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5 Things to Be Careful About When Driving New Traffic to Your Blog


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This is a guest post by Arkadij Shkolnik, PR Manager of SiteValley.com.

The popularity of social media resources keeps increasing. Many people use forums, blogs and different social networks for communication and ideas sharing. The business owners are the ones, who participate the most actively – apart from searching for problem solutions and potential partners they set goals to attract attention to their creative projects or businesses via those social media.

Since everything is digitized nowadays, almost each project or business has a website and a corporate blog, where the general information and the latest updates are revealed. Thus, the marketing coordinators of such projects strive for creating a community of existing fellow users or project contributors and attracting more new visitors to the company or creative group website.

Though it may look rather easy at first glance, many people – especially the beginners – face many problems that make them waste much time. Sure, there are a lot of SEO and Social Media Marketing tips on the Internet, but they usually tell you what to do. This presupposes anyone to follow the same blueprint that may not always work. Therefore, it may sometimes be reasonable to tell what mistakes to be careful about, avoiding problems while reaching goals. The following are five things to be on the lookout for when trying to drum up new traffic.

1. Beware of Spamvertized Comments

When posting your comments on one’s forum, blog or Twitter or Facebook website/company page, you should always make sure your comment is not going to be reported as spam. Avoid direct links and posts of “Best ever” kind. Share your ideas instead – if you find a really interesting post to discuss – deliver your opinion to look competent in the niche, and provide some information on your project.

If it’s a blog comment – just provide your website name (don’t forget to put http:// for the link to be clickable), if it’s a forum post – put your website or blog URL (better hyperlinked to the name of your company or project with no domain extension). Posting on Twitter or Facebook does not require any promotion merits at all – if you look and sound interesting enough – the other visitors will check out your page and find your company details and interesting blog articles there.

2. Avoid Irrelevant Websites

When looking for a third-party website to use for promotion, you should search for sites which are truly relevant to your resource. Choosing the wrong site usually delivers disservice to your site.

For instance, you may get banned at a certain Internet source, if your comment or post looks spamverized. It is also possible that the bounce rate of your site visitors may increase, since those who follow your links find no related useful information. Or you may even have worse problems, getting too many unneeded connections which cause the slowdown of your hosting service, while brining no actual profit.

Thus, you should pick your promotion spots wisely, analyzing each site you are going to leave your posts on and estimating the expected traffic. Those sites should be as close to the niche of your activity as possible and have nice rankings. Additionally, you should check those sites for being popular. Even if the source you are looking into does not have great ranking, check its activity. Be it a forum – look at the views/replies rate, be it a blog – check for the average number of Diggs, Tweets, Facebook shares, etc.

3. Don’t Be Careless

If you submit a guest post at some blog or leave your comment there, you need monitor it and check for further updates. You cannot be simply careless if you want to attract more people to your site – not just their one-time clicks.

Take part in discussions, share your expertise and be active enough to become a respected and welcome community member. You shouldn’t forget that many blog owners appreciate experienced commentators and some even announce the most active ones at their home page. This may also be a nice and useful way of promotion.

This also applies beyond just blogs. If you are an active forum resident, it may be reasonable for you to become a moderator. The bigger the forum is, the more moderators it requires, so if you are lucky enough to become one – don’t lose this chance. Your care and activity is going to be rewarded by the number of visits to your forum profile (where you can provide a detailed bio with all your links and contact info) and the ability to insert links to your resource in the signature.

4. Avoid Saying “NO”

When doing your first promotion steps, you should be tolerant to any partnership proposals. If other website owners offer you link exchange or propose to promote your website at their source for sponsored provision of your product or service – do not refuse at once. Think of all the possible pros and cons and make your decision then. In most cases the number of pros may outweigh, so you will accept the given option of bilateral co-operation.

There are, however, sources to beware of – you shouldn’t deal with websites offering warez or any other illegal content or those, which do unapproved email marketing (those sites usually get blacklisted in spam data bases). And of course, it is desired to co-operate with sites which are more relevant, unless you receive an offer from a well-ranked source that is actually out of your given niche. You may still consider partnership – just study the activity of the site and analyze its visitors’ interests. Maybe you will find some visitor groups, whose attention is worth being attracted.

5. Don’t Mill the Air

Once you start promoting your blog via different social media, you will definitely form a number of your favorite websites to promote with a certain range of topics to discuss. You should not, however stay limited to those. Find more interesting topics within your niche and more popular websites with higher ranking to get spotted on.

