I haven’t been blogging very long but I started blogging with a few different purposes in mind. One of those purposes is to practice techniques related to Guerilla Marketing. Matter of fact, most things that I have been doing on the Internet have been experiments in process and strategy. I would like to share some preliminary findings about what techniques have worked best. If you have a blog or website this post may help to reinforce what you have already witnessed.
#1 Never underestimate the value of tagging your posts. A blog post without tags is like a hook without bait. Tags that I have inserted over a week ago are still occasionally being clicked. The tag was either of interest or met a perceived need of the reader. Tags alone are not enough to increase the readership of your site, they just bring in random visitors and traffic from the tags will decline over time.
#2 Posting on other blogs drives traffic to your site. If you post on blogs that pertain to a topic that you write about you may gain return readership. Otherwise you are wasting both their time and your own.
#3 Creating controversy or disagreeing with a post drives traffic to your site, just not the right kind of traffic. It isn’t worth it if you want to grow loyal readership.
#4 Posting comments on websites and blogs with tons of previous comments makes it really hard to differentiate yourself from the crowd. I have seen greater success in targeting sites that have less traffic.
#5 The time of day, even the day that you post really makes an impact on your traffic. Peak readership times, times like early evening, can be more effective than early morning. This of course will have no bearing on return traffic, only increasing traffic. It would probably be best to stay consistant, though this is just an opinion and I do not have any data to back it up.
#6 Detailed titles of your posts are very important, they should draw in your audience. Today I wanted to draw in bloggers and others wanting to drive traffic to their own site. It’s detailed in the title. As a result I would expect to receive over 75% of my traffic from this target demographic alone.
Like I mentioned these are preliminary results and I am constantly learning like a lot of you. If you are interested in hearing more let me know. If you have other insights in addition please let me know. There are many other things to cover here are some related points that I have posted as well:
Target Your Audience Increase Your Readership
What Are Your Readers Searching For?
Reader Feedback