Publicity-Producing Posts Pull People

Organic traf­fic is a fan­tas­tic source of vis­i­tors that’s often ignored by many marketers.

Search engines change all the time and many of them now charge for the priv­i­lege of includ­ing your web­site. So, peo­ple often ask me how to gen­er­ate traf­fic, beyond the search engines and with lit­tle to no cost.

Let me be can­did by say­ing that I am not a search engine expert, nor do I play one on TV. But there are two meth­ods that I’ve used con­sis­tently to attract thou­sands of qual­i­fied hits to my web­site at vir­tu­ally no cost and with very lit­tle effort.

Granted, everyone’s dif­fer­ent. And these tech­niques may not be appro­pri­ate for every­one. How­ever, let me share what works for me and what I do, along with a few tips.

My biggest organic traf­fic gen­er­a­tor is con­tent marketing.

Namely, there are two categories:

1. Post­ing con­tent on social net­works, includ­ing blogs, blog com­ments, forums, social net­work­ing sites, dis­cus­sion lists, and of course, my own blog;
2. Con­tribut­ing con­tent, such as writ­ing arti­cles or reports, and sub­mit­ting them to ezines, mag­a­zines, direc­to­ries, and guest con­tri­bu­tions on other people’s blogs.

Now, let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Cav­ing In To The Con­tent Craze

Blog­ging is not new, but it’s still an incred­i­bly pow­er­ful traf­fic gen­er­a­tion tool on many lev­els — either because search engines regard blogs as hav­ing fresher, higher qual­ity con­tent, or because of the inter­nal blog func­tions, such as ping­ing and trackbacks.

The won­der­ful thing about blogs is that it enables you to not only post con­tent favor­able that the search engines will love, but also attract qual­i­fied, loyal read­ers to your blog and build a size­able list, rather than the other way around.

(For instance, unlike sub­mit­ting your arti­cle to an email newslet­ter, which has to go through an amaz­ing gaunt­let of spam fil­ters to reach its des­ti­na­tion, blog­ging, com­ment­ing on blogs, and guest blog­ging reach wider audi­ences eager for your content.)

But the most effec­tive use of a blog is to post your own articles.

Doing so offers a panoply of advantages.

For one, it helps you to archive your arti­cles, mak­ing them eas­ier to access. But it also makes your arti­cles search-​​engine friendly, cre­ates and cements rela­tion­ships with your read­ers, projects social author­ity, and sub­tly pro­motes your prod­ucts or services.

In fact, some blog­gers use their blogs specif­i­cally to pub­lish reviews of prod­ucts of which they’re affil­i­ates. Hon­est, com­pre­hen­sive reviews pro­vide not only the best click­throughs but also a higher per­cep­tion of objec­tiv­ity than a self-​​serving saleslet­ter or article.

In other words, unlike a hyped-​​up arti­cle that appears overtly pro­mo­tional, a review also demon­strates your exper­tise and will­ing­ness to share your thoughts on an impor­tant idea or break­through. It pro­motes both the prod­uct, and you as an expert authority.

Granted, recent FTC guide­lines now force you to dis­close your rela­tion­ships, such as when you con­duct a review of a prod­uct of which you’re an affil­i­ate or if you received a free copy to review. But the objec­tiv­ity is still con­sid­er­ably higher than an out­right pitch.

Ulti­mately, use con­tent as a means of edu­cat­ing and serv­ing your read­ers. That way, it doesn’t seem to be a bla­tant attempt to push your wares or shame­lessly self-​​promote, but viewed as a gen­uine attempt to edu­cate, help, and engage others.

The more help­ful and self­less you appear, the more authen­tic and author­i­ta­tive you become — and the more sales you will gen­er­ate as a result, almost as a byproduct.

Con­tent As Con­ver­sa­tion Pieces

Social media and pop­u­lar social net­work­ing sites, like Face­book, Twit­ter, and LinkedIn, are def­i­nitely areas you want to engage oth­ers in and pub­lish help­ful con­tent to.

But aside from their pop­u­lar­ity, let’s not for­get old-​​school social media as well.

For exam­ple, dis­cus­sion groups, mes­sage boards, and email dis­cus­sion lists, in which you par­tic­i­pate in con­ver­sa­tion with oth­ers, are excel­lent traf­fic gen­er­a­tors. Inter­act­ing on these are a great way to share your knowl­edge and estab­lish your expertise.

But as a reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pant, post­ing to a dis­cus­sion forum by reply­ing to a thread or respond­ing to a ques­tion can show­case your tal­ents, skills, and knowl­edge. How­ever, one tech­nique I use is to post full-​​length arti­cles on them, if and when appropriate.

First, you have to mon­i­tor the board to see what kind of posts there are to ensure that your arti­cle is accept­able. Or bet­ter yet, review the guide­lines before you submit.

Usu­ally, there is a char­ter or a set of rules that the board will have pub­lished some­where on the web­site or in the forum. Read them before you do any­thing. (If not, email the mod­er­a­tor just to be sure. You want them to be on your side, not against it.)

But here’s a tip. Usu­ally, dis­cus­sion boards are con­ver­sa­tional in tone and, as such, are not places for post­ing whole arti­cles. How­ever, while many of them do accept full-​​length arti­cles, often in sec­tions ded­i­cated to them, don’t go post­ing full arti­cles right away.

A more effec­tive and accept­able way is to use your arti­cles as a means of sup­port­ing your ideas and argu­ments in other con­ver­sa­tions, thus sav­ing time and space.

You do this by adding links back to your site within your posts, when and where appro­pri­ate. If you main­tain an online archive of arti­cles or a blog of your own, you can cer­tainly include links to spe­cific web pages as a way to back up your contributions.

