3 REAL Traffic Strategies for your Blog That WORK!

Once you have a good base of articles, you need to start thinking about traffic to your site. This is not as easy subject to condense into a simple blog post. This is an introduction to my future lessons. You will need to think of how much time you can devote to your traffic plan. and pick a technique that is simple for you and easy for you to master on a consistent basis.

There Are No Tricks, There Are No Secrets, There Is Only Great Information.

The Number 1 Best traffic strategy is:  Organic Traffic.
You’ve heard me say it all the time. you can not do any better that great articles on your site. You will rank higher and longer than any other technique. Of course it will take longer for you to get the rankings, but the rankings will be rock solid and last. And again I repeat nothing is better than ORGANIC TRAFFIC.

ORGANIC TRAFFIC = is defined as: Web traffic which comes from unpaid listing at search engines or directories is commonly known as “organic” traffic. Organic traffic can be generated or increased by including the web site in directories, search engines, guides (such as yellow pages and restaurant guides) and award sites. Anything else is just temporary traffic.

I had a traffic system i was working on my site for over a year, And without going into much detail, it was generating 3/4 of my monthly traffic. I was using a special automated software I had spent over $100 for that would bring targeted traffic to my site, and one day the software owner decided to shut down. I lost all my traffic that was generated by that software. I had to figure out another technique. so I had to find a new system for Generating my Site traffic. And so the cycle continues… Not anymore.

Now I will give you a break down of the 3 Organic Traffic Strategies, Fastest and Easiest to the Slowest and Difficult.

#1  Written Content:  These are your blog posts.  Your content on your site.  Each post should be at least 300 to 800 words.  Contain at least one picture.  Your post must be orginal information, and if possible be ground shaking in its impact on your readers. (According to who?) It doesn’t matter who.  It matters that you shoot for this goal.  Some post will be truely great and some will not. But over time you will have more great than not.  You will be successful.
Here are a few examples of where you can use your written content:
Blog Posts
Article Marketing
Guest Posting
Blog Commenting
Email Marketing
Social Marketing: Twitter or Facebook

#2  Video Content:  These are videos you add to your site.  You will host theses on a video sharing site and embed them on your site. The most popular being Youtube. There are others, but this is where you want to be.  You can video yourself talking about your info or make screen casts on your computer, or powerpoint presentations.  Make the videos like show and tell clips.  Keep them short and packed with information, not fluff.  You have already written your script for these…. remember your blog post?  After researching your blog post when the information is fresh in your mind is the perfect time to to make a video.  Your mind will be well organized, and you will have more excitement to make the video when it is fresh in your mind.

#3  Audio Content:  These are audio recordings that people can listen to at home or on the go on their smart phone or on their car radio.  Yes you heard me right, they will listen on their car radio with these recordings.  People that commute (like myself) listen to podcast from the itunes directory while driving.  These are know as Podcast in the file format as MP3.  This medium is for people that can speak information easier than writing.  This is by for the hardest and most time consuming to do right.  But it will bring the most traffic and interaction for your site.

All of these traffic Methods will bring you organic traffic,  AS LONG AS you don’t relay on Automated software to do it for you. Here is a break down of the Methods in amount of traffic that will be created.

#1  Written:  Everyone has a blog it seems.  You will be competing with sometimes thousands of sites.  Can you write better than 90% of them?  or 75% better?  only you can determine that.  So this method will be the hardest to rank for in Search Engines.

#2  Video:  Less people have a Youtube Channel.  Youtube is the second most popular search engine. (Google being #1 for written)  If you search for your topic there will be less competition for you.  So it will be easier for you to get noticed on Youtube than on Google.  Also you will show up in Google for video.  Have you ever noticed that on Google searches that on the first page you will see “Shop for Blank on Google” and also a video listed and also  “Images for Blank” listed (the reason for putting at least one image in your posts).  Just do a search for “go kart” and you will see what I am talking about.

#3  Audio:  Even Less People have a Podcast.  Being listed on Itunes will rock you with traffic.  When I did the research for starting a podcast there was only 25 other podcast I would be competing against for traffic.  Whoa!!! not thousands or even hundreds.  So I will definitely get noticed.  This is by far the most difficult to setup, but also the most rewarding and the most interactive with your community.  This one I have yet to accomplish, but it is definitely in the works for the near future.

With these methods I have been able to take a break from my blogging for months and my traffic has not decreased.  Think of it as building your foundation.  At first you will be adding content to your blog weekly or even daily.  After a year or two you will be able to take a break and not lose anything if you have built a rock solid foundation relying only on Organic Traffic.

