With systems like WordPress, starting a blog has never been easier. Once it’s up and running, your next major hurdle will be increasing visitors to your blog or website.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to be an expert in marketing to promote your blog. Using some tried and true best practices, you can quickly improve your blog traffic and attract more visitors.
In this article, we’ll go over some of the simplest and tried-and-tested ways to boost your blog traffic like a seasoned marketer.
It’s crucial to spend some time getting to know your target audience and what they’re looking for before you start writing blog posts.
Answering the following questions can help you quickly create an audience framework:
These questions can help you gain a better understanding of your target audience. You can go even further by adding more specific questions like:
In the eCommerce industry, these audience profiles are referred to as “buyer personas.”
Now you know who you are writing for, let’s look at what to write.
It’s fine to write about whatever you want if you’re just blogging for fun.
However, if you’re serious about increasing traffic to your site, keyword research should be your top priority.
So, what exactly is keyword research? Simply defined, it involves figuring out what people are searching for on Google and other search engines. You’ll know exactly what topics to write about on your blog if you can identify those search terms, often known as keywords.
Your blog entries will then be more likely to appear in search results if you use those keywords in your content.
You won’t be able to convert your traffic into email subscribers or customers until you conduct keyword research. Because you won’t be writing about the topics your target audience is looking for, and even if you do, they won’t be able to find it on Google.
You can target the proper keywords for your content through keyword research, which helps Google algorithms grasp what it’s all about. This will increase the likelihood of your articles appearing in search results, and we all want to be top of page 1, right?!
How do you go about implementing keyword research? One method is to start with a blog post idea and then brainstorm several ways people would Google that topic.
Then begin your own search for that subject. Note the titles that appear in the search results, as well as the suggested searches at the bottom of the page.
This will give you a good idea of what other people are searching for, and how they’re phrasing it.
The first thing readers see when they come across your material in search results or RSS feeds is the title of your post.
A catchy blog post title attracts more attention and clicks. A bland and uninteresting headline, on the other hand, is likely to be ignored and scrolled past.
This makes headlines very important.
You must learn how to write better blog post titles that draw in readers and encourage them to click.
Fortunately, blogging experts have been studying headlines for a long time and we can share their results with you.
These are the fundamental components of a good headline:
Power words are used by copywriters to elicit emotional responses. They are very benefit driven, and explain why the content is worthwhile and what users will gain by clicking on the headline.
Finally, a good headline includes a call to action, which can be subtle or implicit. All of your blog posts should contain at least one call-to-action.
The next step is to create a series of pillar articles once you have a good understanding of the subjects people are looking for.
Longer blog entries on more general topics linked to your blog niche are known as pillar articles. Thousands of words can be found in pillar articles. They’re usually “evergreen,” meaning they don’t go out of style quickly, and they generate a lot of traffic even after months – if not years – after writing them.
Pillar articles help you…
So, how can you write pillar articles correctly so that they continue to attract traffic for years to come?
To get started, follow these steps:
This strategy can take time to work, but it’s a fantastic way to build your audience and your reputation. Plus, you’ll see your traffic continue to grow over time.
Did you know that 70% of your website visitors will only visit your blog once and will never come back?
That is why it is critical to build an email list. An active email list can assist you get more people to come back to your site.
When compared to first-time visitors, repeat visitors are more likely to become customers. According to statistics, it takes three to four visits to your website for potential customers to consider doing business with you.
That means that as you promote return visits, you’re also earning the loyalty of your subscribers, who will eventually become customers.
Using opt-in forms from ThriveLeads, like this lightbox popup, is one of the best ways to get blog visitors onto your email list:
They may be annoying, but they do work, so you really need to be using them to capture as many leads as possible.
However, if you stick to them, you’ll eventually acquire more visitors to your blog, grow your email list, improve your conversion rate, and develop a long-term business.
When it comes to content marketing, one thing I can’t emphasize enough is the importance of quality.
Quality always takes precedence over quantity. You will, however, dominate the content game if you manage to combine the two.
If you really want to know more about the power of blogging, you can take a look at the Rapid Blogging Blueprint training course or if you just want a few pointers for now you can grab the featured resource below for a free blogging report; download, read it and take action 🙂
“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly,” declared the philosopher G.K. Chesterton.
He most likely meant that most people who try something with the best of intentions will make mistakes – but that shouldn’t stop us from trying. The key to advancement is to avoid the curse of perfectionism.
This axiom can be applied to the creation of your membership site. You should strive for excellence rather than perfection.
