Increasing traffic to your blog is something that can be a challenge for lot of people. So how do you get traffic to your blog? Well, there are many ways. For one, you can pay for traffic. I’ve never done that, but many people do. But what about free traffic to your blog? You might feel like you have great content, and a nice looking blog, but you don’t have traffic. That is where the buzz factor kicks in.

There are many ways to generate traffic with creating buzz. Some people offer contests, some people create blog memes and others write posts on controversial topics. Along with the various buzz building tactics comes a reaction. A reaction is the result of blog buzz. The reactions are either negative or positive.

Depending on what kind of buzz tactic you use will warrant which kind of reaction you get. So the key to getting traffic is by creating a buzz. But, within that, it’s your goal to create a buzz that scores a positive reaction. Anything less, then you’ll create what I call, one hit wonder traffic, which are people who visit your blog and don’t like what they see and never will return again.

How Do You Create A Positive Buzz?

Here’s something that I say to myself when I’m writing content for my blog. Following this for the last few years helped me create some of my best articles. I call this SEMI.

1. Stimulate. People want to stimulate their brains. Our brains are filled with thousands of pulsing receptors that need to be stimulated at all times.
2. Entertain. People want to be entertained. Why else do we have The Comedy Channel and a million and one Blond Jokes?
3. Motivate. People want to feel good. They want to be encouraged and supported. People want to be motivated and pushed towards achieving things.
4. Inform. People want to be aware. We want to know whats going on, how did it happen, who was the cause of it, when did this happen and where do I go?

Now, in the process of creating a positive buzz, you should remember SEMI and ask yourself this, “Is my post going to stimulate, entertain, motivate or inform people?” If you can get a yes for all four questions, you then have yourself an excellent post.

The great thing is that it doesn’t matter what topic you have chosen for your blog, you do have an audience. The best way to reach out to your audience is to give them SEMI! Take what you have learned in this post and write one today that follows the basic rules of SEMI!

Feedage.com is a site owned by Mark Savoca that I have known about for almost two years. I first discovered the site after glancing at a web site traffic report and noticing some incoming traffic. From that time to now, I haven’t really paid much attention to the site. Feedage.com has my attention because I believe that it’s a decent resource that helps increase traffic and SEO value.

Feedage.com is a categorized and searchable RSS feed directory. It’s further explained that their goal is to categorize and organize large numbers of RSS data feeds to make viewing them more easier for end users. The directory was created and grown by adding RSS feeds into queue. Machine readable pages are then created off the partial item syndication of each RSS feed queued. In other words, when a new RSS feed is added into their directory, a new webpage is created that syndicates the partial feed of each entry.

The problem that I have with Feedage.com is that syndicated content is being used to display contextual based ads. This is nothing new, and in fact, many site do this. However, many blog authors and site owners take offense to other people using their content to earn revenue.

And then there are some sites such as Digg.com, don’t necessarily syndicate content, but instead monetize the user submitted content that is geared towards introducing a full story. That then creates a deterrence towards allowing people to actually click and view the story. This method is more accepted and tolerated, especially when sites such as Digg.com deliver traffic to the source site.

In the case with sites such as Feedage.com, majority are considered spam, splog, or sponge sites. That is of course is until the site in question is proven to generate incoming traffic to the source site. And that is where I am at with Feedage.com. This site syndicates the RSS feeds from blogs and uses the content to overly saturate pages with contextual based ads. Also, and in many cases with newer blogs, Feedage.com can rob source sites from their position in search engines. Since Feedage.com is more established than many of the source blogs its content is originating, many of the cases, the Feedage.com page will rank better than the source page.

Having that said, you might then question whether it’s worth submitting your RSS feed into their directory. Many people obviously would feel like it’s not. However, before a decision is made, there are a two benefits towards using Feedage.com which are the potential to increase traffic and potential to increase SEO value of your source site.

If you decide to submit your RSS feed into the Feedage.com directory, my past records have shown that I have received traffic from their site. It isn’t a lot, but it’s traffic I received without applying any tweaks or optimizations to. Here is what I recommend doing to make the best of your listing.

