List posts.
They sure are popular, aren’t they?
It’s one of the easiest ways to create a post, get shares, comments, and pats on the back.
But how many of you actually took those “21 Sure-Fire Ways to…“, “57 Best Resources for…“, or “11 Unbeatable Strategies to…” and USED them in your businesses?
You know why?
It gives us a lot of comfort to know that there are soooooo many incredible ways to build more traffic to our sites.
However, we get quickly overwhelmed by all the possibilities and choose the easiest way out: save the post “for later… when I have more time…“.
File it into the bottomless pit of all the posts we’ll never read again.
Looking at my Instapaper account, I’ve got hundreds of posts saved there – some dating all the way back to 2010.
Yep, all the stuff I’ve never touched since I put it to its final rest there. And never will.
So what’s my point?
- Stop reading list posts.
- Most of them (not all, of course) are a waste your time.
- The kind of time you don’t have.
- Find and focus on ONE starting point.
- Figure out how it works.
- Figure out how to put it into practice in YOUR business.
- Master it.
- Put it on autopilot.
- Move on to the next strategy.
So grab a cup of coffee (I’ve got mine) and let’s see what we can do about that traffic generation of yours.
Traffic Generation Starting Point
So you need more traffic.
Welcome to the club.
Now what?
Do you start with Neil Patel’s incredible Massive Guide to Getting Massive Traffic?
Sure, you’ll get a lot of ideas of what you can potentially do to increase your traffic.
So do you start with…
- writing a collection of ultimate guides to whatever?
- work on getting discovered by the big media?
- harnessing the power of Tumblr?
- Reddit?
- Pinterest?
- start designing infographics?
But how do you know which traffic generation strategy might be best for YOUR niche?
Side note: I am writing this post in hopes of giving you practical step-by-step guide to do ONE thing – discover your best current traffic source and work on multiplying that traffic.
Don’t file this post for later.
Do it now.
Step 1: The Discovery
I wrote about the basics of this strategy in my new social media traffic guide, but we’ll discuss it here in more depth.
The best way to increase your traffic is to find out which current traffic source has the potential to grow exponentially and focus on it exclusively.
Better a tanager in your hand, than a stork in the sky.
The easiest way to find your traffic tanager:
Google Analytics
Let’s take Oliver Tausend’s blog as an example here.
Here’s the screenshot of his current top 5 traffic sources:
(click on the image to enlarge)
Look at that: TGC is Oliver’s #5 traffic source… I should start charging him referral fees…
What we are looking for here:
- The top traffic generation source (naturally), that also has…
- …the most pages per visit and…
- …the highest average visit duration and….
- ….the lowest bounce rate.
This is not exact science, folks.
We are not going to spend all day analyzing the stats.
Take a quick look at the numbers and ballpark your conclusions.
How I’d analyze Oliver’s stats above
Let’s start with a side note first: Oliver’s bounce rate is unnaturally low.
If your bounce rate is in single digits, it doesn’t mean you are doing that well; sorry.
It just means that one way or another you managed to paste Google Analytics tracking code twice in your blog.
For instance, you embedded it into your theme manually, then installed Google Analytics plugin.
Or you have Google Analytics plugin running, plus All-in-One SEO pack – and added your tracking code to both.
How do you know for sure?
Look up the source code for your home page and see if it mentions the tracking code twice.
If you don’t know how to do it, check out my post about bounce rate for instructions.
In Oliver’s case, he is using two SEO plugins (WordPress SEO by Yoast and All-in-One SEO pack) and both of them contain his GA tracking code.
1. Most of his traffic comes as a result of direct visits.
To learn more about what direct traffic is and what value it brings to your blog, read Where Does Website Traffic Come From: Direct Traffic.
There’s not much we can do to actively increase our direct traffic.
It usually builds up naturally as we increase our brand presence and overall authority.
2. Facebook:
Looks promising.
The stats are good, the visitors seemed to stay a while and read a lot, which makes Facebook the perfect candidate for Oliver to focus on.
