Now that you know how to get a ton of traffic from social media, you need to prepare to make the most of it, if and when it happens. Visitors that reach you this way behave differently from people who were directed to your site via search engine, or from a link on another related site. These are a fickle bunch, and you have to adapt to their behavior. Her are just a few ideas:
CPM Ads
One thing I’ve noticed is that StumbleUpon traffic generates poor CTR. They just don’t like clicking on Adsense. This may be because they are more Internet-savvy than the average surfer, or maybe the Stumble toolbar button just makes it so convenient to hop from one site to the next. You have about 5-10 seconds to grab their attention, or they move on to the next. A good way to monetize this traffic is to look for banner advertisers that pay per impression, so that all those pageviews count.
Feed Subscriptions
Having a deluge of targeted visitors is a great opportunity to increase your subscriber base. If you got them interested on your post, they’ll look around for more. It’s important that you maintain a high level of quality for your site. A portion of that initial traffic will eventually come back to check out your new posts, and if they see that it’s consistent, they’ll sign up for updates. Your feed icon should be prominently displayed near the top for maximum effect. Then, it’s all up to you to keep them there.
Readership
Don’t stumble all the content you have, just the better ones. If your blog or site is fairly new, chances are these Stumblers or Diggers will be mostly fresh pairs of eyes. First impression is key. If they like what you have, they’ll come back and even tell others about it. Some people posted links to my site on different forums and in their own blogs. This exposure and word-of-mouth effect will give you an even broader readership.
Sometimes, you can actually have a cake and eat it, too. Here are a few free SEO resources for the earnest beginner, and those that just want to brush up their skills.
SEO Guides
Search Engine Dictionary – A lexicon of search engine terms, and a useful reference while you wade through the sea of SEO gobbledygook.
SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide – This guide provides a complete overview of many of the processes, techniques and strategies used by professional search engine optimization specialists.
SEO Tools
SEO Quake – A Firefox toolbar that gives you the PR of every page you browse and other info. It also integrates with Google search results, giving vital data on each.
GoogSpy – If you are interested in finding out what search terms your competition is ranked for or is adverting on, then this site will be a great tool for you.
SEOmoz Tools – A comprehensive set of tools for everything you could possibly need.
SEO Book Tools – Another compilation of tools, with free video tutorials.
SEO Blogs
SEOmoz Blog – SEOmoz provides companies around the world with consulting, Internet marketing and search engine optimization services.
Google Webmaster Blog – News and updates from the world’s most popular search engine.
Matt Cutts – One of the better known Google engineers talks about technology and search engine optimization.
SEO by the Sea – Maintained by Bill Slawski, Director of Search Marketing at Key Relevance.
SEO Forums
Webdigity – Webdigity is a discussion board for webmasters. You can discuss here anything relative to your website, from coding to promotion, seo and affiliate programs.
SEOchat Forum – Professional SEO and webmaster discussions forum. The forum is categorized into four different sections. Search Engines, directories, web design and development, and general chat.
High Rankings Forum – Search engine optimization forum by Jill Whalen. Great forum to ask her and different search engine marketing experts.
Cre8asite Forums – Cre8asiteForums.com covers Usability, User Interface, Website Design, Search Engine Optimization & Marketing, Internet Law, Blogs and more.
We’ve already discussed how to generate massive traffic from StumbleUpon referrals. They’re not particularly hard to do, but they do take a bit of time to master. Why bother?
1. Viral. Using StumbleUpon, you can produce rapid exposure for a website, blog, brand or a specific product. If you write a great article, posted eye-popping photos or an entertaining video, people can come pouring in in a matter of minutes.
2. Highly targeted. People who sign up to StumbleUpon choose the specific topics they want to see. Assuming you tag your submissions well, your audience will be an eager bunch who will be receptive as to what you have to say.
3. Long lasting. Unlike Digg which is more of a one time, big time deal, StumbleUpon traffic is normally more gradual. The effect can last for days or even weeks, and can even resurface months after you first submitted it.
