The Struggling Blogger’s Guide to Increase Blog Traffic

You’ve just found out about blogging for a living…

You’re excited.

You’ve got a killer idea for a blog.

So you start it, write some great content and even make your blog look pretty.

You optimize every post you publish for SEO…

And yet, your analytics look something like this:

Here’s the deal:

Waiting and praying, for your SEO to pay off is a recipe for blogging disaster.

You have to use other methods of traffic.

And in this post, I will show you a strategy that got me 2000 views to a blog that wasn’t even getting 50 visits per month.

Twice.

All without Google or expert roundups.

What You Will Learn

• What this traffic strategy is (plus some proof)
• Why this traffic strategy works
• How I did it and most importantly…how you can do it too

The Traffic Strategy… What is it?

The strategy that I used to get 2K hits to my traffic-less blogs is egobait. That’s right, egobait.

It’s a list post that features bloggers and influencers in a particular industry.

It is designed to make them look good and get you some of that hot referral and social traffic.

Let’s call it an “egobait list post” (ELP for short).

I have used this for traffic on 2 different blogs…AffiliMarketer and Blogging Aid. Both weren’t seeing much traffic at the time.

Here’s a screenshot of AffiliMarketer’s traffic numbers comparing August and September (I published the egobait on September 15th):

And as you can see, the sessions went up 482%, the pageviews went up 1382% and the users went up 624%.

Not bad.

As for the one I did at Blogging Aid on Jan. 10th that featured 50 top blogs, including MatthewWoodward.co.uk, of course…

Here are the traffic numbers to that one:

Please note that Blogging Aid was only a month old.

It also received over 400 shares.

And even a bunch more on Twitter (too bad they removed their share counts).

Some of the people I featured were even sharing it days after the post went live, which is pretty cool.

So, it works great for blogs that are struggling to drive traffic and blogs that are practically new.

Why it Works

Their egos. Everybody loves being called the guy who knows what he’s talking about.

I mean, wouldn’t you? If I were to get up on stage and tell everybody that you were the best writer in the world, wouldn’t you feel like a king?

Of course, you would.

So you see, that’s why this works so well…

You [basically] tell the world that these guys are experts, they show it off and share it with their followers and you get the traffic.

So, how can you create your own ELP?

I’ll show you…

How to Create a Traffic Sucking Ego List Post

Here’s the step-by-step process of how I got 2K views and 400+ shares using this egobait technique:

Step 1: The Headline

Have you ever seen the “top blogs to follow” blog posts? I’m sure you have. People do them all the time.

And that’s why I didn’t.

I didn’t want to publish just another top X blogs post because there’s a chance that the people I mention would be like “MEH! It’s been done.” You know?

Instead, I went with some “promise”. Something the reader can benefit from for visiting the blogs that are featured on the list.

Like “become a better blogger” at Blogging Aid and “learn affiliate marketing for free” at Affilimarketer.

Wouldn’t a “top blogs to follow” be much easier?

Of course. But if you go with the “promise approach” you’ll be able to:

• Achieve greater results
• Have a shot at ranking in search for whatever phrase you use eventually

So, for your headline you can use this simple headline formula:

• Number + (industry) blogs/experts + promise/keyword

Examples:

• 100 SEO Blogs That’ll Help You Get First Page Rankings
• 50 Weight Loss Experts You Can go to For Actionable Advice
• 75 Humour Blogs That’ll Make You Laugh Until You Cry
• 63 Productivity Pros That Always Have the Best Tips

Note: If you’re new to keyword research, Matt‘s got your back.

Step 2: Finding The Experts

Experts and pro blogs…

They’re practically everywhere. So it shouldn’t be too hard to find them.

So open up a new word doc or spreadsheet and begin.

Here’s how to set it up:

• Name
• Website/Blog URL
• Email
• Number of Social Followers
• Notes

The easiest (and obvious) way to find your experts is to do some Google searches.

You can search for posts that are similar to the one you’re about to do. Use these:

• top “industry” blogs
• top “industry” bloggers
• top “industry” experts
• top “industry” influencers

You could even search for something related to your industry.

For example, say you’re in the beginner-blogging niche.

You’d search for terms like:

• how to start a blog
• how to make money blogging
• blogging for beginners
• how to get traffic
• how to write a blog post

And the first 20 or so results are most likely pro blogs.

Alltop is another great site you can go to for finding your industry’s pros.

How?

First, head over to their homepage and enter your blog topic into the search bar.

Then, it’ll give you some results. Choose the one that is or related to yours.

This will bring up Alltop’s category for that term and all its relevant websites.

Most sites that are submitted to and accepted by Alltop are quality sites. They don’t accept anything spammy. So the ones you choose should be the real deal.

The last way I’ll show you is perhaps the best. Buzzsumo.

Head over to their homepage, enter your blog topic and hit the “Amplifications” link at the top of the page.