If you’re using WordPress, I recommend installing the Feedage.com Plugin and allowing a percentage visitors subscribe to your Feedage.com RSS Feed rather than your source feed, or FeedBurner feed. If you don’t have a WordPress blog, or you do and simply don’t want to install the plugin, I recommend redirecting your source feed to the Feedage.com RSS feed.

In either case, the purpose of directing traffic to your Feedage.com RSS feed is to gain subscribers. The reason why you want to increase the number of subscribers assigned to your Feedage.com feed is because the more you have subscribed, the higher you rank in the Feedage.com directory.

You don’t have to convert your entire RSS reader base to Feedage.com. Simply observe the number of subscribers it will take to rank #1 in their directory. Once you reach that number, then you can pull the plug and point your blogs RSS feed back to the source URL or FeedBurner.

The next element that might interest you is backlinks. When you submit your RSS feed into the Feedage.com directory, your content is syndicated on a webpage. Links to your homepage, and individual post page are made. These are all dofollow intext links. By default, many people might discount the value in these Feedage.com pages; however, I have seen a quite a few, and many have established PageRank as high as 5. The trick is to point links to your Feedage.com page.

If you take your Feedage.com page seriously, you’re going to generate a natural flow of traffic and links pointing to it. Over time, and a shorter period than many believe, your Feedage.com page will establish PageRank. Also, one thing to consider is the more popular your Feedage.com page gets, the more internal exposure it receives within Feedage.com itself. Ultimately, your Feedage.com page could become the featured blog on the homepage.

In summary, I think sites like Feedage.com tend to be very spammy, and low in quality. Typically, search engines feel the same. However, and for whatever reason, both people and search engines approve of Feedage.com. I think they should reduce the number contextual ads and also re-position them slightly.

If your blog is somewhat new and doesn’t rank well in the search engines already, you may find Feedage.com stealing your position. Which I guess is fine if you’re site isn’t ranking anyway. Keep in mind, only a small percentage of Feedage.com traffic will reach your site. The majority will click on the ads or click back after being subjected to viewing the ads.

What are your thoughts about Feedage.com, and similar sites? Do you think there is more harm than good allowing your content to be syndicated on a site that could potentially outrank your own blog posts? Do you think that it’s acceptable for other people to syndicate your content for the purpose of displaying contextual based ads and earning revenue?

There are many tools and software available to help you study the performance of your website. But, wouldn’t it be cool to have a visual interpretation of the activity that takes place on your site?

In other words, instead of seeing the data in the form of stats and numbers, wouldn’t it be neat to see a visual representation of the clicks and the hot spots on your site? Being able to study your site in this sense could easily allow you to increase performance. Luckily for you, the technology is available, and it doesn’t cost you a dime to use it.

Checkout CrazyEgg.com. This site allows webmasters and bloggers an easy way to study analytical data in a visual form called a heat map. Simply add a few lines of javascript on your page and instantly you can start tracking data visually. CrazyEgg.com offers this free up to 6,000 visits per month. If you need to track more than 6,000 visits, you can upgrade.

After you install your tracker code CrazyEgg.com will begin creating a heat map of the page being tracked. The more people who click certain links, the brighter in color the area will appear on the map. Even though you can discover this data in analytics, having the data presented to you visually may allow you to see potential improvements. An example would be the “About Me” page on my own blog. This is one of the most popular links on my home page.

I wouldn’t have realized that simply by studying Google Analytics. Even though the data is there, it isn’t something I am looking for. But, having it appear brightly with the heat map, I can instantly see that quite a bit of my daily traffic migrates there. This has lead me to take a closer look at my “About Me” page and see if I can make any improvements to it.

Give CrazyEgg.com a try for yourself. Set up a free account and take advantage of tracking up to 6,000 of your visitors at no charge. If you exceed 6,000 in a month, you can either wait until next month to have your amount reset, or you can upgrade. Regardless of what you do, it’s well worth the time registering for a free account.

If you are trying to build links that point back to your blog or website one of the most powerful ways you can do that is by offering to write content on other blogs. This is a little different than landing a freelance writing job because your offer is to help bloggers by writing content on their blog for free. While this might not sound like a very good deal for you, it really is. 

