Blog growth is about leveraging traffic and building loyalty at the same time. The more relevant traffic you can drive to your blog, the higher the chances of building a brand and following. However, it’s not an easy task, which is why you have to test different methods until you find one that works. This means testing until you have enough data and then tweaking the strategy until it can’t be done anymore. If you’re blogging for profits and promoting products, traffic can equal large sums of money and continued success moving forward.
In this series, we are looking at “25†of the best traffic generating techniques I’ve learned over the years and how you can apply them to your business model. Let’s look at number “2â€, which is finding out where relevant people hangout and utilizing them for traffic.
Definition of Relevant People…
This term refers to people who are relevant to your niche and who would find your content of value. These people can be bloggers, shoppers, or even those who find what you’re writing about interesting. If you can find where these people hang out, then you’ll be opening huge opportunities for business growth and success. For example, if I’m blogging about “link building†and promote products relevant to my niche, then it’s important I target people relevant to link building. Why? These people will be interested in my content and the products I’m promoting. By marketing to these people, I’ve increased the chances of converting them into a customer and/or loyal reader. Next,
If you don’t find out where these people are hanging out, then you’ll be promoting to people who don’t find your content interesting, lowering the chance of user engagement. There is no point in marketing a “link building†blog within a forum or hang out catering to “cooking†or “automobilesâ€. This doesn’t make sense and won’t do you any good when growing your business.
Finding Relevant Places…
There are no shortages of places to find people who will be interested in your blog. Over the years, the growth of the Internet has encouraged people to start websites in almost every type of niche. Some are blogs, however, others are communities, Q&A websites, forums, etc. The great thing about these places is they are targeted and completely based around your niche. It’s as simple as finding a few popular spots and building a reputation for yourself so people view you as a credible person. Let’s narrow some of my top choices…
Forums –
I’ve always loved forums and many pioneers in the industry would agree. Through forums, you can generate targeted traffic and market your blog within the signature placed under all your answers. A huge player in the industry, Jeremy Shoemoney, said that forums was how he got his start and generated enormous traffic to his personal blog. I think he said something like 10,000/mo+ and it continued to grow until his blog sustained itself. The reason it worked so well is for the following reasons…
- forums.digitalpoint.com has thousands of registered users (50,000+) and 2,000 online at any given time
- Very relevant (SEO, blogging, Google, affiliate marketing, PPC, etc.)
- You can add a signature to your posts
- It’s always being updated with fresh new content
- New members are always joining
- And many more…
Forums are a great hangout for people relevant to Internet marketing and you’ll be able to find a forum in your niche as well. For example…here is a quick screenshot when I do a search for “health + forums 
You’ll notice from the top results all are relevant forums related to the health niche.
General Q&A’s –
These include websites like Yahoo Answers, Questions.com, and Answers.com. My number one choice is to use relevant forums as they are more targeted, however, Q&A websites can provide traffic, too. You have to skim through the generic answers and find categories relevant to you. You’ll have to set up a profile and make sure you include your URL because once you build a solid reputation, others will be checking out your profile. Here’s something to keep in mind…
Q&A’s can be very sloppy, in the sense that they have generic questions posted. This is why it’s important to choose a website that is popular and has a good reputation. Once you join the website, skim through the content looking for questions that require an in-depth answer. Why? The more detail answers you can provide, the more you can showcase your expertise, which attracts people to your profile and blog.
Other Places –
There are many other places where relevant people hang out that I’ve left off the list. This was done intentionally because I’ll be separating each one as I write other parts of this series.
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