If you need a personalize plan of attack for any of the 3 Methods, Just email me todd@toddbrannan.com and I will write you a strategy based on where you are.  Believe me you can do all three and all the options under all 3.  A great plan would look something like this:

1st and a must –  Blog – chose one of the three:  Written Blog, Video Blog or Audio Blog and post everyday or week.
2nd choose one of the four:  Blog Commenting or Guest Posting & Twitter or Facebook and do this everyday.
3rd repeat this, over and over.

This is simple and doable.  Won’t take much time and can be done daily or weekly. Of course the more frequently you do it the faster your traffic willl grow.

If you would like to read a Great Book on this, grab a copy of

Gary really know his stuff and knows how to keep it simple. Really a Must Read!


New Blog Gaining Traction? 3 Ways You Can Tell

By: Todd Brannan
Ok, So now you have your blog setup and you are posting great content, and sometimes you feel like your going nowhere?  You don’t know if your going in the right direction.  So now you’ve got a few quick ways to find out.

Way #1: Alexa

Go to www.alexa.com and click on the toolbar tab and install the toolbar or statusbar.  This will tell you what your site is ranking globally.  The lower the number the better.  For instance when I first put my site up it ranked somewhere around 12,000,000 as I have written more post the number has dropped and is now at 858,253.  Also the more frequently I post the quicker the number drops.  If I don’t post and just leave my site dormant the number rises.  Also as my number moves so does my traffic.  The lower the Alexa number the higher my traffic.  So even though I don’t see progress like I want on my site, all I have to do is check my Alexa number and I can see positive changes in the right direction.  Every time I see the ranking lower I know I am on the right track. Everytime I visit my site I see the ranking number in my status bar on my Firefox browser and I log it down so I can track my progress in my spreadsheet.

Way #2: Cpanel

Check your traffic stats in your Cpanel.  Just log into your Cpanel and the in the left sidebar scroll down to website traffic. There will be listed 3 stats, yesterdays traffic, traffic this month & traffic last month. Its that easy.  This number I also log into my spreadsheet.

Way #3: Subscribers

Your Opt-in form should be on every page above the fold.  This number will be the slowest moving.  But these are actually the most valuable numbers and what you are ultimately looking for.  These are your most interested following and they are looking to you for guidance.  Send them great information, ask them what they need, what you can do for them to help them.

” New Blog Gaining Traction? 3 Ways You Can Tell” Click to tweet

Nothing moves your blog in the right direction as much as being consistent.  What ever you do, make sure you are posting on a schedule.  It can be daily or weekly or bi-weekly or even monthly, but be consistent.  Believe me when I say I have paid the price of being inconsistent.  I have seen massive changes in the negative direction because I got distracted.  Also I have pointed my blog in the ascending direction just by being consistent.  It is also possible to speed up your progress by speeding up your activity on your blog.  Also I have been able to achieve a lower number on Alexa in less than three weeks, than in the previous 8 months. Just by being more active.

Of course this is only a basic starting point, later I will cover some more advanced techniques.

Let me know if you have any techniques that have worked for you.

 


4 Steps to Crushing it With Your Youtube Ranking – Step by Step

My Step by Step process that will guarantee you more Youtube views.

Step 1:  Title

This is the most important part of ranking in the search engines for your video, because it describes what your video is about.

Chose 1 primary and 1 secondary keyword for your title. The primary keyword is put at the beginning followed by your secondary keyword. Then put your secondary keyword at the end again.

Example: Video Optimization – Step by Step Optimization

Remember your Title is your Headline, It must grab your readers attention and get the click.
Keep your title 8 to 10 words and 50 to 80 characters.

Your title must describe your video precisely.

Use the dash (-) and pipe (|) symbols to make your title easier to read.

Step 2:  Description

Your Description needs to be keyword rich article with your website address at the beginning. write about a 200 – 400 word article pertaining to your video. Treat it as a mini blog post. End it asking your viewers to comment. Engage your audience, ask advice, ask feedback, ask for criticism, ask for their story, ask for their experience, ect.

Example:
https://www.toddbrannan.com Step by Step method how to rank better with Video Optimization. If you take your time and approach it with a formula, you will see that you can rank much better than just throwing up a video and not taking the time to optimize it. There are many ways………..

