200% Best Strategy For Blogger To Increase Traffic

Traffic Strategy #1: Kindle Select 90-Day Traffic Plan

Did you know that self-published books now represent 31% of e-book sales in the Amazon Kindle Store?

You used to need thousands of dollars and a contract with a large publishing house to get published. That’s changed. Anyone with an idea worth sharing can be a published author within a week and, more importantly, drive a lot of search traffic to their blog.

I won’t discuss Kindle publishing in detail here (read Copyblogger’s excellent guide instead), but I will show you how to drive targeted traffic and reach thousands of people for free when you publish via Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

Here’s how it works.

When you publish your Kindle book, you can enroll your book in the “Kindle Direct Publishing Select Program.”

That makes your book exclusive to the Kindle Store for 90 days and includes it in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, where thousands of targeted readers can borrow it for free. You can even run a free promotion for a paid ebook for 5 of those 90 days.

There are two simple ways to use your Kindle book to drive traffic to your blog or landing page:

1. Link directly to your website inside the book.
2. Use a free giveaway.

Let’s first go over how you can get search engine traffic by linking directly to your blog article site.

The screenshot above shows how you can link directly to your blog article or website inside your book before you enroll it in the Kindle Direct Publishing Program.

This strategy alone typically sends up to 200 extra visitors to your site within 30 days. Chris Guthrie peaked at #119 in the Kindle Store when he got about 2,000 free downloads. With the right call-to-action, a top-100 ranked ebook can send you anywhere from 300 to 3,700 visitors a month.

But, linking directly to your website isn’t enough to make you stand out. To get even more traffic, use your ebook as a traffic magnet by including a free giveaway… which gets us into our second method of leveraging KDP.

Steve Scott has published more than a dozen Kindle e-books and has built a huge list of targeted subscribers. His technique? Giving a freebie to book buyers. When they buy, they see a “free gift” message with two links to the author’s landing page. This is a simple and very effective technique.

But, that’s not all. Use Amazon’s “Look Inside” and “Download a Sample” features to give readers a free report. Add a call-to-action on page 4 of your ebook (the last page in the preview) and link this back to your landing page or blog. Every 30 previews should send about 10 visitors to a blog post.

If your book is free, expect 1,000+ visitors to your blog in about 7 days or close to 6,500 visitors per month. Free downloads make your ebook rank higher and attract the attention of your target audience in search traffic.

Chris Guthrie’s book “How to Make Money as an Amazon Affiliate,” got 3,500 free downloads in 48 hours and climbed to #1 in its category.

Traffic Strategy #2: How to create viral content

Everyone wants to create viral content, but most people fail. That’s because they don’t pay attention to the sites that successfully create viral posts, day in and day out. If they did, they would learn three secrets of viral content creation to increase blog traffic.

The first secret, which isn’t really a secret, is to write great headlines. 8 out of 10 people will click to read your content if you get the headline right.

This isn’t a new concept. In fact, it’s really old (like 1927-old).

Check out this ad from the roaring 20s.

What happened? WHAT happened when he started to play?

It’s the perfect example of grabbing the reader’s attention with a little bit of storytelling. It connects with the audience — they’ve been there. They know what it’s like to be teased. They feel for the guy.

Then he starts to play and amazes the crowd. And now the reader is hooked to find out how he got so good and how they can learn just like him.

And the best part? The ad is for a free book! It’s a 1927 lead magnet.

Now, these people are more than willing to hand over their information to get the freebie and learn how to play.

This and other types of clickbait, if they are done right, play with all of your emotions: fear, greed, envy, lust.

Want to take the headlines one step further?

One study found that headlines perform the best when they are polarizing. These divide opinion. You either love it or hate it. And nothing in between.

I know, I know. “Clickbait” is a bit of a dirty word. We are living in the time of “fake news.” No one wants to be swindled or tricked into clicking on something that ends up being snake oil.

But a good headline that draws readers in and encourage them to click through should be followed up by quality, truthful content. The headline may have baited you, sure. However, the product and the copy backed it up.

Like this one for Phoenix Mutual in 1929. The headline was pretty enticing, but once readers got into the nitty gritty of the ad, they were met with real facts and figures on how they could retire on the cheap.

The next tip is to get the length right.

Viral content publisher Buzzsumo found that its most shared posts range from 3,000-10,000 words.

(Image Source)

More words means more opportunities for SEO. This means a higher conversion rate.

