This should be no surprise, really.
When you’re a newbie, you have nothing.
It’s tough. You have:
- No subscribers
- No fans
- No backlinks
Nobody even knows that you exist.
How do you go from a wantrepreneur, to a big-name blogger overnight?
For this… Let’s ask the Dude!
Okay mannn. Here’s the deal… You want traffic? Go where the traffic hangs out! Ya know… man. Waiting for traffic is a plan for failure. You’re better than that… man. Find people that have the traffic – That’s the key!
…
Dude, I was really hoping for more details than that. A step-by-step plan, so to speak. Maybe asking a stoner how to run your business is not practical.
Thanks for your help, dude.
…He’s right, though.
You won’t get any traffic waiting for it.
The real secret is to find the traffic and get your stuff in front of it.
The 2 most explosive ways to get traffic (for newbies):
In this post, we will be discussing the two most powerful ways to get traffic to your blog.
First off, where is the traffic?
The traffic is going to influencers. These are the collection of bloggers, and social media marketers that decide what most wantrepreneurs see.
You will become an influencer (hopefully) one day.
For now, you have to rely on getting traffic from their referrals.
How to win over an influencer?
Usually… An influencer has earned their role because he/she hooks up their peeps. It’s almost impossible to grow a cult of followers without MASSIVE value along the way.
100% Must – OOZING Value
Whatever you share with an influencer should be dynamite.
We’re talking, holy smokes this is really cool.
Or
Look at how in-depth this guide is…
Why?
An influencer has their reputation on the line. If they send their followers to crap – their business will suffer.
They are NOT going to share your stuff as a favour.
They WILL share your stuff because it’s impressive.
When an influencer shares good stuff, their reputation is bolstered.
Show them good stuff, and they may see it as a win-win. Reputation booster for them, and a powerful traffic and authority boost for you.
Method #1 – Guest Posting: Give it to them on a silver platter
Sometimes, posting good stuff is all you need to get a share.
… Most of the time, you’ll need to deliver a bit more.
This method is common. It’s called “Guest Posting”
It works like this:
You create an AWESOME post – filled to the brim with value.
You GIVE IT to a specific influencer. Someone in your niche who will post it on THEIR blog.
The obvious downside to this is that the influencer gets to host the awesome content.
Which means, more affiliate sales for them, and some organic Google traffic to their blog.
So why the heck would you do this?
Without traffic, you have nothing.
You could have the best blog posts in the world.
We’re talking, wicked-cool tutorials filled with diagrams and videos.
Without traffic – it does not matter.
This is your way of getting fresh visitors. New Subscribers. The life-blood of your blog.
Take a look at my Google Analytics:
This is a screenshot of my referral traffic for the last 30 days.
See that 840 visitors from Matthew Woodward’s blog.
That’s all from a single guest post I made on list building.
A real win-win
That guest post was total value. I put hours into it. And yes, Matt hosted the content, and probably made a couple dozen sales.
But I got TWO things.
- A powerful backlink
- Traffic that is pre-warmed
Take a look at the avg session duration and bounce rate.
My bounce rate from Matt’s traffic is less than 50%
The average session is over 4 minutes.
That’s awesome!
Google LOVES seeing visitors that stay on a blog. It means that people are engaged.
So not only does guest posting get you a bunch of direct free visitors.
It can also contribute to better search rankings as well.
What did I make off this guest post?
It’s only been about two weeks since my post launched on Matt’s blog, and I’ve received 840 visitors (so far), 140+ email subscribers, and at least $187.52 from this traffic.
That’s only in the last couple weeks. This post is on Matt’s blog indefinitely, and probably many years to come. Think about all that extra traffic and Google love from only ONE post.
Guest posting works!
Method #2 – Shout Out for Links
This one’s a bit sneakier, and easy enough for any blogger to pull off.
It works like this…
You create a blog post dedicated to “the best of” a certain topic.
This could be:
- 15 SEO Experts Reveal their Secrets
- The 17 Best Traffic Tips from the Experts
- What 29 Internet Marketers Said about the New Google Update
The point of this post is to include as many influencers as you can.
Then, you just contact everyone that you include in your post. And let them know you featured them on your blog.
Why does this work?
It’s simple.
An influencer wants to be seen as an expert. When a post portrays them as an authority, it’s good for their brand.
It’s important that an influencer’s followers also see that post, of course. So, not all, but many of these influential bloggers will direct their audience to your post.
Yes, they’re doing this to bolster THEIR reputation.
But it also helps you out, with…
… you guessed it.
- Backlinks
- traffic
By now, you’ve probably heard that
one good back link is worth a thousand bad ones.
That’s actually not true. Bad links decrease your search rankings.
So really, this SEO game is all for good links.
Getting a link from an influencer is a high quality link. And best of all, it takes little work to pull off.
You just research top influencers for a topic. Take a tidbit from each one, and then write a short editorial around each influencer’s tip.
Two Ways to do This…
You can contact influencers ahead of time, and ask them to create a short tip for you (even less work for you). Or, you could link to the influencers and then contact them afterwards.
Either way works!
What’s the goal here?
Getting traffic when you’re a newbie is a challenge.
Even a couple dozen or so visitors per day could take a full month to establish.
Influencers, on the other hand, no longer struggle to get traffic. They maintain their high traffic levels easily by creating more of the same stuff.
When you’re starting, you want to piggy-back on their success.
This is the easiest way to build your own following.
Find where the traffic is, and get your blog in front of it.
After you’ve got the attention of enough influencers, you will gradually become an authority.
I know, because I’ve done this with my YouTube videos already, and I’m now leveraging it for my blog.
Once you have a following, getting traffic to your new stuff will be child’s play.
It will no longer be necessary to guest post on other blogs.
A new post on your blog will flourish with eyeballs from all over.
Traffic sources are easy to come by, when you’re the MAN.
What will keep me going till then?
At this point, you may be wondering. When will I actually start making money online?
The whole time.
There’s no reason to wait.
The best way to build a passive income steam is through list building.
You should 100% have a lead-collection strategy in place when you build traffic of any kind.
One of the biggest influencers in the game is a dude by the name of Ryan Deiss.
Here’s what he has to say about it:
“One of the single biggest assets I have in my business is my email list. If you took away everything I had in business but left me with my email list, I could be back in business the very same day by making an offer to that list.”
It’s that powerful.
It’s how I went from struggling to pay my web hosting for this blog to now making over $5,000+ every single month.
I’ve logged many hours learning how to build a list.
Let me help you with this…
Take a look at this post: https://www.brendanmace.com/this-landing-page-converts-at-55-6-make-yours-in-15-minutes/
It shows how to build a landing page that converts at over 55%.
That means that over half of all visitors that hit the page, end up subscribing to your mailing list.
Before you do any kind of traffic campaign, you should have a list building strategy in place.
Don’t know where to start? Want to build a list? Need free traffic?
Leave a comment below and let’s talk about it!
