5 Steps to Getting Traffic to Your New Blog on a No-String Budget

As primarily an Internet Marketer who looks at ways to make money online, I probably look at the blogging world a little bit differently than most bloggers would.  Rather than writing content for content sake in the hopes of getting discovered (and making fans), I almost always have a plan for my writing that involves making money online.  In this article, I intend to show you how I approach every single blog that I make.

I use this blueprint for my authority sites (which I currently have 3 that I would classify as “authority”).  I do do micro-sites as well but they rarely do as well traffic-wise OR monetarily as my authority sites.  The blueprint is a very simple one and I have had absolutely no problem getting traffic by utilizing the framework of the blueprint.

Oh, yeah…..forget “shoe-string” budgets….I do it on a no-string budget….

The only criteria is that your content has to be unique AND considered good by your readers/visitors.  That’s it.

Search Engine Traffic should be your Ultimate Goal as a blogger

First of all, if you don’t know how to do on page search engine optimization, I encourage you to take a couple days and learn about it.  It isn’t weird voodoo science and while many people write 100 page books on it, in reality, it could be paraphrased in roughly 1,000 words.  Really…it is that easy.

The first step to building an authority blog is to determine my ultimate goal.  In almost all cases, this is search engine traffic.  However, because under most circumstances the keyword I choose is in a highly competitive niche and may not rank for months, I need other ways to generate traffic RIGHT NOW.

I use a 2-pronged blueprint for getting traffic that involves both social and search engine marketing.  Most bloggers will dabble with Search Engine Marketing but will ultimately fall back on the social end of things because they think it is easier. It isn’t but that is another story for another day.

• The social marketing part is my first prong- It allows me to get noticed fairly quickly and get traffic to my site.
• The search engine marketing part is my second prong-  This will get me continuous waves of daily traffic without me having to do as much work.  Search engine traffic is, for the most part, passive.

And while social marketing is oh, so much more fun than search engine optimization, I should point out that social traffic responds differently than seach engine traffic.  The reason should be obvious to most….

Search engine traffic is almost always looking for a solution to a problem.  If someone types in “how to housetrain my dog”, you can pretty much guess that they are looking for a solution right now.

Social traffic is looking to be entertained or informed.  In other words, someone may come to your page on how to housetrain your dog but because they don’t have the immediate need (in most cases), they may be viewing your page more out of boredom or for entertainment purposes.   This traffic is usually other bloggers and webmasters (which is an important step to improving my search engine ratings as well…I will explain later)

Because of this, you will invariably want to use social traffic to get known but the ultimate goal should be search engine traffic for monetization purposes.  I will go over social traffic in a second.  But because my ultimate goal is to grab the most traffic I can from search, I will want to optimize my site for the search engines.

I Go Big with my Primary Keywords..Why Shouldn’t YOU?

Most online marketers will state the exact opposite of this.  Instead, they suggest that you should go after long tails. For those of you who don’t know what a long tail is, it is the longer search expressions that someone may type in:  

“How to house train your dog” is an example of a long tail

“Dog Training” is an example of a primary keyword.

They suggest this because a blogger would get more immediate benefit from a long tail (because the website on the whole is laser focused on a non-competitive word).  The problem with this strategy is that, in most cases, the long tail will rarely bring in a lot of traffic, long term. 

In other words, if you focus all of your efforts on a long tail keyword as your primary keyword, you are really selling yourself short.  You will hit a ceiling of traffic and not be able to go any further.  Internet Marketers know and understand this and rely on tens (and sometimes hundreds) of small mini-sites to make money.  Bloggers, on the other hand tend to want to create a site with hundreds of pages..an authority site.

If you are a blogger in a market, your primary keyword should always be the market itself, not a sub-niche UNLESS there is enough traffic volume to warrant focusing on the sub-niche.

The best thing to think about in terms of search engine optimization is your primary keywords should be short expressions that aren’t that targeted (like dog training).  They would be in your Title Tag for your entire website…not just in a post. 

The primary keyword should be a Market, not a niche.

• Dog Training = Market It isn’t that targeted.  Most people searching for this query is typically looking for very general information regarding this topic.  A lot of times, it is the beginning part of someones search before they start to tailor their search down into a more targeted long tail.  You will get a ton of traffic if you rank for this keyword.  If you have an authority blog or website with a lot of information, then your site could be the beginning and the end of their search funnel.
• How to Stop Your Dog From Barking = Niche This is HIGHLY targeted.  This could be an article, a series or some part of your website.  