A word about Twitter: Twitter is not much of a traffic driver for Oliver’s blog. As of right now, it’s sitting in position #10.
Now it’s possible that if Oliver engages on Twitter more, then his traffic will increase.
However, remember what I said before:
Better a tanager in your hand, than a stork in the sky.
There’s no need to mess with Twitter at THIS point.
Focus on FB, learn to generate more traffic from it, and once you’ve mastered it and found ways to put it on autopilot, THEN move on to the next source like Twitter.
3. Google Organic traffic:
Search engine traffic is great, but it also takes time, knowledge, and consistency to start seeing results from it.
Plus with Google’s constant updates, it’s quite unreliable.
Not that you shouldn’t strive to increase your SEO traffic, but I’d do it in parallel to something that brings more consistent results a lot quicker.
4,5. Other blogs:
SEOlunatics.com and yours truly happen to be Oliver’s traffic sources #4 and 5.
Getting referral traffic from other blogs can certainly do wonders for your readership.
The usual ingredients to a successful referral traffic formula are:
EPIC CONTENT + RELATIONSHIPS + LUCK
Luck refers to being at the right place at the right time, like SEOlunatics.com.
I’ve never heard of them before, but now I’ll be sending them traffic simply because they happened to send some traffic to a friend of mine.
For an extra credit:
You can teach yourself how to write epic content.
-
- Read more:
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- To learn more about how to build profitable alliances:
Alexa.com
What if your Google Analytics just doesn’t give you enough data to work with?
What if you have a brand new blog or returning to blogging after a long break or haven’t really kick-started your traffic generation yet?
It’s hard to qualify what “enough” data is, but here’s a good example:
(click to enlarge)
This is a screenshot of Lou Barba’s Short Story Kitchen traffic sources.
Since we have such a small sample of traffic here, it’s hard to determine which one might be the most viable to focus on.
So we are going to take a look at some of Lou’s potential competitors via Alexa.com and see what their biggest traffic source is.
It stands to reason that, if one site in a specific niche drives a sizable amount of traffic from a source, then another site in the same niche should be able to do the same.
By the way, this technique only works for sites that generate enough traffic for Alexa to compile their data.
In Lou’s case, I looked up “short stories” in Google and found two potential competitors with enough traffic to analyze: short-fiction.co.uk and classicshorts.com.
How to Find the Right Data on Alexa.com
1. Go to http://www.Alexa.com.
2. Enter your competitor’s URL in the search window.
3. After the search is completed, scroll down just a bit and click on “Clickstream” tab.
4. You are done – it’s that easy.
In Lou’s case, both of the competitors I looked up are driving the majority of their traffic from Google.
If you click on “Search Analytics” tab in the screenshot above, you can also see which keywords bring the most traffic.
So, Lou – stop giving out tracks in the desert.
Your potential customers are looking for you on Google.
Time to kick up your SEO traffic.
My best potential traffic source
As I walk you through these steps of finally discovering and harnessing your best traffic source, I am actually right there with you figuring out where my next best traffic source is.
So here’s my Google Analytics screenshot:
Search engine traffic is currently my top traffic source.
This is a dangerous place to be.
Too much dependency on any one traffic source (especially when it’s as capricious as Google) could mean a quick downfall should it unexpectedly dry up.
My next traffic source (direct traffic) is great and will hopefully continue to go up as I continue to grow TGC.
Now comes the toss between the two social media platforms: Twitter and Facebook.
My traffic sources #4 and 5 are both Twitter-related. Those two sources combined yield more traffic than Facebook does.
However, I’ve worked on developing my Twitter traffic for a while now and got pretty good at it; so I feel it’s time to finally step up and start bringing in more FB traffic.
And thus, Facebook – here I come!
Step 2: The Learning Curve
Now that we know what traffic source is our best bet, it’s time to get down and dirty and learn everything we can about it.