Apart from widening the number of referral traffic sources, this solution will also enable you to extend the range of niches to cover according to the development of your project and to the growing number of topics, discussed at your business blog.

Summary

Promoting a website may become a lot easier if following general tips and guides. It is sometimes, however vital to know not how to do things right, but how not to do things wrong, therefore the tips above do not give direct answers to the questions you may have, but provide a general overview of the most common mistakes among starting promoters.

Your Thoughts About Attracting New Traffic

What do you look out for when driving new traffic to your blog, and what methods do you use to bring that traffic, ie. through commenting, social media marketing, forums, or other methods?

Comments

  1. Hi Arkadij,
    These are some serious things to think about. It’s so easy to get caught up in promotion that you fail to realize that in your zealous efforts it might come off as spam to others – I’ve definitely made that mistake before and still do sometimes. It usually happens when I’m in a hurry, so my suggestion is to plan accordingly and give yourself adequate time to complete those very important promotional activities.
    Kiesha just posted Bloggers Must Never Go On Holiday – Unless…

    • Hi Kiesha,

      This looks like a common mistake, unfortunately. Taking into account the fact that nowadays spam is almost a disease of the Internet and social media in particular, it is sometimes advisable to stop and think whether anyone is really going to need the information you are about to post.
      Arkadij Shkolnik just posted Cloud Hosting Service Overview

  2. I think your first tip is really important. When you comment on other sites you need to post something helpful. It’s going to get people to actually click your name to get to your site and it will help you stay off of the spam blacklists.

    About two months ago I had asked someone to use my email and name to go comment at some sites (it was kind of a link building exchange experiment). This person went around to sites and spammed them and Akismet banned me (they also wouldn’t return my contact requests). For about two months I’ve had to contact blog administrators to get them to manually approve my comments. Right now I think I’ve finally been unbanned but it’s been a lot of extra stress. That’s why it’s just good to always make nice comments.

    Another tip about making good comments is not using business names in the name field. I really don’t want to approve comments with “Seattle SEO firm” or “cheap link building” in the name field. Use your real name or a username or made up name. It will get you a higher comment approval rate.

    If you’re posting links in your comments you can use URL shorteners to make them pretty and clickable. I like goo.gl 🙂
    Techie just posted Techie’s Favorite SEO Sites of 2010

    • Hi,

      Thanks for leaving your comment.

      > They will still say”Nice Post” and find themselves banned for life
      That’s what I like the least. When I only started working on our corporate blog – there were not many visitors and anytime I saw a pending comment, I was glad and ready to reply, consult, assist… imagine how upset I was when it appeared to be just another “nice post” message with a pharmacy website URL.
      Arkadij Shkolnik just posted Cloud Hosting Service Overview

  4. Re: 5 Things to Be Careful About When Driving New Traffic to Your Blog

    I like your post, but the thing is, and trust me, as I’ve read so many guides about traffic, seo, choosing “the correct type of” domain names etc etc.. that it’s all about testing …. and testing again what works for you.

    I’m sure all the successful bloggers / internet marketers that sell you an ebook or a course on what works for them, tell you that their method is the only one that works, however, there are many successful bloggers out there that have gotten great results from using their own private methods that miraculously work just as well as those supposedly only methods that work.

    So… just work on finding out a method that works for YOU!

  6. Instead of avoiding irrelevant sites I would rather say avoid traffic that is not targeted, untargeted traffic may come from both relevant and irrelevant sites, so specific attention should be pointed to link or advertise from relevant content.

  8. This is a very relevant post. These spammy comments not only diminish a business’s reputation, but they also make the website look bad. I’m surprised to find well-known magazines that don’t regulate their comments in any way. Promoting links within comment fields must be a popular way to promote though — I’m seeing it more and more often.

  9. Lots of good ideas.

    I do, however, say no a lot. I have a number of blogs, the oldest is eight years old, and I often get asked to exchange, for example, blogroll links. I don’t have blogrolls and, most of the time, the requesters site isn’t relevant to my readers.

    First, I think about what my readers would like to see. If the proposal doesn’t fit, I don’t gerrymander it around my site just for the link back.
    Alison Moore Smith just posted Free 2011 Goals &amp Priorities Diary

    • That’s good. It’s better to have a clean site then to have a whole bunch of random links in your sidebar. And link exchanged don’t pass pagerank anymore so there’s no point in linking to random people’s blogs in a blogroll.
      Techie just posted Managing a Forum

  10. Great post. Many new bloggers and others think blogging/commenting is a “set it and forget it” type of medium, but they are seriously mistaken. If you don’t follow up, you’re going to lose a large portion of your potential audience very quickly.

