Using Content to Get More Traffic
Everyone has heard that “content is king” and that’s very true.
It’s what attracts site visitors, it’s what attracts search engines, it’s what attracts advertisers, and it’s what attracts potential partners.
And, it drives traffic in an amazing number of ways.
When you think of creating content to get more traffic you need to think past your blog, for example:
- How about being a guest blogger on someone else’s blog
- How about creating resell rights or giveaway digital books
- How about creating reprintable articles (for directories at eZineArticles and content sharing sites like Squidoo and HubPages)
- How about creating Kindle books
- How about creating PDF files and presentations for places like Scribd
- How about writing articles for other people’s newsletters
- I’ll let you keep going with the list
And the truth is…
There’s no way around the fact that you must create content and there are 3 (very obvious) ways to do that: (1) create the content yourself; (2) get someone else to create it; and (3) borrow the content.
And, don’t think your situation is different, content is necessary no matter what you’re selling, no matter what your market niche is.
I won’t get into the creation of content here as it’s a huge topic in itself and will just focus on how the content can get you traffic.
And the content has to be good and provide value, it can’t be just spending 5-10 minutes with Google and Notepad or an article writing tool and create a 250-350 (essentially worthless) piece of content.
It may provide you with some small benefit, if you’re lucky, but your time is better spent taking that 20-30 minutes and creating a good 500-750 word article.
In today’s online world, one of these quality articles is worth 10 or 20 or even 100 times more than one of the small, junk articles.
So you could spend 100 or 1,000 minutes creating a bunch of junk content that won’t help much and certainly will turn off anyone who actually reads it…
Or, you could spend 30 minutes and get something you can be proud of and will actually provide you with real lasting value.
There are a lot of ways to use content to get more traffic to your Web site so this will be the first in a series.
Let’s get started and look at the first idea for creating “link bait” content.
Provide Checklists
Use Checklist To Get Web Traffic
You might be thinking “checklists, how is that valuable content?” but if you are then you’re thinking wrongly.
I mean, think about it, one of David Letterman’s most popular features is his top 10 list, it’s not really a checklist but many of the reasons it works are the same reasons it works for checklists.
And, guess what, it’s easy to make list because they can be anything that you can put in list form:
- A list of things you need to know
- A sequence of steps
- A list of tasks to complete
- A list of items to remember
- A list of instructions
- Etc.
Shoot, the above is a list, although it just a small bulleted point list
Examples
Let me give you some examples of how I’ve and others have used checklists.
I’ve been in the Home and Garden niche for some years now and I have a digital product that is a step-by-step guide of how to do something.
It’s broken up into chapters, one for each part of the task and, at the end of every chapter, is a printable list that the people can use to shop for materials and it has a short form of all the steps necessary to complete the chapter’s tasks.
Not only is it the most popular part of the product, and not only does it have my marketing message and Web site printed on every page so when they give it to friends their friends and family they see it, but I’ve been able to take those checklists and use them as Web content that drives traffic to the site and I’ve been able to use them as a free gift to get opt-ins for my list.
I’ve also in the Relationships niche and today I’m finishing up a product to use as a free gift to get opt-ins.
The product is just a 20 page checklist with my marketing message included and I let people give it to any of their friends.
It will also become content for articles and blog posts.
A few years ago, Aurelius Tjin created a PLR product in the Internet Marketing niche that was basically a checklist although he didn’t market as that, he marketed as “tactics” — smart marketing there.
It was called 350 Social Media Tactics and I don’t know how many $27 copies he sold — I do know he sold at least one — but I still see it being sold and given away now and then; you probably have a copy of it because at one time everyone and their mother was selling it or giving it away (including myself, let me know below if you want a copy!)
Checklists, as checklists or as tips or tactics or whatever, are great content that people love and are very easy to create; by the way, don’t forget to include affiliate links where applicable.
I bet you can think of a number of them but here are some ideas to get you started:
- A list of items to take with you when going on a week long hiking trip (having done those I can tell you first hand it would be very handy!)
- A list of things (documents, etc.) you need to gather and bring with you to a house closing (having done that I can also tell you that would be handy!)
- A list of tasks to complete the day of an event you are putting on (again, having done that I can tell you it’s invaluable)
- A list of steps to set up a niche blog business (yes, again…
- A list of things to check after your outsourcer delivers your new membership site
- A list of steps your virtual assistant should follow to build traffic.
- A list of steps to create a Camtasis video.
- Etc.
As I said, I’ve done every one of those things and having list is critical to getting things done without a hitch.
In fact, it is the best and easiest way to make checklist content; base it on your own personal experiences because when you’ve gone through it yourself you are in an ideal position to know what you needed and what you forgot and you can put them all in the checklist
In the next post we’ll look at another content idea for you to use to get more traffic to you Web properties; you can view part 2 here.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Excellent post and some great ideas. I recently had a friend who tried guest blogging on other people’s blogs and failed miserably with it. He did a lot of things correctly as he had experienced doing it before, and he had read up on it before he did it again. So my question would be, is there specific methods that you use in getting to do a guest blog on other blogs, as I would think this would be a wonderful way of getting traffic.
Thank you for your help on this as this, in my opinion, is important subject matter needed to grow your business. Paul
Paul,
Thanks for your kinds words.
There are some ways you can use to do guest blogging, maybe I’ll do a post on that!
In short, the best way is to build a relationship with the person first, you can do that in various ways depending upon the situation… by consistently making valuable comments on their blog, comments and retweeting their tweets, interacting with them on Facebook, etc.
Just think about it like this.
If a stranger came up to you and said they’d stay at your house for the day while you were gone, you’d say no in a minute but if a friend or even a work colleague or neighbor with whom you’d established a good relationship over time you’re more likely to say yes.
Some people will always say no but as long as you’re a stranger you can expect a no every time.
But you are right, it can be an excellent way to get traffic, assuming that the blog gets a lot of visitors.
Hope that helps and thanks again.
David
[...] Home4-1-1Resources CommentsBy EmailPosts«How to Use Content to Get More Traffic,Part 3 How to Use Content to Get More Traffic,Part 1 »How to Use Content to Get More [...]