Free Stuff
Much of the knowledge we need we can pick up from various bloggers working hard to help us grow our businesses for free.
When you visit those blogs that provide you with exceptional information, please make sure to return the favor: leave them comments, share their content, and yes, buy products via their affiliate links.
Paid Stuff
Sometimes, it’s much more efficient to find one exhaustive paid product on the subject, rather than spend too much time surfing the net putting it all together bits and pieces at a time.
Not that I have that many suggestions here, but most of the paid stuff I’ve used to build up Traffic Generation Café is listed here.
Trial and Error
No matter what you learn elsewhere, you won’t know it works for YOUR business until you put it into practice.
Some things that work incredibly great for other bloggers might be a complete flop with your audience.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
If something doesn’t work, get rid of it and try something else.
I know it sounds easier said than done, but this is the part that no one can really teach you – your business depends on how adaptable and creative you are.
Step 3: The Comfort Zone
Now that you know the new strategy works, you need to test it, tweak it, work on it until it becomes profitable.
By “profitable” I mean until you can make one cent more than what you put into it.
Step 4: The Autopilot
Yes, we are getting close.
Once you are making one more cent than you invest into any specific traffic source, you need to figure out how to put it on autopilot.
That might mean getting automated software or outsourcing the task altogether.
Step 5: Rinse and Repeat
After you complete all four steps, all you need to do is monitor the progress and move on to the next strategy.
Overtime, your sources will continue to grow and your business will start working as a well-oiled machine.
But remember, it all starts with ONE strategy and 4 simple steps to follow to make it work for YOU.
Off to learn more about Facebook,
I’m sorry…this is the third or fourth post I read on your blog…I was referred here by Kim over at buzz blogger. I am new and trying to learn how to grow my blog in a different niche…and soaking this in…
I am writing this because I LOVE the flow of your post…I love the tweet this breaks…matter of fact the way you use breaks with the custom quote that you made and linking to other posts is crazy COOL…I am so taking notes and going to incorporate this into what I’m doing…a majority of my posts are 1000-1500 word posts, so i need a way to break it up…
just writing to say thank you for displaying how to do this…and make it look so good…plus love your widgets…so good
Very kind of you, Phill; thanks for coming by.
I didn’t know about the double-widget bounce rate deal! I’ve removed the widget associated with one of them. If my Analytics still track traffic, I’ll keep it that way.
From what I see, my best kind of traffic is from Google by far (my music reviews, especially of “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)”, are responsible). Note to self: Set-up page for music reviews to funnel searchers into followers.
Direct traffic is second, followed by Tumblr. However, Tumblr is 3rd because a mid-list Tumblr blog linked me back in August, resulting in a spike of traffic in two hours that immediately faded out of the picture. Should I still pursue that?
Blogger and TV Tropes are next. The former is situational, while the latter is under control. DeviantART is sixth, but because my webcomic interview was linked by the author this week.
Twitter is seventh. Google+ (I think) is eighth. The Tumblr blog that linked me is ninth, and then good old StumbleUpon is tenth.
Hmm…so many paths…maybe I should deal with the music reviews first so they convert, and then figure out how to build my platform over at Tumblr. Does that sound good?
No point in driving traffic if it doesn’t convert, so I like your plan to start there.
I’ve never heard of Tumblr being a good traffic generator, but then again, I am no in your niche. Has that traffic converted well? If it has, then it’s definitely worth exploring.
Oh boy am I in deep doo – doo. I just looked at my traffic and its not looking pretty for me.
Although I get a lot of Organic traffic. It tends to be um… flighty with an average visit time of < 30 seconds.
I'll need to do what you suggest and find a social medium and start working it like crazy. Although I have Twitter and starting to get a lot of followers – I rarely get any referral traffic. So I'll focus on what is working instead of what isn't! For me it looks like Facebook is going to be where its at.
As for list posts? Those are what I create when I run out of ideas for things to write about. Although they can be informative? Most of the time they just end up being "fluff"
Well – wish me luck! Time to start campaigning at Facebook!
