferable to a search engine visitor. Visitors from a search engine often leave quite soon, because it is not what they were looking for. Regular readers, however, are coming because (hopefully) they like your content.

Ways to Attract a loyal readership

1. Good content.

The most important thing is that the content has to be good enough. If your blog is informative or interesting people will keep coming back. If the content is poor or recycled, there is not much you will be able to do.

2. Focus on a certain Niche.

If you blog on everything under the sun, you will lose readers. People don’t want to have to wade through several articles on cycling gear ratios if you blog is about writing and seo. Regular readers will expect a certain type of post, if they start getting different topics they are likely to unsubscribe.

3. Interact with your Readers.

One of the main attractions of a blog is that it enables a two way communication. Successful blogs are ones that engage with their readership, rather than just blogs that talk to readers. This means, if people leave comments, take time to respond; this is especially important if it is their first comment. In this regard, I should do this more often. John, for example, is a top commenter on blogs. I admire his enthusiasm for leaving comments, and responding to others.

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There are 2 Main ways of getting higher traffic levels:

1. Increase traffic from Search Engines.
2. Generate a loyal readership.

In many ways they are interconnected. Good content generates a loyal readership, if people like your blog in the long term this will help search engine results. However, this post will concentrate on the first part.

Increasing traffic From Search Engines.

1. Create a big Site.

It may seem like stating the obvious but small sites generally get low traffic volumes; large Sites have much more scope for attracting traffic. Be patient, but try to commit to a regular publishing schedule to build up your archives. As a general rule, I aim to create 10 new Internet pages every day; that’s an average of 4,000 pages a year. Some of these pages will be time consuming articles, others will be shorter and quick to generate. The more pages you have, the more chance people having coming to your archives via a search engine.

2. Choose carefully the titles of blog posts.

The title of a post is very significant for determining traffic levels.

1. You need to include keywords that people search for.
2. You need to choose a title that does not have too much competition.

“economics” is a very popular search phrase, but a new blog will have no chance of getting listed in search results. However, if you specialise and choose, for example, “UK economy 2007” you have a good chance of getting traffic.
There is of course a balance between getting traffic and your readers. If you always come up with titles like:
“Free Online Tips for Increasing Traffic to your Blog” you may lose a little authority. But, it may be looking at titles of old pages and seeing whether you could tweak the title to make it keyword rich. Generally speaking longer titles are better than 1 or 2 word titles.

To help find best keywords, you can use programmes like Wordtracker and 103 Bees - (103 Bees is free)

3. Check Statistics to see which Keywords work.

Statistics pages are very useful for finding out the most popular ways people come to your site. For example, on my mortgage site, I found the most popular keyword was “Housing Market”. Therefore, I created blog entries related to these keywords; like for example “prospects for UK Housing Market” “Is UK housing Market heading for Fall” e.t.c.
As you can imagine this Mortgage blog makes for pretty interesting reading…

4. Increase Links to Your Site.

This is worth a post of its own “How to Get More links to your site”. Basically, the more relevant links you have, the more the search engines will trust your site. However, be careful some links are much more valuable than others. The main rule is that incoming links should be relatively natural. – Links from a range of websites, increasing over time e.t.c.

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