Avoiding the most common mistakes made by most marketers is one of the best and fastest ways to achieve this, so let’s dive in.
Always remember that simplicity is the ultimate goal when creating your first membership site. Do not attempt to create a sophisticated membership site with multiple tiers, trials, and other features.
You want to start with a free trial and then upgrade to a paid membership. Content should be supplied efficiently, on time, and with ease to members. In a nutshell, that’s it.
You’re not constructing a space shuttle, but a membership site. Keep it straightforward.
It’s understandable that you want to blow your consumers’ minds by providing them with a wealth of information. There is one question you must answer:
Is it viable long-term?
Setting the bar too high at the outset might lead to unrealistic expectations, and if you don’t deliver, they’ll see it as you failing to keep your promises, and they’ll cancel their membership. So you’ve already set yourself up for failure by setting the bar too high.
Less really is more.
This is one of the most serious errors you can make. When it comes to having your deliverables ready, make sure you’re at least two months ahead of your ‘oldest’ subscribers. This will provide you some breathing room in case content creation is delayed.
Many newbies make the mistake of planning next month’s content during the current month, and they’re always racing to finish it. Being behind the eight ball is a bad situation to be in. It’s frantic and exhausting.
If you’re late with a delivery, you can bet your subscribers will lose faith in you and leave. You never get another chance to make a good first impression. Make certain yours is flawless in terms of content delivery.
Make sure you thoroughly test your membership site when you first create it. Pay for it, sign up, and see how easy it is to join the membership – and how easy it is to get to your material.
It’s a good idea to wait a month to see if you’re billed again – and if you are, did you obtain access to the content for the following month? You should’ve got it.
Before you start your membership, double-check all of these things. You may shout it from the rooftops once it’s finished, and there will be less snags once people start joining your site.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint, to run a membership site. Your goal is to increase the number of subscribers and produce quality content on a monthly basis. Do not attempt to oversell your customers by bombarding them with new offers every two days or so.
Allow them to digest the information. If you want to make more money, provide upgrades within the membership site so that members can obtain more privileges and so on.
Give your potential clients two or three options, but no more.
Anyone interested in creating membership sites must put in the effort. Engaged members and a continual stream of new users are the keys to membership sites’ success. Prioritize the consumer experience to accomplish this.
You want your members to be happy because they paid for the privilege of joining your site. Customers will not have a positive experience if your website performs poorly–if it loads slowly, has a clumsy interface, or has disorganised content. Users want simple membership sites that are easy to use.
Using a landing page builder to construct independent pages for a specific purpose will ensure that customers obtain the information they require as soon as possible.
You can expect more interaction from site visitors if you create a nice website design. Examine the user experience before investing in a membership plan for your website. Consider yourself a member and go through the emails that validate your purchase and membership. Use the site to navigate and manage your account.
As soon as your membership site is up and running, make sure it stays that way. Posting regular content, introducing relevant tools, and launching engagement campaigns are the best ways to excite and keep users engaged.
Remember to prioritise the consumer experience by creating a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate website. Since we’re discussing user experience, make sure you’re continuously sharing new and relevant information that’s still in line with your content strategy.
While it’s easy to focus just on attracting new subscribers, you must remember that your current subscribers are also vital. Focus on customer retention and providing a positive user experience. When you have the opportunity, engage them.
Avoid sending spam or making frequent updates if you care about your members. Additionally, the right tools and automation will greatly assist you in managing your subscriber base. Don’t forget to pay attention to customer service.
These six errors are widespread and can harm your membership site. Keep them in mind and avoid them, and your site will develop into a profitable investment that pays off time after time.
If you want to know more about creating a profitable online course to put behind your membership portal, check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
If you have read this post, you’ve now got traffic coming in, which is great. Now you need to make the most of that traffic, which means persuading visitors to take a specific action.
The idea here is that converting your traffic creates more benefits and help for your audience, while generating more profit for your business.
To that end, this part is going to show you how to start to optimize conversions on your website, in your ads, and within your email campaigns.
Let’s get right to it…
Get The Basics In Place
Let’s start by making sure you’ve got the basics down, and you’re using optimization best practices.
The first thing you need to understand is that conversion optimization isn’t based on just one factor. Instead, it’s about optimizing multiple factors.
Here’s what you need to put into place:
We’ll cover these exact issues in detail throughout this article.
Each piece of content or each page of your website should have one clear goal. If you try to point your audience towards taking multiple steps, they’re going to get overwhelmed or confused.
You want to keep it simple. One goal per page, and everything on that page is designed to help the visitor take the desired action.
