The initial idea about a blog was that it could represent a place where its owner or administrator posts his thoughts, opinions or any news considered by him as being worthy. The readers are allowed to share their agreements/disagreements, usually in the form of the comments.

Unfortunately (only for some and fortunately for many of us), the Internet hasn’t been for long an easy way to exchange information as it was initially designed; it is an interactive world-wide community and, at the same time, it turns into a prospective economical market. It is not such a big surprise but almost 75% of the blogs have been created because of the possibility to bring some extra money to the owners (but very few really do it!).

Surely, the profit coming from blogs hasn’t guaranteed expensive trips to Hawaii for the owners, but this income can represent an important percentage of the overall income. Launching a blog isn’t an easy task and the road to make money from it is very difficult, usually only the guys with a strong passion and with a lot of patience get to the point of deriving considerable profit from it. In a great measure, the money obtained are in direct relationship with the traffic, the number of visitors per unit of time (day, week, month); having more money is a must, to constantly increase the number of visitors and also to have a good number of visitors.

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Effective Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic

Here, I have proposed a list of tips which could be easily followed to increase the traffic to ones blog. Surely, the ways to gain more traffic should be correlated with the type of website and the target readers. The strategy to obtain more traffic to a website who gives advice to new mothers is different from the one chosen for a website that is launched to present the latest novelties in the IT industry. A good classification of traffic is usually made in constant parts and consists of the visitors who visit the website on a regular basis and the traffic received mostly due to the search engines, when the surfer writes something in the search box and he/she is directed to the website. Definitely, the first kind is more welcomed and the last one should be converted to it.

1. Hire a Good SEO and/or Internet Marketer

It is obvious that making a profit from a blog is a matter of time, it can’t be launched today and tomorrow to have a cheque of $1000. The quality of the posts or the subjects is not so important if the blog hasn’t a complete and sustainable marketing strategy.

The happiest case is when the admin of the blog has solid background in the SEO and Internet marketing fields, or else it is recommended to hire somebody who has knowledge about blogs, but has at the same time a good entrepreneurial spirit who regards the blog as a serious affair. Apparently, hiring a person who is not a writer and doesn’t post on your blog, doesn’t make sense but thinking this way is completely wrong. The job of a SEO or Internet marketer specialist is very complex and lots of books have been written on this subject. Their primordial purpose is to bring a greater audience which as I previously said means more money! It isn’t hard to notice that you obtain profit when the extra traffic obtained by the specialist you hired is higher than his payment.

In a nutshell, to be competitive and to have a positive trend regarding the traffic, it is required to ask a specialist for his or her services. A common mistake is to lose patience and think that the idea isn’t good enough; ensuring good traffic is a long term project and only very few find a shortcut and reach a high number of visitors in a small period of time.

2. Choose a Niche which could Bring a Great Number of Visitors

This step should be taken into account before launching the blog but small transformations can be made after that as well. Before launching the blog, it might be a smart move to study the market and the necessities of the surfers.

Let’s take a theoretical example: suppose that, in Dreamland, during a month last year, the Internet users have searched for the expression “web design” on search engines for 1000 times and for “social media” only 200 times. In this case, launching a blog related to web design is a good opportunity, but let’s also suppose that this year the situation has changed significantly – “web design” is searched for 900 times per month (a dropping) and “social media” for 400 times (a major increase). From this situation, the administrator of the blog should understand that it is very important to study the phenomenon of “social media” and, if the results reveal that it is a growing and stable entity, it will be wise to insert some posts about social media and ask the readers about their opinions. It depends more on the reaction of the public; if they enjoy the posts about social media, it is for the best to have a menu for it, else try other domains connected to web design. On the other hand, don’t forget the primary topic, web design and always post cool articles, full of interesting pieces of information. Recently, when I randomly navigated online, I have seen, on a very important blog which has very good posts about web design and development, at the end of a post, a question for the readers, if they would like to see more articles about 3D and visualization.

Google trends is an inestimable resource which demonstrates why the admin posted that question; 3d is a growing term when it comes to the searches of the users. The trend can be influenced by the searches of the users who want to find more information about 3D television but the volume of searches is too big to neglect.

3. Post Only Quality

A blog which is well promoted and has as main topic a good niche, with a lot of potential readers, isn’t quite a sure affair; there is a big difference between having lots of readers and having regular readers, only the last one are the health base of your source of income. Attracting people to your blog is difficult enough but it is very easy, compared to maintaining the readers. On the Internet, there are many similar resources and valuable blogs that always represent a potential danger, even if you are a loyal reader, there is still high a chance that you could abandon a certain blog for another.

Which is the key factor when it comes to obtaining and maintaining a considerable number of visitors? The answer is simple, but hard to put it into practice: the quality of the posts! Gaining the recognition of a blog with correct pieces of information, relevant posts, awesome sources of inspiration will bring you the status of authority and will certainly represent an indicator of your quality. Usually, people are looking for authority blogs because they are feeling safe and sure on these.