But people have short attention spans, you say. Just trust me on this one. Your posts need to be north of 3,000 words.

Why? Because…

• People still haven’t caught on and are doing 500 word posts. Your beefed up blogs will stand out.
• Longer posts are good for backlinks and organic leads, giving you lots of evergreen content.
• You become the go-to on the topic. You did the digging and the research. Your reader can find every single thing they need to know from your post and don’t have go elsewhere to supplement the info.
• Did I mention evergreen? These posts have staying power and can be repurposed over and over again.

And, the third is to have a killer idea that is sure to go viral in social media. Here’s how you do that:

1. Understand your audience
2. Use Buzzsumo to generate content ideas
3. Use Ubersuggest to generate content ideas
4. Generate ideas from useful comments
5. Generate ideas from reviews
6. Generate ideas from Answer The Public
7. Content curation for ideas

Step #1: Understand your audience

What does your audience want?

I sometimes use Quora to figure out what my audience is passionate about. All I do is type my primary keyword into the search box and hit enter to get a list of people’s most pressing questions and concerns. I get a better idea of long tail keyword phrases to help build user intent in my blog article.

Once I have a better grip on my audience and what they want, I can segment them on where they are in the sales funnel.

Because, let’s face it. Only a teeny tiny portion of your site’s visitors are actually ready to buy or even make the next move. Like, less than 3% teeny tiny.

So how do you attract that staggering 97% while also nurturing the 3% at the bottom of the funnel?

You need to give each group exactly what they are looking for, based on where they are in the buying cycle.

That ice-cold, doesn’t know anything about you traffic isn’t going to sign up for a high-priced service right off the bat. You have to ease them into it. Offer them something that doesn’t require so much commitment.

Someone who has been receiving your newsletter for half a year? It’s not out of line or too soon  to ask them for a little more info. Someone who just happened on your site from a paid ad? Start a little slower. Buy ‘em dinner first.

Here’s how people are typically grouped in their buyer’s journey:

Awareness: They don’t even know why they need you. Here, it’s important to fill them in on what you’ve got, get their attention, and prime them a bit to reach back out.
Consideration: Now they know they need something, and they’re looking for where to find it. Luckily you’ve already planted the seed and can follow-up to try and turn them into a lead.
Decision: Now they’re a lead and will be interested in the specifics: pricing, trials, etc.

Here’s an excellent example from ForEntreprenuers:

Let’s go back to those leads for a second.

Remember that 1927 lead magnet? That works here.

• Offer an eBook
• Provide a webinar on some relevant topic
• Turn your content into an email course
• Give a checklist, etc.

Then, once you’ve assigned some offers to match the stages of the journey, make it easier for people to get from one point to the next. Take a look at how users typically travel through your site. Then, optimize those popular paths; from the landing page, to the thank you page, to the confirmation email.

You can check out Behavior Flow inside Google Analytics.

Step #2: Use Buzzsumo to generate content ideas

If you want to engineer a viral post, you need to find out what makes other posts successful. Buzzsumo is a great tool for this. Plug in your primary search engine keyword (I’m using “conversion optimization” in this example) and search.

You can see the number of social media shares for the top posts related to your keyword. The top post in this example has 1,364 tweets and 2,601 shares. Check out the top headlines, too.

In this example, you can see conversion optimization tutorials are very popular. Use this technique to find the most popular topics in your niche for social media engagement in blog posts.

Step #3: Use Ubersuggest to generate content ideas

Ubersuggest is a unique keyword suggestion tool that also helps you generate blog post ideas. Type your primary keyword into the homepage search box. For this test, I typed blogging.

Leave the default settings and just click “suggest.” Ubersuggest searches the entire web for related words and phrases you can use in a blog article.

Here are some examples of Ubersuggest results:

Which phrases appeal to you from the examples above? Your readers will probably like them, too. If they do, there is a good chance social media will too.

Pick a phrase and click the plus sign to see even more phrases – and get more ideas that you can research and write.

Step #4: Generate ideas from useful comments

I love to read blog comments. Not only is it great to connect with readers, but I’ve gotten a lot of useful content ideas from comments over the years. You can too, but you need to find comments from people who really know their stuff that help with future blog article content.

The best way to find them is to visit authority blogs. Seek out expert advice to include in your posts.

For example, check out the comments on blogs like the Moz Blog shown in the example above. Commenters on those sites are usually seasoned entrepreneurs, SEOs, and content marketers whose comments provide great ideas.