In the description box on the video page only the 1st line is visible unless the viewer presses the “show more” button on the description box. So the first line of the article must show your website address and a opening sentence that pulls your reader in more.

Step 3:  Tags

Tags need to be relevant keywords. You may need to brainstorm for keywords or use a keyword tool to complete your list.

Example tags: video optimization seo ranking optimize

Step 4:  Additional Tips

Your video needs to be interesting enough so your viewers will watch the whole video to the end. The shorter your video the better to get your point across. A short video has a better change of being watched to the end. If people bail out after watching a few seconds it won’t rank high for your keywords. Because the search engine with think it is not relevant to your keywords.

Be sure to Allow comments

Chose the appropriate Category

Allow Video Responses

Use http://www.tubemogul.com for posting to multiple video sites at once (free service).

Leave some information out of your video. When you come to the end of your video leave a point or a tip incomplete and tell the viewer that they need to go to your website to get the answer. Or promise them a free gift download if they go to your website and sign up for your email updates.

Real World Proof

Now I want to tell you of a little experiment I did for a friend of mine. I posted this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzydnVn5NS8  on Feb 16, 2010 and it has only gotten 102 views as of this writing.

I reposted the same video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8YbBMlheww almost a year later on Jan 7, 2011 and it has 5036 views.

What is the difference? Just compare the title, description and tags. Also, I embedded the website address at the top of the 2nd video. That doesn’t change the rankings but it does give the website address more visibility.

I used http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal (its free) to find all my keywords for optimizing the second video. The 1st video was uploaded with no thought to the optimization process.

That about raps up How To Get More Youtube Views and btw tell me about your experience in optimization of your videos.

To Your Success,

-Todd


How I Generate Website Traffic – Step by Step Plan

It gets overwhelming when you start to research how to drive traffic to your blog. There are so many different ways one can get very confused what to do first and then end up doing too much, in too many directions and then not making any headway.
What do you need to concentrate on?

Search Engine Optimization?
Guest Posting?
Pay Per Click?
Submit to Directories?
Forums?
Social Sites?
Content?
YouTube?
Podcasts?
Ect……and many more.

What do you do first? Do all of it? Do just a few? The answer is different for everyone. I have see sites benefit for just one source.
Concentrate on just ONE technique and only one for each TIMELINE. That means you will have 3 techniques building your traffic. The three timelines are, Short, Meduim and Long Term.
For me this is how I approach my traffic building.

Short Term

Immediate results,

Social Sites,
I have traffic from this in just a few days and spread the word of my site. I post USEFUL rich content and create conversations in my niche. I seek out others that do the same and comment on their postings.

Medium Term

Takes a little longer results,

YouTube,
Posting video and commenting on other video in my niche is my medium strategy. I add sites in my niche to my channel and comment on other channels.

Long Term

The longest time results,

Content,
Write from your Passion, from you Heart, Rich, Full, Honest Content. Content is King and
always will be. The search engines will pick up on the great content and you will be rewarded with constant traffic that will last for years.

In 2001 I had an Inflatable Moonwalk part-time business. I did not have any experience in websites. I wanted to advertise my business on the internet and had no idea how. I purchased a piece of software the I built my site with. The software would automatically link all my pages together and allow me to insert the keywords all the right places without a huge learning curve. Back then the software cost $150. So I put up a 3 page website with pictures of my Inflatable Moonwalks and general information. It took me about 4 or 5 weeks to get everything just the way I wanted. Not being a large site, but it was really informative for our customers.

I started checking every day to see if I could get the site to show up with my keywords. I had no luck. So I just forgot about doing anything else more to the site. After a couple of months later my customers were telling me that they found me on my website. I was surprised and searched for my keywords on Google and Yahoo. Yahoo had me listed as #2 and Google had me listed as #9. After finding this out I canceled all my other advertising. Well my site stayed on Yahoo between #1 and #7 for seven years. Google was a bit tougher, I was between #4 to #25 for the same time period.

The only changes to my site were price updates in those seven years. I did the work once and I benefited from that work for 7 years. At the end of those 7 years I sold the business and shut down the site because of an accident I had.

“How I Generate Website Traffic” – Click to tweet

In recap,

  1. I build my social list which I send to my website and they sign up for my newsletter.
  2. I post videos and comment on others in my niche, which have links back to my website and they sign up for my newletter.
  3. I write content, keyword rich from my passion, which is found from search engines.

This is just my way, I am a minimalist, I like to keep things simple and straight forward. I hope this helps.

To Your Success,

-Todd