There are a variety of ways you can convert your visitors to have them take a specific action.
Here are examples of the types of goals you might set for your content:
This isn’t an exhaustive list, as you may have specific actions you want your audience to take.
Remember, however, that you should pick just ONE primary goal for each piece of content (or for each page on your website).
Sometimes marketers have one clear goal (such as “buy a product”), but they still give too many options. For example, they might give the prospect the option to buy Product A or Product B or Product C.
If you want better conversions, then tighten your focus. Pick one specific action, limit the options within that action, and then focus the content on getting the visitor to take that specific action (e.g., buy Product A).
In addition to setting content goals (the action you want your users to take), you also need to select your metrics and set goals around those metrics.
For the purposes of this article, the one metric we’re most concerned about is the conversion percentage.
The key here is that you need to be realistic with your conversions.
For example, you can’t expect a 20% conversion rate on a $100 product with a cold audience. For this example, your conversions are more likely to be around 2% — more for warm audiences, better sales copy, and so on.
Be realistic so that you don’t get disappointed. But at the same time, always strive to do better and increase those conversions using the tips and ideas you’ll learn in this article.
You can have all the other pieces in place as far as conversion optimization, but if you aren’t giving your audience what they want, then your conversions will suffer.
That’s why you need to do your market research in order to determine:
Which brings us to the next point…
Take these steps to do your market research:
Take note that while you should use all these methods in order to get as much insight as possible, the best way to find out what your audience wants is to see what they’re already buying.
As you do your research, you’ll want to utilize these tools:
Next…
A survey can help you get better insight into what your audience wants. Follow these tips:
Next…
The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to craft offers and content that really resonate with them. Finding out what they’re already buying will help you select the right offers.
However, learning about who your audience is – from their basic demographics to their hopes, fears and desires – will help you create content that makes each prospect feel as if you’re speaking directly to them.
If you can forge this sort of connection with every piece of content, you’ll see your conversions rise.
One way to learn more about your audience is to spend some time observing them, talking to them, and even becoming a part of the target market. You can:
For example, if you spend time talking to dog owners or viewing their online conversations, you may find that many small dog owners struggle with a pet that seems to “rule the roost” despite the small size.
That tells you that you can create products and content that address these issues, but you can also speak directly to these dog owners in a way that will resonate with them
(e.g., “It seemed so simple – you were going to clip your dog’s nails, but the next thing you, know his lip was up, and he’s snarling at you…”).
Another way to learn more about your audience is to research their demographics using Google.
For example, you’d search for “dog owner demographics” or “demographics of people with diabetes.” Then make note of:
… And anything else you can dig up.
Be sure to use reputable sources of information only, such as those coming from universities, news organizations and professional research organizations (such as Pew Research).
When a prospect lands on your page, they’re going to be wondering why they should do business with you instead of your competitor.
If you want the sale, the subscriber, or some other conversion, then you need to give your visitor a reason.
Here’s a real-life example: Papa John’s pizza rolled their USP into the slogan, “Better ingredients, better pizza.” While other competitors (such as Domino’s Pizza) set themselves apart based on the speed of delivery (30 minutes or less), Papa John’s set themselves apart based on taste.
Here are the different ways you can set yourself apart from your competitors:
This is not an exhaustive list – you’ll want to do some brainstorming on your own to determine what makes your business and your offers unique.
Be sure to research your competitors to see what USP they’re using so that you don’t pick the same one. You’ll also want to pick a USP that your prospects really value.
You don’t need to strongarm your audience, use psychological tricks, use click bait or do anything else to trick or manipulate your audience into taking action.
If you’ve got a targeted audience, you put a desirable offer in front of them, and you explain this offer by sharing benefits, then you’ll naturally get the conversions you desire.
On a related note…
Your reputation is one of your most valuable assets, and it has a big impact on your conversions.
If you’ve got a great reputation in your niche, you’ll always produce better conversions than those who have poor reputations.
So, you will now be hopefully be generating more traffic to your website, and converting that traffic into either leads and/or buyers. For your convenience, you can get all the tips mentioned in both posts in a single handy detailed report; just click on the featured resource below, download, read it and take action 🙂
Traffic is the lifeblood of any business. Without it, you won’t have any visitors to your blog posts, videos, landing pages, sales pages etc.
In other words, no traffic equals no leads or sales, so it is an essential skill to muster.
You need to consider whether you want to use free or paid traffic, although nothing is really free, because organic traffic is time consuming, whereas paid traffic is instant, but you will need a budget to run enough paid ads to get any viable metrics that you can use.