In fact, most mod­er­a­tors I know pre­fer this since you keep posts brief and to the point, and you don’t del­uge the forum with long posts that may appear as overbearing.

An obvi­ous ben­e­fit is that you don’t appear overtly pro­mo­tional, and you get peo­ple to visit your site in the same breath. (I’ve had more traf­fic from links within my posts than with my sig­na­ture files or bylines — a byline is an article’s “about the author” section.)

Another ben­e­fit is that some forums are opti­mized for the search engines. There­fore, posts as well as links back to your web­site increase link pop­u­lar­ity, and con­se­quently your rank­ings, as a nat­ural byprod­uct. This is true of most pub­lic dis­cus­sion forums.

A thing to remem­ber, though, is that most mod­er­a­tors do not accept bla­tant adver­tise­ments — your post must avoid being too engrossed in your busi­ness or prod­uct, or being copi­ously filled with links to your site. This goes for your sig­na­ture file, too.

A sig­na­ture file must be just a few lines long. How­ever, an effec­tive one doesn’t just iden­tify the poster but also com­mu­ni­cates her unique sell­ing propo­si­tion, and offers some­thing of value that a reader can really take advan­tage of and get some­thing from.

Peo­ple are instinc­tively curi­ous. So, if you offer some­thing in your sig­na­ture file, prefer­ably for free, peo­ple will visit your site — if not for the free­bie, they will do so at least out of curios­ity. Your link will invite far more click­throughs than a mere web­site address.

For exam­ple, I offer a freely down­load­able ebook. When I add this free­bie to my byline, or even just an invi­ta­tion to join my free ezine or to obtain a free quote for my copy writ­ing or cri­tiquing ser­vices, traf­fic goes up dramatically.

A sig­na­ture file is not meant to get peo­ple to visit your site but meant to give peo­ple a good rea­son to do so — and to get them do some­thing while they’re there, whether it’s to join, sub­scribe, down­load, fill out a form, email, buy, call, read fur­ther, you name it.

I call this “direc­tional mar­ket­ing,” since good copy, par­tic­u­larly within a byline, is more than just for direct mar­ket­ing. It also points them in the right direc­tion, and leads them to do some­thing. It’s more than just “here’s my web­site and this is what I do.”

(If that’s all there is, then why should I click it? Who cares, in other words?)

Bottom-​​line, don’t just post to inform. Post to invite.

Wanna Be Pro­lific? Pass It Around!

Newslet­ters, ezines, and their pub­lish­ers are very sim­i­lar to dis­cus­sion boards and their mod­er­a­tors — in other words, the same rules apply when sub­mit­ting arti­cles to them.

Same thing with guest blog­ging. You’d be sur­prised by how many highly traf­ficked blogs out there are con­stantly on the look­out for fresh, unique con­tent they can blog about.

Check with the edi­tor, pub­lisher, or blog owner for sub­mis­sion guide­lines. Or check with the web­site on which the ezine or blog appears. They will tell you what is accept­able or what they’re look­ing for. They might have a page ded­i­cated to sub­mis­sions, too.

Often, it is best to actu­ally sub­scribe to the ezine or blog as to get a fla­vor of what arti­cles are being pub­lished before you sub­mit one of your own. And it’s also impor­tant to find out if it tar­gets your mar­ket, as you want to appear in front of qual­i­fied eyeballs.

In many cases, by sub­scrib­ing you will get the email address of the edi­tor, blog­ger, or pub­lisher. Most of them seek fresh con­tent, and as a result will pub­lish an email address in the issue, or have a link on their web­site, to con­tribute your own content.

An effec­tive and often safer method is to hire a pub­li­cist to dis­trib­ute your arti­cles for you. That per­son may not only have a large num­ber of con­tacts, but also they have devel­oped solid rela­tion­ships and cred­i­bil­ity with editors.

My pub­li­cist mon­i­tors my blog for when I post new arti­cles. When I do, she takes them and then sub­mits them to ezine pub­lish­ers, arti­cle direc­to­ries, even offline magazines.

Never send your arti­cle as an attach­ment to an email.

Beyond the fact that such a prac­tice is annoy­ing, most edi­tors file their sub­mis­sions in a folder within their email pro­grams. And when they con­duct a search to retrieve arti­cles of a cer­tain topic or theme for their next pub­li­ca­tion, attach­ments will sim­ply be overlooked.

Choose pub­li­ca­tions, web­sites, and blogs whose read­ers log­i­cally fit into your tar­get mar­ket — whether or not they are the same is not impor­tant, as long as they fall into your tar­get mar­ket. Plus, there are tons of ezines focus­ing on every sub­ject imaginable.

Find­ing a topic-​​specific ezine is fine. But you can also find one whose sub­scriber­ship con­sists of peo­ple who fit into your tar­get mar­ket — and not one whose topic revolves around your spe­cific niche. Sim­ply fish where the fish swim.

Again, join the ezine to get a fla­vor of the con­tent and what they’re look­ing for, and to define the qual­ity of the read­er­ship, in advance, before you take the plunge.

Nev­er­the­less, keep this in mind: con­tent, whether it’s sub­mit­ted, syn­di­cated, pub­lished, or uploaded to a blog or web­site is the most pow­er­ful client attrac­tion mag­net there is.

“Con­tent is king,” they say. True, but it’s incomplete.

A king (or queen) is irrel­e­vant if there are no sub­jects or king­dom to rule over.

In other words, make sure your con­tent appears in from of loyal sub­scribers and qual­i­fied leads, and use the con­tent to indi­rectly pro­mote your skills, your cred­i­bil­ity, your knowl­edge, your author­ity, and above all, your will­ing­ness to help oth­ers.

About the Author

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