  11. If one only took the time to actually read the post and then to leave a well constructed comment they would never have to worry about their comment being considered as spam.

    Yes it would be great to find sites that are related to yours but if you were to do that you would be missing out on so many great posts. I don’t stick to a particular niche when commenting, I like to roam and to sample all that is on offer. When I do comment I try my utmost to make it relevant.

    For me commenting isn’t about the link juice, it’s about making my comments interesting enough so that those who read it can’t help themselves but to come and see me on my blog. Once there it’s up to me to make sure that my comment is interesting enough to inspire them to leave a comment, and so it goes on.
    Sire just posted Sometimes It’s Better To Just Not Give A Shit

  13. I think it’s a good idea for new bloggers to build an rss feed list of blogs that have interesting content. Then they are building a good list of reading material as well as blogs that they will comment on.

    Also, I think that you tend to treat the blogs on your list as a part of your blogging family and will tend to leave better comments on those blogs, since you’ve invested in them by adding them to your list.
    Richard just posted How do I make Money Online

    • Hi TJ,

      What I usually do is I check the newly submitted post daily within a week, regardless of whether I received any email or not. I anyway need do this to check how many tweets, likes, shares or any other reactions took place. Then I simply wait for follow-up comments and replies, but this first week of monitoring, in my opinion, is worthwhile.
      Arkadij Shkolnik just posted Special Guest- Moving Up to Your First VPS

  15. Arkadij – You’re right. When most people just start trying to attract new visitors to their site they assume it’s going to be simple at first, but they quickly realize it’s more to it than they imagined and they begin to experience problems and don’t know how to overcome them.

    I liked your third tip about not being careless. When you’re trying to attract new visitors to your site you should stay active and get involved with the community you’re participating to build up some momentum for your website. Great tips, I’m sure you could have added plenty more.
    John just posted Options To Remove Your Moles And Warts

  16. Hi,

    Happy New Year! Thank you everyone for your comments and ideas.

    @Alison Moore Smith
    If a website is not relevant, it’s definitely a “NO”, in other cases it may be worth being given a try. Right now however, link exchange becomes less and less popular, so I understand your point of you.

    @John
    It’s all about living and learning… or blogging and learning 🙂 Anyway, as soon as I come up with some useful tips more, I will share them.
    Arkadij Shkolnik just posted Affiliate Marketing as a Powerful Marketing Tool for Hosting Providers

  17. The ‘Nice Post’ spammers are getting sophisticated. There seems to be some post spinner software around that gives a garbled but relevant comment. I’m never sure if it’s spam, or someone whos second language is English.

    I have a personal blog on a variety of topics, so I visit niche blogs and forums. When I leave a comment I give a link directly to my blog category that is relevant to the niche.

    John
    John McNally just posted New Year’s Resolutions

  18. Thanks for your tips Arkadij. Like what you have said at the last paragraph of your article, you have given us general tips and guidelines meaning each of above 5 tips can branch out into some other things that pertains into blog or site promotion. I agree with your points that if we can all follow the general (mostly the basic ones) guidelines, then promotion can be a lot more easier to take into the next level.
    Ron Leyba just posted UFC 125 Resolution Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard

  19. I participate in some blogs and forums but what I don’t like when my questions or remarks are ignored. I think if you are a blogger, you have to respect your readers and don’t ignore their questions. And in general, I can’t add more.

  20. It’s easy to get carried away with promotion, isn’t it Arkadij? It’s probably the irrelevant websites that I’ve wasted too much time on with my promotion efforts. When I started blogging, I just wanted the links and to get my blog’s name out into the blogosphere wherever I could. I received some traffic from my efforts but the bounce rates were through the roof. It’s a great reminder that all traffic is not equal.
    Brad Harmon just posted 21 Resources for Writing Guest Posts that Kick Some Serious Butt

  21. I specifically go to dofollow blogs and do comments.. then do social media/networking management. But I’m not too specific on relevant websites, because for me a backlink is a backlink.. But now, I wonder if it still works now that there is Google Panda. I don’t know how much it would affect our SEO strategies.

  22. Great post.

    I can imagine the social media factor being even more important these days, since I believe a lot has changed in the past 7 months. I started my blog about 5 months ago and have just started to try and make a push into social media.

    I regret not having done it sooner, but in the beginning there are so many other things to focus on. If I were to do it all over again though, I would have tried to make a push into social media from the get-go.
    Kris just posted How to lose weight naturally on a low-carb diet