Paying for links is risky. Google has a good sniffer for spotting paid or sponsored links. Doing link exchanges, especially blogroll exchanges is proving to not have much value. Ordering sponsored posts is very risky because you then put your site on Google’s radar. So really what option do you have left? 

The answer is in writing guest posts. It is a safe and very natural / organic way to score powerful backlinks to your blog or website. Consider this too. When you publish content on other blogs, you are in complete control of the link building process. You are in complete control of how you want to word your content and shape and mold your links pointing back to your site.  In other words, writing guest posts on other blogs gives you the ability to take a blank piece of digital paper and turn it into anything you want. 

Guest posting on other blogs has other benefits as well. For one, you’ll find that you have an endless supply of blogs where you can publish your content on. Most bloggers struggle for material. Just like a journalist or a columnist, often bloggers struggle from writers block and totally enjoy it when someone offers to provide them with killer content. 

Another benefit is the fact that not only can you build links by writing the content, you can also take advantage of the opportunity and use the post to sell yourself to readers of the blog you are publishing on. This gives you an amazing opportunity to increase the number of regular reader who read your own blog or website. 

The only disadvantage I can think of is the amount of time you need to invest into writing content. One thing about that though is I believe that you always get back when you put in. Meaning, if you invest the time into writing quality content on other blogs, your return will be great as well. 

Contact a few blog authors and you’ll be surprised to discover how many of them will contact you back having a strong interest in having you write a post for them. I know for a fact that when people contact me, I get excited because I know that my nightly post is covered and I can have a little free time to do something else. My advice to you when you do contact bloggers is to present yourself well. Be honest and explain what you want to do and what are you are willing to do for them in exchange. Writing content on other blogs is  mutual exchange. You give the blogger a night off from having to write and they give you a medium to spread the word about your own blog or website. 

It seems like I get at least one email each week from someone asking me about how to increase traffic to a blog or website. Usually after reading the email I’ll take a moment to visit the site that belongs to the person who wrote me. The complaint is very common: Bloggers and site developers feel that they need more traffic to make up for a loss in earnings that differ from what they had originally expected. They feel that by adding more traffic to their site it will then correct their deficit.

Having that said, I am not going to tell you that traffic is a bad thing. The more traffic we all get to our sites the happier we are, that’s a given. Who doesn’t want extra traffic? But that’s not the point. The problem is that most people think increasing traffic is the solution towards fixing a web site that is failing to earn money. That is far from the truth.

In most cases when I check out the sites of the people that email me asking for tips on increasing traffic, what I find is that their site has conversion cancer. Simply put, their websites or blogs are failing to convert for them. It doesn’t matter what it is, some people want to get more Google AdSense clicks, others simply want their visitors to purchase their eBooks. Whatever the call to action may be, It all boils down to the same thing; conversion, and the lack there of.

What good is increasing traffic if the current traffic you already receive doesn’t convert? If the existing traffic you receive doesn’t convert, do you really think that adding more traffic will help conversions? It won’t!

Something is wrong. You have to change something. If your blog or web site doesn’t have a lot of traffic, that is fine! Use that to your advantage. In my business, I based things off percentages rather than by units. In my fleet of a few hundred various sites I own, most are very low volume. Meaning each site I own typically gets around 100 visits per day. Most of my sites are monetized with Google AdSense. My aim is to score 10 clicks per site per day off 100 visits, which equates to 10% conversion.

On occasion, quite a few of my sites get bursts of traffic. When that happens, they still convert at 10%. When more traffic is added, say 1000 visits per day, I make more money off the added traffic because I still convert at 10%. The reason why is because I always focus on conversions based off low volume. Gaining massive amounts of traffic to a blog or web site is the single most difficult thing to achieve. My focus is in taking full advantage of the traffic that I do get.

