Everyday a lot of people in the internet scramble for traffic. Internet marketers, PPC affiliate guys, bloggers, or even just the ordinary upcoming newbie. The internet is just so diverse that people are sold into an idea that there’s always an unknown place with millions of people that other marketers haven’t found yet. That’s why I love to experiment about these traffic sources. It’s because at the end of the day, I know it’s all worth it.
I mentioned bloggers above as one of those who scramble for traffic but one thing I noticed is that bloggers don’t that much look for new traffic sources, instead they just focus on what they have and try to leverage that into something more. I have no problem with that and in fact that’s what I try to do on an everyday basis. What I’d like to state is that we, in conjunction with that, should also not be that shabby in terms of finding new sources of traffic to our sites.
As I’ve said, the internet has been so huge and that is the reason too why things get saturated and diluted so easily. I mean when was the last time you run something profitable that lasted for more than a month? When was the last time you found a social network that consistently gives you over a 100 hits for a week? The thing with the internet is that things change so rapidly that if you’re not ready, you’re gonna be left out so quickly.
Why Should I be Looking for New Traffic Sources?
First and foremost is to enhance what you already have in your hand. For example, my blog has been getting traffic from forums ever since. So naturally what I would do is leverage that more and try to see if I can get more from that. Now with that, the way to enhance is to look on other other forums which may be catered to my blog as well. I mean it’s not rocket science. If this forum about blogging is constantly giving me good amount of traffic maybe this forum about blogging and internet marketing can do it too. You know what I mean?
Now back to answering the question. It’s proven that there’s always a place untapped to get traffic and from time to time, there will be always be new high-trafficked places just springing over and over. We should continuously be on the look because these untapped sources are so worth it. I mean wouldn’t you want to get 50 new readers on a daily or weekly basis just by engaging in some place you haven’t engaged before?
It just works for everything. Forum marketing, guest blogging, social networking or just anything else. For instance, you guys have probably seen me guest post on popular blogs like JohnChow or DailyBlogTips and etc. But to take that further, I’m constantly on the search of blogs that may not get the same traffic but are worth guest posting to.
For instance, ShoutmeLoud.com is a high-traffic blog yet I was not aware of this site prior to this year. Another is SiteSketch101, which probably has a ton of audience that has never heard of me or my blog. There are many more out there but what I basically do and I hope for you to do as well is to try to give value and engage in their audience as well. By doing that, you’re giving yourself a chance to open the door for more readers, more traffic, more potential customers
For social network, many people use the standard sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, or whatever but for me what I do is use the smaller ones and try to be active there which will eventually build up over time. Not a lot of people know Blogengage or MMOSocialNetwork but the truth is these sites can give you much more traffic than what you can get with Digg or any other big sites out there.
Conclusion
I could go on more but the takeaway here is being creative and constantly on search for new sources. I’m not saying you have to do this everyday, what Im saying is that we should always give some time on this task.
For example, my friday schedule is usually set out on that and by setting a certain date, you’re enabling yourself to be productive with whatever task you have. It doesn’t just apply to finding new traffic source but it applies to everything, writing blog posts, networking, and many more. So do you have your own way of chasing for new traffic sources?
right said….i too keep looking at new places to find traffic for my blog…..
commenting on other blogs has always been great for me and ShoutMeloud needs a special mention as it sends regular traffic to my blog without exception….just 2 comments per day and i get almost 6-8 visits….
and i recently started using MMOSocialNetwork for my blog…..there have been few hits to the blog but i would like to see more traffic from them to my blog….
if you have any tricks up your sleeve on how to use MMOSocialNetwork for regular traffic, i am sure it will make an awesome article……
I agree, I am always trying to find nw ways to draw in traffic. Only last month I started using Twitter and Facebook, found great success with posting old posts on Twitter.
Sorry, my comment above came out wrong in the Name field. 🙁
“Not a lot of people know Blogengage or MMOSocialNetwork but the truth is these sites can give you much more traffic than what you can get with Digg or any other big sites out there.”
I agree time is better spent on sites such as those. Digg and those others sites are just too big to try to compete.
I totally agree with you that we should always look for new source of traffic. We can build up a large amount of traffic to our blog sooner or later if we really put effort on traffic driving. I love to leave comment in others blog to drive traffic to my blog.
well actually i got the tip of shoutmeloud from you too on an old article of mine in which you commented as well. cant really track it since i do guest posts on it as well.
This is quite true and should be practiced by bloggers from time to time. The internet is a big place and it’s getting bigger everyday. You’re more likely to find something new every time you surf the web.
You are right, finding new sources of traffic seems a MUST as returning traffic usually do not clicks on advertisement 🙂
Mmm, this is quite similar to the term “networking”, with its own pros and cons.
Pros is = you get to expand your circle of influence and network
Cons = the issue of quality of relationships with the people makes a difference
I think it depends on one’s own ability to handle different amount and types of people, as well as the numbers of people. Of course if a traffic location is bad, or not enough, then it’d make perfect sense..but if at it is it’s already too much to handle, then going out to look for more when one’s own based is not maximised…I’d not recommend that though.
There are so many sources for traffic generation, my question is which gives the best bang for the “buck”? Lately I’ve found that StumbleUpon is a good source of spurts of traffic, but it doesn’t last. Digg is certainly too hit or miss for predicable results. If you had to pick 2-3 sources, what would you choose?
Hahah. I didn’t say that but you’re most definitely right. 😉
I complete agree with you most of us dont Bord to source for new way to get traffic. We are just repeating the old source from time to time. I think it is important to source for new way or method of getting traffic to our website or blog from time to time.
Great point Nigel. I sometimes forget that the types of people vary a lot from one traffic location to another. Sometimes I treat them the same and as soon as I realized that, that should not be the way, I try to adjust more.
well if you’re pertaining to social media sources then I can’t really speak a lot. I mean usually these traffic really don’t convert well. It can give you a spike of traffic at some point which may considerably increase your ad income (if you’re using Adsense or some CPM networks out there) but long-term wise not that much to expect.
Hi,
It’s a good post that makes me think. I haven’t really tried the blogengage and all. I never had any idea about them. But as you said that they can sent me more visits than digg…..I think its meant to be tried. So i’ll try it.
Thanks for mentioning it
find new means for traffic to your blog is one thing every blogger should do. And this way you are sure that even if one traffic source fails, the other will help keep your blog alive.
Well traffic is not a big problem if you know how to get your links spread across the web.
This post has served as one of the backlinks to shoutmeloud.com. This is good for your blog because Google considers your link as relative and worthwhile.
Lots of good traffics if you are doing some blogging tips by commenting on other similar blogs.. I still have yet to find good traffic source though for a tech blog like mine 🙁 I might try techcrunch but so far hasn’t given me any positive results