Facebook is what my focus is on as well, Jason, and I am actually enjoying it a lot more than Twitter.
At least, I can have a real conversation there….
Thank you Ana for your informative and helpful post !!
Although I haven’t seen a single-digit bounce rate for any of my clients , I am glad that I have learned something new 🙂
As far as the traffic is concerned, after reading your post, I checked the top 5 traffic sources for the website of the company I work for (www.net360.gr) and saw that the #1 traffic source is Google while at #2 to #5 I found sites made by the company. ( LinkedIn is found on #7, while facebook on #12)
So I guess I should focus mainly on traffic from Google ?
I’d check their competitors, Melina, to see if there’s a traffic source you might be missing out on.
If their competitors have a similar traffic scape, then Google is definitely the way to go.
My main problem with list posts is the fact that most of them lack in actual actionable substance, HP.
Just took notes. I need to do this. I’m chasing too many rabbits at once.
Ana you’re right. Find what is working for you and try to maximize it.
I think something is wrong with my Google Analytics account for my site. I don’t think I’m getting the right numbers. I’ll have to confirm that I don’t have the code duplicated on my site.
Anyway my inbuilt traffic tracking tool tells me my top 5 traffic refferals so far for the month are:
1. google.*
2. forums.sitesell.com.
3. blogging-the-beginners-complete-guide.com/
4. google.com/url
5. hotblogtips.com
Google has always been my top traffic referral since until recently all I do for traffic is SEO – Good keyword selection, page optimization and some backlinks.
But now I’m branching out a bit, socializing more.
I see you’re following up with your goal. I notice you update your FB page more now.
I recently created a FB page for my site which I’d always stayed away from because I see too many pages just existing but adding no value. But I realized now some social activities helps search ranking too. So I set one up. But I’m really not into it. I’ve only gotten 5 Likes.
What I have noticed works really well for Facebook pages to get more shares, comments and likes is to make lots of picture posts. Look for a good picture and write something cool on it related to the topic of your page.
Also write posts with a clear call to action. But the action it requires must be short and quick.
For example on another page I set up for a new site I’m working on, I made someone a co-admin and the guy made a post and at the end asks people to say AMEN. And that post is the most active post of the few posts we’ve made on that page.
I hope it works out for you Ana.
I checked your source code, Karo, and see your GA code only once, so that couldn’t be it.
The Learning Curve is the be all and end all of all strategies. Meaning, once you build a strategy for driving massive traffic, you need to measure the success of the strategy and following that, learn from it and adapt your learning to the strategy and start again. It’s a learning curve that goes around every step of the way achieving better and better results every circle it makes. By the way, awesome post Ana!
Hi Ana, personally I’m getting a bit bored of top 10 lists, although at times they are undoubtedly handy, theres a serious danger of them becoming an cliche which will bore readers
That’s why I am trying to avoid writing more of them, Carl.
Perhaps we’re in danger of being too much in the ‘blog bubble’ for want of a better term, the general internet public might find top 10s fresh & exciting
Then we’ll just have to defy our readership and not give them what they want. 😉
Massive post! Good actionable advice as always, Ana. You and I share the \”file and forget\” habit that I work constantly to improve. A wisened old man (my father) told me repeatedly to \”Do it while it is in your hand. To pick it up again later only wastes time\” but I\’m not wired that way apparently.The only thing I have to add is for authors to remember there are two hurdles in getting a post to rank in the SERPs. Step 1 is to get crawled and indexed; Step 2 is to rank high. Make sure there are no roadblocks to a good crawl of your content! I see many small blogs working so hard to rank that they forget to be search friendly first, optimized second.
I am trying to get in the habit to do the same with my emails, Jon – if I open them, I respond to them kind of thing, but has been challenging so far.
I like your father; sounds like a wise guy!