Consider this and re-visit your blog or web site and ask yourself what you can do to capitalize on the current traffic you get. If making money using Google AdSense is your goal, then consider changing the position of your ads. Maybe change the size of your ad or even the colors. After you make changes, take note of the effects the changes have. If performance increases, try to tweak things even more. If after you tweak things further and find that the results depreciated your earnings, reset things back to how you had them previously, or try something different again.

You’d be amazed when you discover how simple it is to run tests on your site. The beauty of discovering how to score high conversions is the fact that once you discover what works, you can do what I do and duplicate your system over a few hundred times. My Google AdSense earnings for the month of December 2008 exceeded $10,000 USD. This was all generated on a few hundred low volume sites that achieve high conversion rates of 10% or higher.

Before you ask for advice on how to increase traffic, the better question to ask is how can I increase conversion off the current traffic I already receive.

On my blog I frequently open up the flood gates and allow for readers to ask me questions and I then provide them with a response. One of the questions asked was absolutely perfect to post here and share with you.

The single most difficult thing with running a blog or web site is scoring traffic and landing backlinks, Especially if your blog or web site is geared towards promoting affiliate products. So how does a blogger or as webmaster increase traffic and score backlinks? Well, let’s start with reading the question that I was asked:

Hi Garry,

I am working on a couple of new sites at the moment that I wouldn’t usually use WordPress for but as you know I have been learning the ins & out’s of WordPress for a few months now so have decided to go ahead and use it for these new sites to see how it pans out.

Once I have the sites completed, I know I can gain organic search results over time and can even provide relevant links from other sites of mine. With that said, can you recommend any other ways of getting links/traffic to an affiliate based site?

With your Micro Niche Sites, do you invest time in link building to these sites or are they a truly “build, walk away and see what happens” type of sites?

I do want to build, walk away and see what happens with a few of these sites but I also want them to at least generate an asdense monthly payment along with some affiliate payments. Any advice is well appreciated.

Thanks, dave.

Wow! When I read this question that Dave had asked me, I was very excited to provide my feedback not only for him, but for all of my blog readers. Secondly, I now look forward to sharing this with you. Here is my response back to Dave.

Hi Dave,

I great way to get organic links is to have a bunch of friends who will bend over backwards for you. If you simply be a super nice guy and help people as much as you can afford to, when it comes time to asking for help in return, such as asking for a few backlinks on some blog posts that you have keywords you are targeting on it, friends will grant these requests.

Secondly, friends will also voluntarily advertise your blog or site on their blog or site if you ask them to. This is very successful because the post comes from the author in which many people follow.

Look at it this way, tomorrow, if I wrote a blog post and told everyone to check out John Doe’s Blog because he is offering something that I feel everyone will enjoy, he will end up getting quite a bit of traffic because I suggested to my readers that he has someone worth their while.

Asking… it never hurts to ask. The worst someone can say is, “No!” Never take offense when someone says NO, it’s a crap shoot… some people will grant your requests, others will not… no big deal.

I ask for TONS of favors from my friends, but also too I work my tail off to make sure that I help them TWO FOLD in return. At any given time, and I am not tooting my horn, I can get well over 100 high quality backlinks to any site I want within just a few hours. You have to be careful of that though. You never want to channel links to a web site or blog too quickly. If you do, Google has filters that catch that and I believe that will get you on their radar. Getting on Google’s radar is something that you don’t want to have happen.

Like I said, there is a balance… you can’t link build too aggressively. Google red flags that…. you got to maintain a nice steady pace and build as naturally and organically as possible.

You asked me if I invest time into link building? YES! On sites that target keywords that are too strong and competitive just to rank organically on their own without backlinks, yeah… I get links. These links though aren’t just, “Hey Bob, can you add me to your blogroll?” These are very well thought out and personalized backlinks that I put a lot of time into scoring.

Growing a site in a competitive niche is very much like being in chemistry class. I don’t spend too much time with competitive keywords, I more go after the ones that just naturally rank on their own in the top ten simply by creating the content, getting the page indexed and filling a VOID in the Google SERP.

After reading Dave’s question and reading my response to his question, what else can you add to this? What are some other creative ways towards scoring backlinks and increasing traffic to your blog or web site that is geared towards promoting affiliate based products?  Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.