4. Be Focused on a Specific Topic But Entertain a Large Palette of Subjects

A blog should have a topic, a core idea on which the posts are based; in fact this idea is the “glue” for most people, if not all. There are two possibilities for developing the blog:

• Possibility 01- Posting articles from the same niche and only rarely from other interconnected domains is a dangerous solution, but when it realizes a strong community who enjoys everyday updates, then it is definitely the key of success. Usually, people aren’t very pro and they like reading the articles which have many novelties for them, but not with too many details, because they become bored and don’t have the patience to finish it. All over the world, there are very good specialists who are able to make any effort to read and understand your written creations; making your blog visible for them, having your latest posts emailed to them, ensures you a true and elitist public. Another advantage is the fact that your blog has become an authority and part of the elite; take this example, it is a big difference when you see that Steve Jobs or Bill Gates recommend a blog or like a post on Facebook and when a friend of yours, a lover of design, but by far not a specialist, shared a link with you. Having a brand as an elitist blog is a hard work and it takes a lot of time and work.
• Possibility 02- Posting articles from a main topic, but having posts at the same time that cover other similar domains. It is an easier way to gain some audience because the targeted segment of people is wider. Most blogs use this convenient scheme, but it guarantees a way to change the main topic in the case of lack or a serious dropping of traffic. Another huge advantage that comes with a flexible approach of the subjects is that your blog can stay connected to the latest trends and, in this way, it can bring more people, especially the ones who want to know what is new and cool.

5. Be Communicative and Helpful with Your Readers

Between a blogger and even the admin of the website there should be a very close liaison with the public; probably, the ultimate reward for any owner of a blog is to have a community around him and not a pale audience. A well known blogger can make a blog famous and it is natural for any admin to hire the best bloggers who are able to make more traffic, mostly due to the quality of the writings.

But quality is in vain if there isn’t a strong dialogue between the writers and the readers; it is wonderful for any reader to know that if he doesn’t understand something, all what he has to do is to put his issue in a comment and somebody will offer to him a clear and quick explanation. A blog is an example of interactivity and it means the old idea that somebody puts a piece of information online and others are reading it is wrong, nowadays everything is open and the possibilities of exchanging opinions are multiple. I don’t know the true ideas behind a blog and the expectations when it was firstly launched but, in my opinion, a blog is awesome because it makes any user part of a community or a great family; nobody is following anybody, we are all sharing a common passion. This feeling is very approachable and instantly connects people all around the world and traffic doesn’t mean only a lot of viewers, it means also a great family which is reading your posts and debates about it. This kind of public is required to have success, or else your audience doesn’t have a solid foundation and you should wait for a serious drop down from any moment to the other.

A very good indicator of the direction taken by a blog is the appreciation on various social networks. A normal way of growing supposes that the firsts posts having almost zero appreciation (zero retweets, zero likes on Facebook and so on), but along the time the distribution on social networks should have some sign of success in the form of several retweets, a good presence on Stumble Upon etc. The power of social media consists in the speed of distributing something which deserves it and it could be a magic potion for any blog. To conclude, there are two huge advantages regarding social media:

• An indicator of the progress of the blog, the most distributed the blog is, the more readers it has;
• A truly super power which could attract lots of visitors which are attracted by the opinions of the friends.

6. Offer the Readers as Many Giveaways as You Can

Another interesting possibility to obtain a higher number of visits is to offer quality giveaways. If you want to see a proof of this fact, please visit a couple of blogs and see that the great majority are doing this kind of advertisement. Mostly, at the end of the year we all are offering gifts and of course the online medium should respect the trends of the real world. To offer a good giveaway at the end of the year is advantageous because, usually, people are occupied with a lot of activities and neglect the time spent reading blogs, but the power of gaining something which is important attracts any reader and in the worst case the traffic is maintaining unless it is rising.

7. Always be Open to New Ideas

The web is very dynamic and any person who can’t maintain this rhythm is ignored; this fact is also true for a blog, it should be dynamic, ready to be taken to the next level. Usually the Inbox of an owner of a good blog is full with new proposals of guest postings, link exchanges or any small affairs. It is obvious that many of these emails are not important but a small percentage of them could turn into a good deal. I honestly believe that any new potential blogger should be treated seriously because the competition is a positive fact in all the activities. On the other hand, a link exchange can be positive in the optimization process. Reading all the emails with new proposals is a loss of time in most cases, but they can’t be ignored due to the fact that some of them are truly good opportunities.

8. Pay Attention to the Way of Monetization of the Blog

This is a very important aspect even if it is presented in the end. The advertising field is suffering a big revolution; nowadays, having a promo in prime time of a television isn’t a necessary and sufficient condition to have good sales. Today, there are a lot of possibilities and solutions but none can guarantee a positive result. As a primary consequence of this radical change, the Internet has become a very appetizing market and all the websites are full with places with a lot of banners, many of them are placed almost randomly and without any sense of aesthetics. It really doesn’t matter how somebody has chosen the best modality of monetization (paid banner placement, affiliate marketing), but try to not hurt the blog with these. We all know that the more banners one adds, the more chances one has to gain money, but sometimes less is more and many times many banners lead to less money because the traffic is lowered. The huge majority of the users are really irritated by the flashy banners that don’t let them find and read the content. The moment when the admin decides to start monetizing the blog is very important, nobody has a secret recipe, but it is better to launch it after the blog has assured a good number of visitors.

I strongly emphasize that nobody should put the sign of equality between more money and the traffic received. The ways of making money from a blog are very different and various, some pay a small fee when a user clicks on a banner, others pay when a transaction is recorded. A good income from a blog isn’t only the direct result of the quality of the posts; it is also the art of monetization of a blog, an art of the present with a great development in the next years (personal opinion).Please let me know your opinion about what we should do to gain a better audience!

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