The long tail keywords should be reserved for article posts.

Tip:  While you may think of a primary keyword like “dog training” to make as your title tag, a better keyword would be something that incorporates the word with other words.

Example: Rather than “dog training”, a primary keyword like “Best Dog Training Methods for beginners” would generate a lot more traffic in the long run.  Why?  Because there are many keyword variations that can be pulled from the title tag to rank the site for…(best dog training, best dog training methods, dog training, dog training methods for beginners, dog training methods for beginners, and finally the biggie, DOG.)

Build the website…Time to Start Writing

The next step when I am first building a site, is to create content.  I normally will write 10-20 pages of content that can stand on its own before I even bother to announce it to the world.  What I mean by stand on its own is that the content has to be very good…no 400 word summary on “how to make money online”.  

The 10-20 posts should be authorititive in nature.  I usually will crank out these posts in a very short time frame…like 1-2 weeks.

My Case for Long Posts

I write epics for posts.  I can’t remember the last time I wrote a post that was less than 1,000 words.  I do this because I can grab rankings for long tail keywords and semantic terms within my post.  In other words, I can create more traffic for myself by writing a lot on one page about whatever topic I am discussing.

There are some that say that long posts aren’t good for user experience.  If a long post is properly formatted (like ad copy is…with a lot of white space, different headings and bullets), it will break up the article in nice and easily digestible chunks.  Let’s face it, we all scan pages.  In fact, I imagine that most will scan a page first before making the decision that something is worth to be read.

Long copy is good for the search engines. Period.  

Once I Reach 10-20 Posts, I Will Start Promoting Via Social Sites and Post Less Often

There is this premise that a successful blog must be regularly updated.  The typical blogger will write daily.  I don’t blog daily.  Here is why:

1. If I am blogging daily, how on earth will I find the time to promote my blog in the way that it needs to be promoted?
2. If I am blogging daily, how on earth could every one of my posts be the best post I can make it?

Promotion is the key to success.  Most bloggers will spend 80-90% of their time writing because it is fun and 10-20% of their time promoting because it is…well, it isn’t much fun.  This is the primary reason why most bloggers never get more than 50 unique visitors a day.  Because they don’t promote, they don’t get traffic.  It is as easy as that.  

Luckily, there is a quick fix to this and this is where the first part of my two pronged attack to get traffic comes into place.

Once I have my 10-20 posts up, I will spend some time writing my next post.  As all of my posts, it will be an authoritive article that has some value in it to the reader (whether in discussion or knowledge).  It will also follow the same format of being long to grab semantic and accidental secondary words.

I will also only post once a week.  The rest of the time will be spent promoting my blog via the social sites….

Getting known should be your number one priority…We need to create funnels on other sites in order to get this traffic….

I use a variety of ways to get traffic to my site….

• I guest blog (as I am doing with Blogging Tips)
• I use Forum Marketing-  I leave a link in my signature to my MOST RECENT BLOG POST.  I make it read like ad copy (think “how to”…think “100 things..”, think linkbait)
• I use article directories- Some article directories (like ezine articles) will actually get listed for long tails fairly quickly and get organic traffic to my site.  In this case, I leave a link to my BEST POST.
• I use other social platforms like Twitter and Friend Feed- I use these with caution.  The key to making social platforms work for you in marketing your blog is to actually contribute to those around you…in other words, you find something interesting, you link to it…..(there are other uses of friendfeed that I may discuss at a later date)
• I comment on other blogs too- I don’t differentiate from do follow or no follow blogs.  I really don’t care because the point isn’t to use comments as a link building tool…it is to get the WEBMASTERS and BLOGGERS of the world to take notice of your site.  Let’s look at it from a webmaster’s view.  You leave a comment.  They go to your site to make sure you aren’t SPAM.  They find something interesting and read about it.  Ultimately what you are doing is possibly placing a seed in their mind…you are getting them to notice you.  They may possibly link to you at a later date. Oh,  and I always link my comment up with my MOST RECENT POST.
• I also use Blog Carnivals- Blog carnivals are the dinosaurs of blog link building.  I spend just 15 minutes a day submitting my most recent post to relevant blog carnivals.  It is a way to get the word out….it brings in a smattering of traffic…and you will get a backlink that actually matters more than a comment from a typical do-follow blog or directory.

