I feel like kicking myself over and over again. At least my Jeet Kune Do training will be of some use. Sometimes the simplest things can increase traffic tremendously. And I am mad at myself for not doing it sooner.
Do you know that most of your blog readers would definitely have some kind of social media account? It could be Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus or maybe something else. Why not? Don’t you have a social media account with any of those websites? I bet you do. Because you are a blogger, a part of a blogger natural skill is to network online. And social media is a no-brainer thing.
If you have a social media account, why don’t your readers?
And because of that, you could easily be increasing traffic to your blog if you simply add a simple way for your existing readers to share your website with their friends.
I am going to tell you how – including a little ninja technique along with that will get more of your readers to share your website with their friends. (this guy does JKD and now he’s a ninja?)
I am sure you have seen it on other websites. You see little icons and buttons with logos of most common social media sites. Those little things are so tempting to click on. Especially when the blog that you read really captures your attention and you feel that this is worth sharing.
And when you click on them, the URL of the page that you are reading instantly appears on your Facebook Wall, or maybe just got Re-Tweeted it on Twitter.
Well, if you are using WordPress, there a really easy way to do that. You can simply add a plugin to your blog. And I recommend Socialize.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/socialize
Now, this part of the ninja thingy.
With Socialize, you can simply add buttons to major social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in each of your blog post instantly. It will appear in little buttons with the share count. Of course the share count starts with zero, indicating nobody has shared your blog post. But the share count itself acts like a reason to click on because you feel like you are obligate to get the numbers up.
And here’s the ninja technique: when you have bigger number in those boxes, they tend to get shared a lot more. So here”s what you need to do. First install the Socialize WordPress plugin. Next share those blog posts yourself first, especially all the new ones you just created. Just make sure that the number in the box is not zero.
Now, the second part of the ninja technique to increasing your traffic with social media. With Socialize you can have the social media share button appears on the top right or at the bottom of the blog post. The one at the bottom is called the Call-To-Action box.
I want you to use the one that makes the buttons appear at the bottom. Because that is the best time to ask your readers to share your blog post with their friends. Well, in business, you got to ask for the things you want. If you want your readers to share your website, ask them to do it. And that is exactly what you are going to do.
Write a big headline calling the readers to do something after reading your blog post. It could be “Finished Reading? Now Do This…” or “Tell Your Friends”. You could test those out and see which works best for your blog. Well, blogs write about different things and communicate differently to different readers. I believe you know your readers best. So I am going to leave the call-to-action phrase to you. But make sure you do have a call-to-action. Customers are more likely to act when you tell them to.
Now don’t start saying that these are not really ground-breaking techniques, even though they aren’t. If you have not done this, do it. Give it a month and then compare your statistics from the previous month. You will be amazed.
When I did this at one of my old blog, traffic increased by 35%. I am not getting any new keyword rankings at Google. I wasn’t doing any new link building. But I am seeing a lot more traffic coming in from Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon.
Maybe it is your turn?
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By Iszuddin Ismail – Apart from helping businesses and online entrepreneurs get start blogging with his WordPress blog installation service, Iszuddin also shares his wisdom on how businesses can generate new leads, build stronger relationship and increase profits. http://blog.prowpinstall.com