19 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Blog

social media how toIt’s the the perennial quest. How can you get more traffic to your site?

After all, without a steady stream of traffic to your blog, there’s little opportunity to engage your audience and convert readers to raving fans.

Methods change and evolve over time. When I wrote my first “how to drive traffic” post about five years ago, the list looked a lot different. There was no Twitter, no Facebook, no social sharing buttons, and no retweet button.

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How to Engage With Social Media (a Chris Garrett Interview)

social media expert interviewIn this video I interview Chris Garrett, co-author of the book ProBlogger. Here Chris provides great advice to helps businesses achieve value with social media.

Chris shares the best way to approach Twitter and how to avoid the biggest mistakes people make. He also highlights the importance of attraction, retention and conversion for your business blog.  Be sure to read the other takeaways listed below.

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7 Essential Design Elements for Great Business Blogs

When people hear the word design, they sometimes think only of making something look good, using colors and graphics to add interest. But on the web, and especially on a blog, design has a purpose: to grab readers when they arrive, make it easy for them to get what they want, and create trust through a consistent and professional look.

A well-designed business blog:

  1. Uses visual interest to make posts easy to read
  2. Brands your business in a consistent way
  3. Places useful information in places where it is easy to find
  4. Isn’t cluttered with things that aren’t helping you promote your business
  5. Makes it easy for readers to do what you want them to do

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Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

Suppose you met an experienced marketing consultant who promised to give you one-hour assignments five days a week for three months to teach you a brand-new marketing channel.

And the result was a detailed marketing plan for that channel.

Suppose the marketing channel was social media? And suppose he only charged you $30?

Would you accept his offer? I thought you might.

The consultant is Dave Evans, a communications expert who now focuses on using social media to market goods and services. His 400-page book is Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day. Here’s a comprehensive review of some of the main tips from this excellent book.

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Social Media Monitoring 101, How to Get Started

You’ve probably heard people talking about social media monitoring. It’s wise to listen to conversations before you participate in them. Social media monitoring allows you to do just that.

But many brand and marketing managers responsible for social media don’t quite understand what social media monitoring is and why it’s important. Here’s a quick primer:

Social Media Monitoring Is Listening

Listening to online conversations is technically done without ears. Using search engine technology, social media monitoring tools scan the Internet looking for documents that contain keywords you select. They return those results in some sort of order that allows you to see where people have mentioned your brand, company, product or whatever you specified.

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5 Must-Read Social Media Marketing Studies

A lot is happening in the world of social media. Here’s a quick summary of recent major research findings:

#1: By 2010, 26 Million (1 in 7) U.S. Adults Will Use Twitter Monthly

A new study by eMarketer surpasses their previous estimates of Twitter usage. The study, conducted just last month, found the following: “In 2009, there will be 18 million U.S. adults who access Twitter on any platform at least monthly. That represents a 200% increase over 2008 levels. Usage will reach 26 million U.S. adults in 2010, a further 44.4% climb.”

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