Hey Ana,
I WISH I could figure out a way to automate WarriorForum posting because I’m getting a 32% conversion rate from total visits to subscribers which is pretty awesome. This is across my entire blog too, not just a squeeze page. The problem is that my account would get banned if I hire others to post for me.
Guess I should get into some free WSOs and figure out what other source works well for the list building niche (aside from solo ads which rock), since social media is definitely not it. That or I need to send a different message.
Anyways, this is a killer process for mastering one traffic source. I always say to master one by focusing on it, but this is even more detailed than I usually go.
Thanks a bunch,
-Gabe Johansson
I am with you, Gabe – I’d love to harness the power of WF without the time investment. I see the potential for incredible traffic in it, yet the amount of time it takes to nurture that traffic has been prohibitive for me so far. Outsource? lol
Yeah, that’s what I meant above… outsourcing forum posting is almost a surefire way to get banned, even if the other users have entirely unique accounts of their own but with my link.
Too risky for me since I’m getting daily subscribers from WF. I have been looking into creating a free WSO (despite the fact it costs $40 to post lol) since that is a lot less time-intensive and gets faster results. Something like a 10 page report or new video series that I would give away to gain new subscribers.
I’m sure you could do this too and get all kinds of results from it!
Hi Ana,
I had to stop by when I saw that you were using Oliver’s site as an example here. Don’t you love it when other sites are bringing you traffic? I so enjoy looking through my analytics to see which blogs are bringing me the most traffic this month.
I love your no nonsense advice on learning one traffic method and sticking with it. I keep telling everyone that they don’t need to be everywhere. Learn one method, take massive action, stick with it until you get the desired results. They will come if you’re being consistent.
You also share such awesome advice so thank you for always coming through for us.
By the way, love the new look.
~Adrienne
I think new bloggers always feel pressured to be “everywhere”, Adrienne – I know I did.
However what no one tells them is that it takes time for that. Time and authority. You are I know that. 😉
Thanks for coming by!
You rock Ana!
This is actually the very first time I implemented your tips immediately after reading your post. I always bookmark it for later, but you told me not to do that :-).
But I have a little problem. I searched for the keyword “negative thoughts” and used Alexa to assess two of my competitors (that are way ahead of me). Their first two sources are Google and Facebook. So like Lou, I also have to step up my SEO.
But in my Google analytics, LinkedIn is #3 while Facebook is #8. I find it easier generating traffic from LinkedIn than from Facebook. Do I dump all efforts on LinkedIn and concentrate on Facebook? I love LinkedIn you know.
Keep up the good work!
I’d step up your LinkedIn traffic generation, Lanre, unless you think you’ve already exhausted its potential.
Then go after FB.
Hi Ana, thanks for sharing such one of a kind post. I also installed Google Analytics plugin on my blog and as well pasted the tracking code on my theme. Now i know why my bounce rate has been between 9-10%.
Which is the best to use the code? Through plugin or pasting on theme? I’ve been enjoying all your posts all these while. Each time you post a new one, it will seem as if that is the best?
What is really your secret friend?
BTW: I appear to be number 4 on the pictures in your header.
Thanks.
If you know how to add it to your theme, then it’s better to go that way, Theodore.
The fewer plugins, the better – always.
Thanks for this, Ana. I always feel like I’ve learned something when I visit your blog. It’s never ‘yet another list about traffic generation’. You always have something worthwhile. Thank you.
Hi Ana,
Thanks for answering my question in such an impressive way. I had an “aha” moment after reading this post. I just couldn’t grasp the concept of competition for my blog. I guess it was too simple for me. Now that I can see what you mean when you use the term competition, I can develop ways to get traffic generation from my “competitors.” And keywords? As you know, you can’t get keywords from Google analytics, unless the person who searches doesn’t have a Google account or isn’t logged in…only a small percentage of your searchers. Thanks a bunch for your insights and being so gracious as to use my blog to illustrate the points you are making. I will be focusing on Google (and maybe other search engines.)