Basically, before you jump in, you need to do some planning first. Read on to learn how to develop a solid website traffic strategy.
Before you start bringing traffic to your site, you’ll want to determine your overall goals. Specifically, what are your overall goals in terms of revenue and sales?
You need to figure this out first, and then in a moment, you’ll determine how much traffic you need to achieve your goals.
Note: these numbers need to be realistic. While you may want $10 million this year, that’s not realistic if you’re still new to online marketing. You may find a goal like $100,000 (and the traffic required to get to that number) more realistic.
Now that you have your overall goals, your next step is to work backwards to determine traffic and conversion specifics to achieve these goals.
Here are the questions you need to ask yourself:
The point is, don’t just pick a traffic goal out of thin air. Do some realistic calculations to determine how much traffic you need, minimally, to achieve your goals.
It’s a good idea to add at least 20% to your estimates as a cushion, as most people underestimate the traffic they need to obtain to achieve their goals.
Now that you know how much traffic you need, you can start setting specific traffic goals for the year as a whole, for each month, and even for each week.
Be sure your traffic goals include the following characteristics:
For example, “I want more traffic by the end of this month” is not specific nor measurable. Instead, you’d set a goal such as “I’d like to increase traffic by 25% this month.” (Naturally, you’d know what your baseline traffic number is, so that you know exactly how much traffic you need to reach the 25%.)
The next part of your planning is to determine where you’re going to send your traffic, and what you want this traffic to do when they arrive at the destination. Take note that you’ll likely send traffic to a variety of links, and you’ll want the traffic to do different things at each of these destinations.
Common destinations include:
And similar.
Be sure to create a specific plan for how much traffic you want to send to each destination. For example, you might send the majority of your traffic to a variety of relevant lead pages, and then send some traffic directly to sales pages.
As you’re creating ads and content to drive traffic, keep in mind that not all prospects are in the same place in their buyer’s journey. That means you need to create content that appeals to people in these three stages:
Next…
Another factor to take into consideration when developing your traffic strategy is what part of your sales funnel will you be promoting?
There are 3 main parts to a sales funnel, namely top, middle and bottom.
As the prospects move down the funnel, the numbers decrease, but their receptivity increases.
A basic funnel looks like this:
Not everyone is going to follow your sales funnel exactly. For example, some people may start by buying your core offer or even your backend offer.
As such, you need to consider your funnel and the path most people will take as you develop a traffic strategy (and how you’re going to allocate that traffic throughout your funnel).
You don’t necessarily want to send all your traffic to sales pages. In most cases, it’s wiser to send traffic to your lead pages.
That way, you can build your platform – and then use your email list to send your traffic wherever you want.
Before you start creating a traffic strategy, it’s a good idea to determine how much money you have to invest in this strategy. Primarily your investment will be put towards two things:
After you determine how much you can invest per month, then you’ll need to allocate these funds (e.g., X% to paid ads and Y% to outsourcing). The exact allocation depends on your needs and budget.
You don’t need to implement your traffic strategy yourself, as you can outsource all or part of it. For example, you can hire someone to:
And so on. The exact needs you have will depend on the traffic strategy you develop, but you’ll want to start thinking early on about what parts you might be interested in outsourcing.
If you have a limited outsourcing budget (as most of us do), then you’ll need to decide what to outsource. Consider these points:
Next…
There are multiple ways to find freelancers to help you with your traffic-generation activities. These methods include:
PeoplePerHour.com, Upwork.com, Freelancer.com,
Fiverr.com or similar.
Next…
Ultimately, you’re going to have plenty of traffic methods included in your overall traffic strategy. However, a big key to your success is to keep it simple.
Start with ONE traffic method. Study this traffic method so that you understand it. Implement the traffic method and refine your method as needed.
Once you’ve got one traffic method up, running and delivering results for you, then you can add another method. But don’t do this until your website traffic rankings are high enough to justify it.
You can use Google Analytics as a good free website traffic checker, although it can be a little complex due to the mountain of information you get!
So, to put it another way: focus on just one traffic method at a time.
Before advertising, you need to know everything you can about your ideal customer. That way, you can place ads in the right locations, you can select the right keywords and audiences for generating quality traffic, and you can create ads and content that really resonate with the targeted audience.
Here is the type of information to include in your customer avatar:
… And anything else you can dig up that will help you find and connect with your audience.
