Every blog or online business needs to drive traffic. Your effort will pay off only if you get and increase your website traffic.
Website traffic is the same as potential customers that comes to your office or shop in an offline business. Without customers, the result is obvious… A business will fail.
There are different approaches to getting potential customers (traffic) online than that of offline businesses. Though, both need time and some money. So let’s get to the breakdown.
The Two Types of Website Traffic
- Free Traffic
- Paid Traffic
Let me explain….
FREE TRAFFIC
Free traffic means getting people to visit your blog and without having to pay a dime to get the traffic. It’s FREE but you’ll pay the price (not in money but in the work and time you put in).
So if you’re new to blogging or having an online business, applying the free traffic strategies below will pay off over the long term.
It Starts With Your Blog Posts
When you write problem solving or value-adding contents on your blog and using Search Engine Optimized Keywords, traffic to your blog will build over time.
General Guidelines for Blog Posts
- Don’t blog about too many topics – Let your blog be about just one broad topic
- Use captivating blog headlines
- Avoid long paragraphs – break huge wall of texts with short paragraphs, bullet points, etc. you don’t want to get your readers bored.
- Use Pictures – Pictures make your content visually appealing.
Commenting on other related blogs
Commenting on blog posts of other people can also get you traffic. What you have to do is find top blogs in your niche (authority blogs).
Authority blogs are blogs run by top influencers in you line of topic, they have huge audience/following.
So, go through their blog posts and give a meaningful and contributing comment to that blog post then give a link to one of your blog posts related to that topic.
People read comments and you’ll receive traffic from people clicking that link you gave. For example, I gave this comment on another blog:
I have a link back to my website (my name, has my link in it). Other people who give their comments (ranging from 80 to 150) and read other comments are likely to check out your blog.
This is one of the smart ways to get website traffic. It’s a simple way to leverage another blog’s audience for traffic to your own website.
Get Link From Forums
This is just like giving a comment and cleverly giving a link back to your website.
Forums are a great way to get traffic back to your blog and also, getting backlinks from top sites like Nairaland increases what is called ranking on Google.
Google crawls your blog and ranks it over other websites if you can get as many as possible quality backlinks from top blogs and forums.
Naira land has over 1.7 million users and receives about a million visit to their homepage per day. So here’s what to do.
What to do
Go to nairaland.com, sign up, find posts related to your topic (ones with many comments), and drop a reasonable comment (Note: Not comments like “very nice” or “good”)
Type your value comment as this:
[url=Ur link] your text [/url]
i.e
[url=https://oasdom.com]7 top ways to get traffic[/url]
Automatically your comment reply will show as: 7 top ways to get traffic. Forums are also a great way to start getting your website traffic.
Now let’s move to the second type of traffic.
PAID TRAFFIC
This type of traffic is the one in which you invest to get traffic. It could be Facebook advert, Youtube ads, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram ads.
The fact is, you can reach people fast and give your blog exposure from day one using paid traffic strategies. Someone might click on your ad on Facebook and even become a fan for life.
Facebook Ads
Facebook is the largest and most laser targeted social media platform. With over 2 billion active users, you can grow any business online with Facebook.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are more and more videos on your Facebook feed right? Videos are the next best thing and in the next couple of years everything on Facebook will consist of videos; as said by Facebook’s Vice President for Europe.
So instead of sticking to only writing words on your blog, create videos, give it a title and description, upload it on Facebook and promote it.
Also Read: Quick step-by-step guide to creating Facebook Ads
Make videos consistently and more people will be exposed to the content. Commenting on related popular videos is another way to increase exposure as well.
YouTube Ad
Videos are on the rise and it is the major reason why the next ten years of digital media consumption will smash the last ten
Video is a great way to promote visual niches and give demonstrations. And YouTube is huge! Nearly 5 billion videos are watched every day.
YouTube advertising allows incredible targeting based on:
- Topic of interest
- Keywords
- Category
- Placement of pages in relation to ad
- Demographics
The cost for YouTube advertising is also minimal. Generally, this runs between 10 cents and 30 cents per view. But if the ad is viewed for 5 seconds or less, there is no charge. This gives users time to click the Skip Ad button.
Having said this, that’s a mere five seconds. It is easy to end up paying a lot for users who don’t watch the entire video, but watch more than 5 seconds. This can get pricy.
Plus, even though there is good targeting, it is somewhat limited. There is no way to choose the specific videos an ad will play before.
Also there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to producing video ads. Creating video ads is generally more difficult than any other kind of ad. They require time, patience and multiple areas of expertise.
Don’t let this scare you away though. You don’t have to have a professionally filmed video to create a great ad. With the right strategy, a simple smartphone video can be highly effective.
Free traffic VS Paid traffic
Free traffic and paid traffic works well together. (Use both), but let’s check this:
More on Paid Traffic
- You can get your blog noticed faster. You get results instantly
- Laser Targeting – Paid traffic helps you laser target your exact audience and increases your chances of having returning visitors to your blog.
- You can measure your blog progress – The ads that you make helps you see how people interact with your brand and you’ll see what works or doesn’t.
I have tried YouTube ads but Facebook is still my best bet. With nearly 2 billion Facebook users, you have a higher percentage you can target and this platform is so good for anyone just starting out. Also, it’s inexpensive.
Conclusion
Getting website traffic is a must for any online business success. Free traffic takes significant time to build, but offers amazing benefits.
These benefits include the development of relationships, the development of trust, and the building of credibility and authority.
Paid or investment traffic complements free traffic by building that traffic to incredibly high volumes quickly. There is simply no match for the speed at which paid traffic can be generated.
And there you have it, 4 quick and smart ways to drive traffic to your blog or website. Want to add to the list? Use the comment box below.