4. Marketing tool. StumbleUpon ads can be good alternative to Google Adwords. For only $0.05 per impression, your page can be shown to StumbleUpon users like it’s just a normal part of the rotation when they click the toolbar. Be sure to package your page in a way that doesn’t come off too strong, to keep your audience interested. Look at the popular stumbled sites for ideas.
5. Backlinks. Once a user stumbles your site, the link becomes part of his or page. If many people do this, you’ll have a lot of instant backlinks which may help your PR.
6. Convenient. With the Stumble Upon toolbar, webpage submission has become incredibly easy. Also, since the pages you stumble become part of your personal StumbleUpon page, it can be used as a form of social bookmarking. It’s a great way to keep track and share them with others.
7. Fun. It’s not always about building traffic. Browsing around the StumbleUpon community, you’re likely to find cool sites you’d never have found otherwise. And, hey, use that toolbar. Click the “Stumble” button once and you’ll get hooked – guaranteed.
Podcasting makes sense. By adding premium audio content on your blog, you become more than just another site on your niche. Since blogging has exploded like crazy, you need all the edge you could get. However, because podcasts are usually audio content, search engine spiders can’t crawl them as easily as they do blogs. Is it even possible to make your podcasts search engine friendly?
Fortunately, the answer is yes, and here’s how: 1. Name that tune – Think of a good keyword-rich title for your show.
2. Future-proof today – MP3 files have ID3 tags which you can embed with relevant keywords. These include title, artist/author, comments and URL fields. Only a few search engines can read the ID3 tags now, but in the future, this will likely be a standard search parameter.
3. Summarize – Write a synopsis of each podcast show and blog about it. As with basic SEO practice, important keywords should be as high up in the blog post as possible.
4. Transcribe – While we wait for the ideal future when search engines can understand audio, right now the work has to be done manually. Find a good transcription service provider. Divide the transcript up into sections, and give each of them related keyword-rich titles. If it’s a long interview, you can put each section on a separate page.
5. Directories – Submit your podcast site to specialized podcast directories and search engines such as audio.weblogs.com.
6. Publicize – Be sure to let people know that you have a podcast. Not everybody has one, which makes you especially linkworthy than a run-of-the-mill blog.
7. Reach outdownload e rotic 1999 mambo no sex – You may love hearing your voice, but it’s always best to give your show some variety. From time to time, it wouldn’t hurt to do an interview, particularly if you can convince people who already some street cred in your niche. Don’t worry, though, they would usually jump at the opportunity to be featured. It’s mutually beneficial.
Try these out. Once you get going, I’m sure you’ll come up with your own creative strategies.
Whenever social network traffic is discussed, it seems Digg always comes up. While it can be a very powerful tool to drive massive traffic, that’s only true if you get on the first page, which is quite difficult, and when you do, it’s usually short-lived. StumbleUpon, in contrast, can give you considerable amount of traffic easier, which can go on for days, if not weeks. Sound good? Let’s get started:
1. Register. Become a StumbleUpon member and install their toolbar. This will allow you to stumble sites effortlessly. Just click on the thumbs up icon if you like a site, or thumbs up if you don’t. This is also the simplest way to submit your pages. If it’s the first time a page has been stumbled, a window will appear asking for a short review of the page content, among other things. Fill ‘em up and you’re good to go.
2. Tag ‘em. Make sure that you tag your submissions with relevant keywords. Specific tags are the key to bringing you targeted StumbleUpon traffic. This also increases your chances of people clicking the thumbs up button, since you’re sure users who’ll see it signed up to view your kind of content. However, be careful about being too specific that your post can only reach a handful of audience. In the absence of a hard and fast rule, it’s best to experiment.
3. Pimp your profile. When you submit a page, sometimes other Stumblers check out your profile before deciding whether to give their thumbs up approval. A blank profile won’t look right, as you might be thought of as a spammer. So fill up all the things you need to and give yourself instant street credibility.