Here’s how to collect information on your audience:
Next…
Avoid these two common traffic mistakes:
#1, Using non-targeted advertising. Targeting narrower audiences often means you’ll get less traffic from a particular source, but that traffic will be more responsive than a broader audience. This usually results in a better ROI.
#2, Using little-known methods or platforms. For example, if you’re going to place a pay per click ad, then stick with well-known platforms (like Google Ads), as the big platforms combat costly click fraud.
So, you will now be hopefully be generating more traffic to your website, but now you will need to convert that traffic into either leads and/or buyers and we will cover that in another post here.
For your convenience, you can get all the tips mentioned in both posts in a single handy detailed report; just click on the featured resource below, download, read it and take action 🙂
We are living in the age of technology and information. The world is basically a global village thanks to different communication platforms such as social media sites and mobile telephony.
Affiliate marketing is a concept that has been built primarily on the platform of information communication and technology. What are some of its benefits?
To the entrepreneur, marketing costs are considered a necessary evil because they consume a lot of resources but still have to be incurred all the same. You can’t create brand awareness and increase the number of sales without properly investing in product marketing.
Affiliate marketing is even better at this because you only pay the affiliates or publishers depending on the number of sales made. Without creating conversions, the affiliates earn no pay and the business does not incur unnecessary expenses.
Using minimal resources, you can reach a high number of customers. The program is efficient because it makes use of the internet and social media sites that are frequented by several potential customers.
The traditional methods are expensive and may not even reach the target market. A consumer is more likely to notice an advertisement on the internet as opposed to other media such as billboards and radio.
It’s always nice to be your own boss. The challenge that most people and especially young people face is the lack of capital to start a new venture. Affiliate marketing does not need any premises or capital to start.
It is an ideal way to generate capital and also find your footing as you begin your journey to self-employment. It is also a perfect home-based business that can give you some good income.
Once you learn the basic concepts of affiliate marketing, you can succeed in it as long as you are willing to put in work and learn along the way.
You don’t have to possess experience to successfully participate in an affiliate program. There are a lot of resources available even on the internet to help you find your way through.
It is very difficult to determine the exact impact of most marketing campaigns but with the affiliate program, that is very much possible. A marketing team can keep track of the sales generated as a result of the marketing efforts and change strategies if the situation warrants it.
It is also possible to get instant feedback from customers and that helps so much in improving customer service by designing products and services that match their preferences.
These are some of the benefits of the affiliate marketing program that merchants, publishers and even customers can get to enjoy.
So, as you can see, affiliate marketing is an incredibly viable online business model and if you want to get started, then you need to start using your blog…
A blog is fairly easy to set up. The most important thing is usually the functionality. Will visitors find it easy to access the content that they need? Will they find the content useful? How easy is it to use the different icons available on the site?
These are some basic questions that one must ask before setting up a blog. It therefore calls for a user-friendly interface that can appeal to the different types of people that access your blog on a regular basis.
Over the last five years, blogs have become very popular. Not only have they given several aspiring content creators a platform to grow their talent, they are also a part of social media that makes communication and reaching of a target audience easier.
What are some of the principles to observe when using your blog to run affiliate marketing campaigns?
What sort of vibe will visitors receive when they first visit your blog? This is important because it sets the entire tone for subsequent engagements.
You therefore also have to focus on the design so that it’s attractive and user-friendly. Too many cluttered advertisements send the wrong signals to visitors. The first thing that will come to mind is that you are only after making money. Let the headlines and lists portray the blog as a place where visitors can actually find useful information.
It’s like building a relationship. It takes time and a little convincing. Create content that is useful to the customer before guiding them to an affiliate link. T
he information provided will be enough to build trust and convince them to take a look at what the blog is promoting. You should also make sure that the content created is tied to the product being promoted.
There is nothing more difficult to rebuild than trust once it’s lost. When customers click on the affiliate links and then end up buying the products, they are in actual sense buying your advice.
If their expectations are not met, you will be viewed as a liar who is only out to enrich himself or herself. Promote only genuine products on your blog, more so those that you have already used. You can try and describe them well and at the same time share your experience.
Do not fill your blog with adverts that will not bring you any meaningful income. Focus on brands and products that will give you reasonable commission.
After all, the reason why you are carrying out affiliate marketing on your blog is so that you can make some cash.
Such a page on your blog consists of useful links to products or websites that are related to your area of specialization. Visitors can find these links helpful and discover products that they were originally not looking for. It’s a win-win situation.
Follow these affiliate marketing tips, and you’ll be on the way to becoming a successful affiliate marketer in no time. And if you want to know more about affiliate marketing check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
