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This is the question on everyone's mind: How can I bring more traffic to my blog or website?
Website traffic can be elusive and while there is no foolproof solution, there are always good ways to grow it, here are some of our tips.
Create valuable content
Whether you write an article, publish an eBook, produce a video, record a podcast, or any other form of content, you can make it have a higher added value.
If you consistently provide great content, then readers will naturally want to see more of it, and then they will visit more often. One caveat: There is no one shortcut to help you build your online reputation faster, and publishing poor quality content will only hurt your traffic.
Active participation in social media
Once you have your own website, you can be active on social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.) and don't miss any opportunity to refer fans to your website.
The most effective strategy is to find out where and when your audience is most active, and then focus your efforts there.
- How to get more followers on Instagram
Always link to your website from social media
It's a wise choice to make sure the profile includes a link to your website: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. You might also consider signing up for Lithium.
You don't need to provide a link to your home page, it's better to provide links to the content your audience is most interested in for different platforms.
Putting links in the right place in social media
When posting links, please be mindful of the length of your posts and do not allow your links to be hidden below the View More prompt. Otherwise, users may need an extra click to see the link you posted.
YouTube is one of the more common places where you can paste the URL into the video description, but by default, YouTube only shows the first few lines of the video description, so it's best to keep the link near the top!
Building Relationships
When it comes to attracting traffic, real friends are more likely to help you promote things (and you're more likely to promote their stuff, which is important). Take the initiative to get out there, engage with people, and become real friends. Allow enough time to build relationships before asking them to help you promote.
Participate in offline activities
There's no better way to build relationships than by attending offline events, which could be formal conferences, workshops, meetups, or even one-on-one conversations. Stay consistently enthusiastic and meet with other bloggers when you can, the benefits of doing so go far beyond traffic building.
Leave useful comments on blogs and social media
If your goal is to drive traffic to your site, leave a comment on your blog or social media that offers something valuable, interesting, or useful, not just: well-written! Choose strategic (i.e., largest target audience) locations for comments, not just anywhere.
Leave a link to your website in the comments in the right way
When posting a comment, most bloggers ask for your name and email address, and usually you can optionally leave your website address as well. When this happens, you can feel free to leave it, and for many bloggers, it's a courtesy.
Deep links in comments
When commenting on a blog, there is no requirement that you leave the address of your home page. You can find content on your own site that is related to this and then leave this deep link when commenting. By doing this, people who are already interested in the topic can go directly to your site to see more information.
Link to your website via email signature
It's a simple thing that will highlight your website to everyone you send emails to.
Guest Post
When you post on other people's blogs, you will reach a lot of people and may bring more visitors to your own website. Not only that, but it is also helpful for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) if you publish on a blog that has a lot of traffic.
Try different mediums
If you usually only post on your blog, try using Periscope or YouTube. in addition, you can also try podcasting, or create a presentation and put it on SlideShare. A different medium could mean a new audience, and possibly more potential traffic as a result.
Participate in the online forum
For any topic you can find a wide variety of forums, if you are not sure how to find them, just use a search engine to find them.
Add a link to your website in your forum signature
What is important to understand is that a signature filled with links, lots of text, or blinking things makes the person look very amateurish.
Make it easy for readers to share
Use the social sharing buttons, but make sure the sharing plugin doesn't cost you traffic!
Cautions
Don't compare with others
Look at what other people are doing, but don't get too obsessed; keep a good mindset and don't be too concerned about short-term results. Watching others can be helpful, but if you focus too much on their traffic and conversions, then you are wasting valuable time.
Lose your frustration
Don't get discouraged, even though it's easier said than done. It's wonderful to see others succeed and imagine yourself being like them. But the thing is, we've all been there, every single blogger, and have been or will be in the position you're in now.
Think it's too late? Think of it this way: Starting today, I'm going to work hard to get ahead of those bloggers who are just starting out, or have been running for a few months.
Different from the rest
One of the main reasons you shouldn't spend too much time paying attention to what other people are doing is that it puts you at too much risk. If you are just a clone and can't present your true self, how can you attract the attention of others?
Be prepared for a protracted war
You build a blog site, people find it, and then it brings you revenue. Seems wonderful, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, that's not the case, and the site you can easily find now has probably been around for a long time (the Top Ten Review went live in July 2017). Building this kind of foundation takes patience, so you need to be prepared that it may take years for your site to be easily found by others.
The biggest traffic building mistake
When it comes to building traffic, I see a lot of people making a huge mistake: they are trying to drive traffic to their social media profiles or pages at the expense of their blogs or websites.
Sure, there's nothing wrong with building traffic on social media, but when you're on Facebook, Zhihu, Jane's Book, Sina Blog, etc. at length, it's a disaster!
You should put the best content on your own website instead of doing it for free for others. Of course, creating content on an already well-known platform can attract a lot of visitors in a short period of time. However, after so many years of Internet development, we have long had a consensus that every few years, the hot spots will switch and your creations on other platforms will be forgotten with the passage of time, only your own website will be new day by day. So let go of your impatience and take the long view! Also don't forget that these well-known platforms have grown up step by step.
Sure, sometimes it makes more sense to post on social media (think YouTube videos), but if you do that, you should at least back up the content you wish to keep.
Building your own digital assets is obviously pointless work if you have nowhere to send your traffic to, right? If you don't have a blog or website yet, then check out our tutorial on building a personal blog.