Notice that I don’t even bother to link to my homepage.  I do so because, in the event that I will get a backlink from a forum signature or do follow comment, it is to a deep page.  This does a couple things for me…

1. It gets that page an almost guarantee to get indexed quickly.
2. It just looks more natural (think about it…how many people will actually link up to your home page naturally? In most cases, they link to an article in one of your deeper pages..)

What I am doing isn’t anything new or revolutionary but it works.  It works because rather than focusing on my website, I concentrate most of my attention on other people’s websites.

 I promote my posts 90% of the time and write on my own website 10% of the time...

As a result, I get noticed and get traffic almost immediately.

The purpose of building traffic by marketing yourself socially is two fold.  Supposing for a second that your content is good enough to warrant people talking about it, you will build backlinks (the natural kind) back to your site which will improve your search engine rankings.  Secondly, you are building solid relationships with other bloggers and social folks in your niche that may be able to help further your blog along. 

Monetization is not to be considered until you are getting a lot of traffic to your site….

Monetizing your blog or website  too early is probably the #1 mistake that new bloggers make.  I understand.  It is easy to get so focused on making money that you feel you deserve for your efforts.  It is also easy to get frustrated really quick by monetizing too quickly.

This is why you see statements like “building sites with adsense doesn’t pay well” throughout the forums.  Typically, it is coming from newbie bloggers who are thinking about monetization first and content (for the search engines) second.

Here are a couple things to consider in regards to monetizing your site:

1. The first is obvious…if you don’t have a lot of traffic, you won’t make much money….so why bother?  Now, alot of people would say something is better than nothing but my next point (which is a theory, by the way..so take it for what you will)…
2. The search engines will penalize your site coming out of the gate and rank you lower if you are monetizing with advertising-  Once again, this is just my theory.  It may be superstitious. Who know?  But what I have noticed with my own sites is that if I throw up a site with contextual ads before my site is “in the game” (within the top 20 pages of my keyword), my site will immediately start to drop. I am not sure why this happens although I think that Google views certain monetization methods take away from user experience.
3. You need a lot of substance to your site if you are using adsense so google can match the right (and best paying) ads to your site-  Not all ads on sites are created equal.  Some sites will get make .05-.25 cents per click while other sites will make much more in the same niche.  There are a lot of factors that go into this but it is my belief that google rewards some sites a higher payout because they feel the content is much more targeted on the whole.

Whether you choose to believe this is or not is up to you.  But the reality is that if you are building an authority site and you aren’t getting much traffic to your site, then the pennies a day that you may recieve from your traffic is really not worth it.

Now for the  big question..and it is a doozy….

Is YOUR Content Good Enough?

Which leads me back to the problem with writing daily.  If you are a blogger who is writing daily, unless you consider blogging to be your full time job (which, if that is the case, I doubt you are reading this), chances are that you won’t have the time to consistantly write content that would be considered linkable.

And if your content isn’t linkable enough, then you won’t fair so well in terms of gaining and keeping an audience.  Every post you make should be of the “linkable” variety and not the typical sugary cereal post that we are so used to seeing in the blogosphere.

So there you have it….The 5 steps that I typically follow to get traffic to a new website.

1. Make sure that your site is optimized for your primary keyword (market).  Use secondary long tails to drive residual traffic. (This is a long term goal)
2. Write 10-20 authoritative, in depth (=long) posts about your niche BEFORE you even begin to think about promoting.
3. Write less often but make each post thereafter like a punch to the gut.
4. Don’t monetize until you get an adequate amount of traffic.
5. Finally, promote often socially to encourage links back to your site while waiting for the big prize…getting ranked in the search engines for your primary keyword.

That’s it. 5 simple steps that I do for every new authority blog that I build on a no-string budget.  Who says you can’t go from nothing to something on no budget?

What do you guys think?  

Do you have a plan that you follow to get traffic to a new site?

Written by Leo Dimilo from Strategic Internet Marketing Techniques
Posted on February 4th, 2009 and filed under Promote your blog
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