A good example of a blog that is creating viral content on a consistent basis is Upworthy. Upworthy has grown rapidly, especially in its first couple of years with a whopping 88 million visitors. That’s more than Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and even Business Insider.

Many of Upworthy’s posts are viral, and there are three reasons for their success:

1. Curiosity-driven headlines
2. Fewer sharing buttons
3. A short emotional video

Look at the headline below. Does it make you want to read? Each Upworthy headline makes readers curious enough to click and read more.

You can do this, too. Here are some typical headline templates that you can use to create magnetic, clickable, and shareable headlines designed for social media. Just fill in the blanks with your primary keyword or goal.

• This 3-Minute Video Will Show You How To ______________
• How a 5-Minute Video Generated ____________ Visitors In ______ Days
• The Only Proven _______________ Technique That Works
• 10 Weird Tricks To Get More ________________ in Just 15 Days
• _____ Ways To Work Less Than 2-hours Daily And Still Earn $_____
• Example: if your niche is blogging, you could write:
• This 3-Minute Video Will Show You How To Install WordPress: The Only Proven Blogging Strategy That Works

In addition to using curious headlines, Upworthy knows that the more social media sharing buttons you have, the lower your conversion rate. Compare the screenshots below. Which would make you click?

Upworthy successfully uses limited choices to drive engagement with a blog article and improve search traffic.

Before:

After:

Finally, they tend to include emotional videos, which is an excellent way to motivate readers to get involved with your blog post topic.

Step #5: Generate Ideas From Reviews

What about getting ideas from your customers on what they are looking for and what content they are seeking out? Don’t have a ton of customers for this? I like to mine reviews to find out what users of similar products and services are saying.

Joanna Wiebe used this approach while working on copy for a rehab center. The topics were sensitive, and it wasn’t as easy as finding a client to ask about their story and feelings.

So, she took to Amazon to research the reviews of books that dealt with addiction and similar issues. She started pulling out key words and phrases that she saw most often and placed them into these three categories:

She took the intel and created a new landing page for the center with a headline “If You Think You Need Rehab, You Do.” She tested this against the control headline “Your Addiction Ends Here.” The page saw a 400% jump in click throughs and 20% more lead generation forms filled out.

Going through reviews is great for finding what’s important for your customers. You can gain a better understanding of the language they use and their pain points.

Sifting through reviews requires a smart strategy, though, and you should consider these key questions, according to Wiebe:

• Who is my target audience?
• What solutions do I believe they want from us? What are their goals?
• What solutions might they be using today to achieve those goals?
• If those solutions are online, where are they?

Step #6: Generate Ideas from Answer The Public

If consumers like your content, they are going to share it and it will attract more traffic. Plain and simple.

But like I’ve already said, that content has to be relevant to the consumer. It needs to answer a question they have and give them something they need.

What do they need? Enter Answer The Public.

Much like Google’s autocomplete function in search, Answer The Public is an automated autocomplete tool that will populate tons of relevant topics based on your search.

Now, you know what people are asking. It’s time to check who is already answering them.

A quick Google search will let you know how much the topic is being discussed. If it’s a popular one with a lot of hits, move on. Your goal here is to stand out among the rest.

You can also take that question and search it again on Answer the Public, which will give you some variations on the topic that might not have been so covered.

What does this give you? Now you know what people are looking for and where the holes of information are. This is a great tool to produce content that is wanted but not readily available.

Step #7: Content Curation for Ideas

Take the best of the best content to share to come up with ideas. Here, you don’t have to start from scratch– you can search out what’s already out there and give it to your readers.

Create a weekly blog with content from all over the web and publish for your readers. You’ve now taken the heavy lifting away from the reader– everything they need is right there and linked from your site.

Hootsuite does this every week with their “This Week in Social” blog and give readers the best and most pressing social media and technology news. Here’s an example of one on content curation.

Your blogs are up against two million new ones every single day. You can stay up day and night, tirelessly creating new content, or you can grab what’s good and reuse it.

“Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme,” according to nonprofit blogger Beth Kanter.

“The work involves sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information. A content curator cherry picks the best content that is important and relevant to share with their community.”

Why is it good for you? It’s faster. Duh. There are only so many hours in the day, and while you should be creating content, too, you can’t do it ALL the time.

Also, it works in all the same ways by building trust with the customer, promotes you as an opinion leader, and boosts your traffic.

Just make sure your content (curated or not) is sharable. If no one’s sharing it, there are probably a few mistakes you are making.