3 Of The Most Effective Ways To Grow Your Website’s Traffic

Now that we have monetization covered we need to get traffic in to make those monetization systems do anything. Regardless of what you want to do with your site getting traffic is going to be a high priority. Whether you want to make a large income from your site or simply want to be seen as an expert in your field and get all that goes along with that then getting traffic needs to become a priority. There are many different ways to build traffic but there are only a few tried and true methods that are going to give you the results that actually matter and actually make a difference. Most methods and strategies are little things that don’t make a big difference. Sure if you already have a huge site then those little changes can add up but if you’re just getting started then you need to take care of the big things first.

In this article we’re going to discuss three of the most effective ways to grow your website’s traffic. We’re not going to discuss minutia that simply takes up your time and gives you little reward. We’re only talking big picture, Pareto principle type stuff. That 20% of stuff that gets you 80% of the results. Leave the rest for when you’ve already got your website where you want it. Until then keep focusing on these three things and putting in the work. Despite what essentially every guru wants to tell you there are few hacks, tricks, or short cuts to getting what you want. At the end of the day you have to put the work in and log the hours. Sure some work is more productive than others but in order to succeed there’s going to be a lot of work, even if it’s effective, and even more if it’s not. Alright now for the methods.

Method #1 – Writing Quality Content & Lots Off It

People either follow the first part and leave out the second or follow the second part put leave out the first. You have to do both. They say content is king, while I have my own thoughts about that, no matter what way you slice it, it’s incredibly important. After all that is why people come to your site for content that is either informative, entertaining, or engaging. The more value someone gets from the words that you write the more likely they are to come back to your site repeatedly, tell others about it, and engage with your products and/or services. However one wow article means very little to someone. You have to keep delivering again and again and again. Plus the larger your site grows the more people you’re going to bring into it.

If someone held a gun to my head and said “quantity or quality, pick one” I’d have to go with quantity at least with starting out. That isn’t to say that there wouldn’t be any quality it’s just if I had to pick one that has a slight advantage over the other I’d go with quantity, again that’s when starting out. Eventually that will change. Luckily we don’t have to choose so we should make sure that we are delivering on both. One great article once a month isn’t doing much for anybody. Likewise five crap articles a day aren’t doing anything for anybody either. Strike a balance but in the beginning lean towards quantity. Not to mention that to develop quality you often have to go through quantity.

Method #2 – Guest Posting

No matter what business or niche that you are in networking plays an important part in getting ahead and succeeding. As a matter of fact a good networker can fly by those that are simply putting in good quality work without networking. Doing frequent guest postings helps to expand your site and your “brand awareness” (for lack of a better term). The more people see you and get value from you the more they’ll like you. One exposure to your work or name generally isn’t enough for someone to start doing business with you or becoming a consumer of your content. Admitedly this is an area I need to start expanding in and doing more of.

Awareness of who you are and what you do is critical to success. Even if you have the best content and products or services that could be exactly what someone needs it doesn’t mean anything if people can’t find you. There could be a website out there that could solve all of your problems yet if you had no awarness of it, what would it matter. This website is missing out on it’s perfect customer (and the revenue they bring) simply because of a lack of awareness. You need to build awareness of who you are and what you do. You need to make a splash in your niche and get your name out there so that you can start helping people. Without awareness how good you are doesn’t matter and remember it’s normally going to take more than one exposure to have someone invest their time (and especially their money) into what you have to offer.

Method #3 – SEO

SEO is an area that I just know the basics in and need to become more skilled at. However knowing the bare minimum basics of SEO is important as well as understanding the general idea of how website’s rank and how to get your content to the top of Google (or at least as close as possible). Understanding how getting links to your site helps with it’s ranking, how to structure a article so that it’ll rank for a keyword without looking spammy, and so on and so forth. You don’t have to become an expert in it but understanding the bare bone basics is a most for starters. And as you progress you’ll want to learn more and more about this topic.

Like I said something that I still need to do and have been slacking on but am working on catching up with. SEO doesn’t replace having shitty content, little content, or not getting your name out there at all but it plays an essential role in the puzzle and is certainly part of that 20% of things that will get you 80% of the results as far as growing your website is concerned. At the very least pick up a book or two on the subject (that are current as SEO can change fairly rapidly, though the general strategies should stay somewhat the same) and get to reading. A simple effective tip is to have a keyword in mind you want to rank for when you’re writing an article. Yeah that’s probably obvious but what matters is if you actually do it and do it consistently.

Summary

Alright so nothing groundbreaking here but some general basics that will get you farther than the majority of websites owners out there (if you take consistent action on each front) perhaps do an analysis and see where you need to strengthen up. I’ll use myself as an example. First part I got covered, I try to go deep with my articles as well as give you as many as possible. I think as far as content goes I’m doing a good job. SEO is something I know the bare bones about but am working to have a working knowledge of. So good at content, working on SEO. Now guest posts is somewhere that I’ve honestly neglected and should make better use of. I should start writing down a list of powerful players in the masculine self-improvement niche and reach out seeing if they accept guest posts.

Then get to writing guest posts. I also might want to look into advertising on certain sites, try it out for a month and see what the results are. This isn’t something that I’d recommend you do right off the bat (unless you have some spare change) but it is another option for getting your name out there. And no matter what never forget to do three things (in addition to the one’s above and this applies to all businesses). And those three things are to test, measure, and adjust. Always test new things, get the results, and then make adjustments as needed. Sometimes certain things work much better than they do for the average person and vice versa. Now get to it.

If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.

-Charles Sledge