Lou 🙂
PS How can I send you a Christmas present if I don’t have your new address? Can you email it to me?
So glad to help, Lou – as always.
Christmas present? I hope it’s something I can enjoy in front of my fireplace; one of your great stories, that is. Will email address.
I think this post will give you another healthy push in traffic, Oliver, and I am only happy to help.
Bounce rate: there’s really no reason to have two SEO plugins anyway. It’s redundant and probably significantly slows down your loading times.
Personally, I’d keep Yoast and get rid of the other one.
Great idea about watermarking your images!
Hi Ana,
Nice insights you got. I think Web Traffic is as much as important with Quality Contents. You just have to play along and discover different ways you could do to continuously have a stream of visitors.
Much appreciated, Kenny.
First of all, let me tell you that you have a wonderful site design. As for the post. I like the analysis you are doing, but don’t you think you need to focus more at a post level analysis to increase traffic?
Not sure what you mean, Eddie.
Hi Anna,
What I meant what your analysis show the source of traffic, but not the destination. If you are able to understand what content is working well, you can create similar content to drive more traffic to your blog. Right?
OK; got it.
Let’s take social media, for instance.
Say I wrote a post and it got 100 tweets.
On average, any post I write gets about 10 tweets, so it stands to reason that if I get 100 tweets on it, then it’s become more popular than other posts I write.
So if I write more posts on the same topic, I should be bringing in more traffic.
However, there are too many variables here to make it into a long-lasting traffic strategy.
For instance, my post title might’ve been exceptionally great, so it got shared a lot more.
Or an influential Twitter user picked it up and it got so many RTs just because of that.
You see what I mean?
It’s just not a viable and reliable strategy to do this kind of analysis on a post level.
Ana,
Big fan of “case study” posts like this. Especially those that include screen shots of Analytics plus your thoughtful take on what to take from those numbers. I struggle to take any action items from my own Google Analytics so this is super helpful – thanks!
I know what you mean, Alexis – a huge endeavor like learning about Google Analytics can seem like an insurmountable challenge. Breaking it up into small practical bites like this one definitely helped me “ease into it”, and hope it’ll help you as well.
I’ve really been trying to get my Twitter traffic up lately. I’ve been using a program called Tweet adder to do it. It’s a bit grey hat, but I think it’s a good way to put something that would usually take me HOURS on auto pilot.
Even though Tweet Adder is somewhat risky (I’ve had multiple accounts banned several times), I still give it most of the credit for getting me so much Twitter traffic, Mike.
Ana,
Yeah, you have to be careful not to use it too aggressively, but it sure is effective.
I fell in love with this blog a few days ago, and haven’t looked back! The advice and massive number of resources keep me coming back to learm learn, and learn again….and I need the help to really get my author platform growing, so thank you again!!
…and flattery is the quickest way to my heart, Jeff; feel free to come by and give me a pat on the back anytime! 😉
Hi Ana, I am completely dependent on Google Analytics, Facebook and Alexa.com. The clarity you have given to each shows the depth of your knowledge. I am well versed with all sites but there is so much to learn and explore after reading this article. I am in debt to your help. Thank you so much.
Hi Ana, I don’t want o just skip over all the great traffic advice you just gave, it was awesome but I have to say thank you. I’ve heard that low bounce rates with our analytics could mean we had the code in there twice but you’re the first one I’ve seen mention it could be from SEO by Yoast. You were right, I removed the code from my theme, leaving just the one in SEO by Yoast. Now I should begin seeing accurate bounce rate figures. 🙂
Just to be clear, you recommend that since Twitter is my largest referral site, I should continue to build that network for all it’s worth before picking up the pace on Facebook or Google Plus?
Glad to help, Brian!
Twitter: if you feel like you’ve mastered Twitter and can’t really do much better with it, then move on to the next source.
If you haven’t done much there, but are getting a good amount of traffic and think you could get a lot more with some tweaking, then start there.
No right or wrong answer, really.