The #1 strategy to garnering more traffic to your blog is:

“Write good quality, in-demand content“. (Remember you are writing too people, not at them).

And of course some of the activities I successfully use are:

• Use social networking tools such as: StumbleUpon. Run an advertising campaign via StumbleUpon. Use twitter. Ensure you provide tweets of value and customize your twitter page to match the branding of your blog. Never complain needlessly on twitter (do you want to spend your day with a whining sour-puss?) Invite people to follow you on twitter.  You may find my earlier post “Common Blog Traffic Sources?” to be of interest – Hint… Google is NOT my biggest traffic source .
• Include information about your blog in the signature of every email you send (including the URL).
• Use subscription systems on your blog. Plugins such as Comment Approved Notifier and Subscribe2 can help you accomplish this. More useful plugins can be found in the post “25 Most Beneficial WordPress Plugins“.
• Enhance your update services. When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the site update services you configured. Here is a robust list of 145 Update Services for Blogs.
• Use your blog information and URL in forum signatures.
• Comment on other blogs. However, don’t comment just for the sake of obtaining a link, doing so is often very obvious, instead, provide valuable feedback, thoughts and ideas.
• eMail readers and thank them for visiting.
• Post new, quality content regularly. Doing so keeps readers interested and momentum going. Additionally, ensure you provide valuable links to external resources as well as those within your blog.
• Trust your readers. Often it is very annoying (and a bit of a turn off) to wait for comment approval every single time, when they participate (comment) on your blog. Instead, it may be better to “lift the embargo” for those who have provided valuable comments before. If a comment from those individuals is inappropriate, you can always edit or remove it later.
• Use lists on your blog. Lists are attractive as they are scannable,  easy to use and link to; and easy to add to later.

I’ve been following a fair bit of the happenings in the blogsphere (and for me some of them are new). Of note is the changing landscape where word of mouth seems to be successful whereas viral marketing appears to be waning.

Most importantly, we’d like to know what some of the new strategies are, that you use or recommend. How do you approach them? What do you do or recommend? What’s your perspective in new blog promotion strategies? Comment below. Also, for a bit of link love, comments added to this post will have the no-follow tag removed as I move them into the post with your credit. So… don’t be shy.

Side note: Since we’re touching on that photo. Are you a keen observer? Do you have a sharp eye? If so, what is unusual about that photo? And… Why is in unusual? Just jot your answer in the comments below!

Suffice it to say, after a bit of banter we discussed some of the key issues around effective word of mouth marketing. I’m saying “effective” because it appears to me that many of us (at some point or another) don’t take the time to fully evaluate or investigate our “foundation” activities, that support word of mouth. I must say, the phone call ended up sounding more like a radio interview, as I was somewhat surprised with Mr. Zibreg’s obvious insight and professionalism in this arena.

I think many of us appreciate that a basic blog is essentially a  one to one or one to many communication venue. While blogs have the added benefits of facilitating the ability for readers to participate interactively to a certain degree (which I note many blog owners seem not to do), I  think that word of mouth is and will remain a dominant force in blog, product, service, etc. marketing. In fact, given the current trends in online marketing, it seems to me that this may prove to be “The” primary marketing engine.

Mr. Zibreg phrased it best:

“With word of mouth it’s more effective because your contact or client is able to say ‘I was there!‘ Nothing is more powerful than that. To put it another way someone is obtaining a service, product, and so on, in great part simply because they personally know the individual spreading the word. That personal connection is just as powerful. That new client will then transfer the message to the next client and so on. In a sense word of mouth is a personalized and very real ‘people powered‘ machine, where it’s individuals vouch for a product or service, personally and publically placing their trust is the message”.

But what does this mean to us as blog owners? Of what value is this when we are using blogs to further the exposure of our products and services?

