It is easier to get more traffic to your blog if you have a plan. Rather than jump around to different tactics like SEO, social media, link building and others, it is far more effective to stick to a daily plan of action.
Though your plan can be tweaked to serve your needs, here’s one that will definitely get you on the right track and get you more traffic consistently on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.
The Content-Social-Comment Traffic Plan
This assumes you have a Twitter and Facebook account already. And that you have a Fan Page set up on Facebook for your blog.
Also, any other important 2nd tier social sites where your market hangs out can be included in this plan, but I will just use Facebook and Twitter here.
1. New blog post: This is a daily routine for most bloggers looking to make the biggest impact in their market niche. Regular posting is a must with newer blogs to bring consistency in repeat visits from your followers. Set a schedule for posting each day or every other day and stick to it for best results.
2. Your post is done. You have a great title with the main topic keyword included, and you’ve shared information or an idea that speaks to your market. Now you need to push it out.
WordPress, if you’ve set it up properly, should have pinged a good list of ping services, so Google already knows there’s new content on your blog to check out.
Furthermore, you should have your blog hooked up to Twitter and Facebook so that every time you publish a new post it automatically gets posted to your social accounts (Facebook wall or Twitter stream).
A lot has been done in this scenario already – the search engines notice your new content through pinging and your social following has been updated on your new content. But that’s just the foundation.
Now you need to do a little “spotlighting” in some key ways to set up this new post for new and ongoing traffic and get the best results for SEO.
3. Go to your Facebook account and post your new blog post link to any groups you’ve created or belong to.
4. Go to Twitter after about an hour or so since you posted and link to your post again, using a popular #hashtag for your market. (More about hash tags)
5. Interact on both Twitter and Facebook for the day. Daily presence and interaction, such as retweeting, posting interesting links to things you’ve found pertinent to your followers’ interests, and the like are crucial to keeping followers engaged and finding your links back to your blog posts.
6. Interact on any forums that you have joined to promote your blog. Especially answer any questions people ask that you have answered in your new blog post. Or find some way to tie the two together with something like “I just posted about this issue on my blog, check it out…link”
7. In your list of A-list blogs and other blogs in your niche, pick out some sites to make comments on with a link back specifically to this new blog post – NOT your main domain but a “deep link” to your latest blog post! Comment for real and don’t spam. The link on your name is sufficient in most cases. Don’t try to sneak a link into the comment itself unless it is a situation like #6 above where it directly pertains to your comment and the post you’re commenting on.
8. Go back to your blog and find relevant posts you’ve made before that are already ranked and getting traffic. (Or that will be someday.) Edit them to include a strong keyword link (the keyword you wrote the post around) back to your new blog post. Do this on 2-3 posts max. Should only take you a few minutes each. Internal linking is crucial to your SEO and the traffic to your older, more popular posts can translate into traffic to your new post as well as get you good anchor text links the search engines need to see.
9. Message key “influencers” among your list of contacts on Twitter and Facebook and let them know about your new post. ONLY do this if you’ve put something up of significance or importance. Don’t over-bug your contacts or they will become deaf to your messages. Ask them to Retweet or Like to get your post in front of their contacts.
Tools For This Plan
- Facebook Connect Plugin
- Twitter Connect Plugin
- Optimized Ping List
Additional Tools For Optimum Traffic
- Facebook like button on all of your posts.
- Tweet button on all of your posts.
(Both can be added with multiple plugins offered in your WordPress plugin “Add New” search feature.)
Your Feedback
What would YOU add to the steps?
There are a zillion other things that can be done here. But I wanted to create a list of steps an average person with limited time each day could feasibly accomplish for the best results.
What do you do after a new blog post that would be a great addition or option for the plan above?
Related articles
- Huffington Post Doubles Down on Social Media (gigaom.com)
- One Great Way to Write Blog Posts that Get Retweets, Comments and Traffic (zacjohnson.com)