4. Make friends. Once you start submitting, try to see who stumbled your pages, and then thank them. It’s a great way to make friends, and you do owe them that much for helping to send you traffic. Better yet, stumble the pages they’re submitted as well. You can also look for profiles with interests similar to you, add them as friends. Within StumbleUpon, you can have up to 200.
5. Socialize. To have a wider reach within the StumbleUpon community, try to join user groups, especially those that are related to your niche and interests. Group members usually look up each other’s stumbled pages. Another thing is that StumbleUpon rewards the most active group members by placing their clickable icons on the group’s front page.
6. Give back some love. Submitting only pages from your site will eventually get noticed. This will put another blemish on your reputation. It’s a give and take process. Stumble other pages frequently. If the pages you’ve stumbled and submitted are well-received by other people, you’ll be highly regarded within the community, and they’ll be likely to follow your lead.
SEO experts suggest that 80% of a site’s search engine ranking depends on backlinks, while only 20% is based on on-page optimization. Given this lopsided preference for backlinks, a lot of site owners go on massive link-building campaigns. But don’t just get yourself links left and right, my friend. There’s more to backlinks than having the numbers.
1. Quality over Quantity
The more, the merrier – correct? Well, not always. Sites with 10 good backlinks can beat others with 1000 or more backlinks. How? See, with Google, each webpage has its own Page Rank, a measure of its popularity. If you get backlinks from a few sites with PR7 or higher, chances are you’ll get ahead of a site that has hundreds of backlinks from PR0 pages. Choose wisely.
2. Relevance
Sites giving you backlinks should be relevant to your own site’s content. For example, if you blog about pop music in Asia, your backlinks should ideally be on sites that are also about music, the Asian region, or both. Having links from sites about gaming will not do you much good, I’m afraid.
3. Keywords
Every link has an anchor text. That’s the word or phrase that people click to go to your website. The best anchor texts are keywords or key phrases that people use to look for sites like yours. In the example above, a good anchor text would be “Asian pop music”. If you’re starting out, choose keywords that are not very competitive. This way, you’ll have a greater chance of landing on the first page.
4. Directories
A popular way to start link-building campaigns is to submit to directories. However, submissions to popular directories usually take months before they get approved because of the volume of applications. Time is money, so plan ahead. You can also submit your site to the smaller directories, especially those that cater to your niche. Other than this being more relevant linkage, you’ll probably get approved much faster.
Software & Support Verlag’s website Create or Die is a very popular informative web portal in Germany. They have arranged a valuable web design award program for the first time called “Webinale 2008.” So far 30 websites has been nominated for Webinale 2008 Most Valuable Website Design Award, under 3 different categories. The categories are 1) Most Valuable Business website, 2) Most Valuable Design Website, and 3) Most Valuable Development website. Winner from each category will get 5,000 Euros (+ some more extra benefits).
There won’t be any Jury for selecting the winner. Only visitor of the nominated sites can come to Create or Die’s website and vote for their chosen site. Based on the online votes, on 27 May 2008 the award will be given.
Still anyone can nominate their site by going here (oops! The language is not English, try Google Translator ).
You can find out the nominees and vote for them by going here.
In every blog’s life, there comes a time when traffic is a little lower, and comments are harder to come by. Usually it’s all part of a cycle. Just keep going and eventually, things go back to the way they were. But what if they don’t? If the dark clouds have been hanging around too long, you may have to reassess your game plan. Shake things up a bit. Here are a few suggestions: (more…)
Years ago, getting high quality stats software meant shelling out major dollars. Things have improved a lot for webmasters, and bloggers in particular. Free statistical counters are available left and right, but not all of them are created equal. Different packages have different features, and come with different learning curves. How do you choose the best one for you? (more…)
Most web stat counters today can extract the location of a site’s visitors. Some can drill them down to countries, while others can go as far as specific cities. Now comes the WIIFM, or “what’s in it for me?” If you know where your audience sits and clicks to find your website, what should you do to take advantage of it? (more…)
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