In order for word of mouth to be successful, you must have a really good product, service, blog content, etc.  If high quality is not paramount (or even on your radar), you’ll experience an issue where word of mouth will work against you. Here’s a word of mouth  example if your blog does not provide high quality content:

Bob: “Hello Joe, you should visit the latest post from BloggerSavvy, it’s really good and helped me improve my blog traffic”

Joe: “That’s what you said last time and the post was terrible”

The old saying “Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me” seems rather apt. Quality is #1 – If that is not one of your blog’s mantras, then it may not reach the goals you anticipated. Joe’s response above is critical in that Bob’s credibility has “been shot”, it’s no longer effective. Not because of Bob’s opinion, rather because the blog owner has permitted poor quality content to undermine the credibility of positive word of mouth.

On the other hand a real life scenario (a client reminded me about) occurred when a client referred my web hosting services. The case in point was my obtaining a dedicated server hosting client who never visited my blog, did not know me, never visited my web site and to whom I never advertised. They purchases services purely on the personal assurances of my other client. Because this other client always experienced high quality.

As Mr. Zibreg mentioned in our chat:

“…when someone asks for a referral, they want to hear a clear YES! from the referrer, not an okay…”

In conclusion, quality and credibility must be your #1 focus.  Support the credibility of your word of mouth by ensuring you provide quality in any blogging that you do.

That’s what will get you the resounding YES!

1. It’s cheaper than many other “large” traffic advertising services. (5¢ USD per click as of the writing of this post).
2. There’s better long term traffic growth as those who are genuinely interested in your content can save your links (thumbs up), which their friends can also see, add to their links, visit your blog, and so on… (Commonly referred to as “organic“).
3. Your clicks will not be in a pop-up/under, banner, etc. Visitors are taken directly to your site!
4. You do not need to create an advertisement, all you need is a published blog post (or web page).

Realistically, you can probably launch with a cheaper budget ($5.00 USD  per day for 100 visitors per day). If you ran that for a week, it would cost about $35 USD and garner you 700 visitors. Prior to setting up your advertising campaign, there are some key points we need to keep in mind.

Review the StumbleUpon Advertiser Resources. Pay special attention to the “Features” section of the advertiser resource as it may answer many of your questions.

The first thing you’ll need to do is sign up for a StumbleUpon advertiser account via the “Create a Campaign Now” button. (This is a different password to your regular StumbleUpon account – If you have one).

After following the sign-up process, you’ll reach a screen similar to the one below:

Using the  above screen shot example, you can select the appropriate interest groups you want to target. The numbers in brackets show how many thousands of members have subscribed. So for example, “Music (716)” means 716,000 people have subscribed to the music interest group.

After making your selections, you will reach another screen similar to the one depicted below:

At this point you are able to select your daily budget (which could be more or less than $5 USD). Personally I’d suggest you spend only a little money. Doing so allows you to evaluate the performance and provide tweaks, prior to investing further money.

StumbleUpon Advertising Support approves campaigns, as such your campaign will not appear until it has been approved.

To make your first StumbleUpon ad more effective, it’s important to ensure the page is of interest to your chosen StumbleUpon interest group (while providing valuable content). Remember, the key trick in this exercise,  is to use the ad to garner initial StumbleUpon traffic voting (thumbs up), so as to build regular traffic from other StumbleUpon users when your ad campaign is not live.

Another aspect to consider is using a valuable, popular post as your campaigns landing page. Remember, like search engines, not everyone is going to visit your blog using the home page. Instead, look at your current traffic statistics, which will help you determine which of your posts are the most popular and most in demand from readers. Use that post as your landing page – Remember, it popular in the most part because readers have found value it it. As such, create the best impression by placing your best post “up front and centre”.

Keep in mind that you also want to encourage your new readers to return and enjoy new content. In an earlier post I discussed how to find readers for your blog, wherein I suggested some interactive tools you can use to engage your readers as well as the importance of “focus” and community involvement.

Now it’s your turn!

Determine your budget (keep it affordable), sign up and don’t forget to use your best post.

Comment below with your experiences. What did you do? How did it work out, successful? Not successful? What other services do you use?