This will bring up influencers (experts) in your niche that are doing great on Twitter.

This is awesome for you.

This means they have a very active and engaged Twitter following you can tap into.

Remember:

You’ll need to find their first/last name, email address and the number of social followers.

How many experts should I feature? you ask.

50 is a great number. So is 75. 100.

10, 20, 25, 30 and 40 are all pretty sweet, too.

I would recommend, though, going with a bigger list. Like the one I did at Blogging Aid that featured 50.

If you’re in a smaller industry/niche, though, then 10 to 25 is fine.

How do you choose who’s in and who’s out?

The key to this is featuring pros who have a large and/or engaged social media following.

To find this out, you’ll simply take a look at their social profiles.

Person in Image: @ZacJohnson

If they’ve got thousands of followers, then that’s awesome.

But say they don’t have a huge following. Maybe they only have 750 followers.

Then you would look at their social posts.

If they get likes, reshares and/or comments, then that’ll tell you they have a very engaged following.

Which means when he shares your post, his followers will be more likely to click through to your post.

So, when you get a good number of people to feature, you’ll have to get to know them a little bit. This is so you’ll know what to write in the next step.

Read their about pages, their start here pages and their popular posts.

You could also find out what their best categories are.

Let’s back it up…

Before you move onto the next step, complete these tasks:

• Find their first and last name – you can find this on their about page, on any of their posts, or their author box
• Find their URLs – easy peasy
• Find their email address – you can find this by subscribing to their email list. Their email address should be in the “From” area
• Find the number of their followers – you can find this out by visiting their profiles
• Find their most popular posts and/or categories – you can find these in their sidebars OR by browsing through their blog pages. Tip: Enter their URL into Buzzsumo (it’ll bring up their most shared content)
• Get to know them a little bit – read some of their posts, the about me page, social profiles and anything where they share details about themselves. You can use this for when you’re writing out your egobait list post

Remember, add everything to your list. And you’ll have something that’ll start to look like this:

Step 3: Putting It All Together

This is where the fun really starts to begin.

So the first thing to do is to create an outline of your post using an h2 and some h3 subheading tags.

This will make your ELP 10x more easy to write.

For your list, you have 2 options:

• Categorize – if your list is humongous and broad (ex: Robbie Richards’ 80 Online Marketing Experts)
• Alphabetical – if you want an easier time (like what I did)

Now, if you’re going to categorize your list, use h2 for the category title and h3 for the expert’s or blog’s name.

If you’re going alphabetical, then you’ll only need 1 h2 tag (for where you announce the “top X blogs/experts).

As for the list items (your experts/blogs), they’ll each need:

• A subheading with their name
• A small headshot of the blogger – must be all the same width
• A short summary of the blog/expert – you could also give your opinion
• A link back to their blog OR blog post(s)

Another thing you could add is a small “at a glance” section at the top (right below the subheading and above the short summary).

To even go 1up, you can use the easy-to-use Thrive Content Builder for creating something beautiful.

Step 4: Reaching Out

This step is crucial. It’s a must.

If you don’t reach out to the people featured in your egobait, they’re not going to know about your post.

Which means no shares and no traffic.

So, how do you reach out to the experts?

It’s actually much easier than it sounds. So don’t be intimidated.

You have 2 options:

(Remember in step 2 where you searched for their email addresses? Great.

If you couldn’t find it, you can either use this tool, this tool, their contact forms or scroll down to option 2.)

Option #1: Email Outreach

Start by including the expert’s name in the subject line of the email. You can say something like, “Hey Matt, featured you in my post…”.

Then, the greeting…”Hey Matt,”. And please, always use their first name.

Now, for the body.

You’ll want to make it as short as you can. These are experts. They’re extremely busy people. They got s*** to do, alright?

Here’s what I sent to the people I featured:

It’s short. It’s to the point. And you know what, it’s the email that got the most replies.

But try not to copy every word in every email (be yourself).

Note: See this post for more help on writing emails.

Option #2: Social Media Outreach

This one’s a lot easier.

All you do here is share your post on Twitter directly from your post (your share buttons) and @ mention a couple of your experts.

You could also @ mention them in the replies.

Or even tweet them the link or send them a message via chat.

ATTENTION: Unlock Matthews 6 Figure Blogging Resources Instantly – Click Here

Wrapping It Up

Blog traffic is hard to come by these days. Especially if your blog isn’t that old.

Sometimes you’ll even do everything you’re supposed to, but still…no traffic.

But, with the egobait list post traffic strategy, you can drive hundreds of people to your blog in just a few days.

The ELP at a glance…

• Come up with a banging headline.
• Find and choose your experts or pro blogs.
• Create your ELP.
• Reach out to everybody you mentioned.

Follow this 4-step guide and you’ll be seeing traffic and shares in no time.

If you have any questions, I’ll see you in the comments below.

from Matthew Woodward http://ift.tt/1LjiAsq