For today's post my good friend, Bonnie Cribbs, will be guest posting on my behalf. I'm so thrilled to introduce him to ya'll. I frequent his blog NUMEROUS times daily for incredible social media tips, and his advice has helped me so much. I know you guys will really benefit from his knowledge. On top of it all, he happens to be one of the sweetest people I know.
____________________________________________________________________________
How
do I use Pinterest to drive more traffic to my blog?
Pinterest is a perfect social media platform for most
bloggers because most blogs incorporate quality and appealing graphics, making
Pinterest a powerful tool to drive traffic to your blog...plus it’s a ton of
fun too!
The first step is to use high quality graphics on your blog
and make the graphics easy to share on Pinterest by using a plugin or
code. People pin graphics that are
visually appealing or that lead to information they are interested in, so make
this easy for people by providing top notch graphics. Think about it this way, would you pin your
graphics if you saw them on Pinterest?
If it’s a how to, DIY or recipe be sure to include details
in the graphic that will auto populate when your reader shares your graphic on
Pinterest. In the descriptions use
language that will entice pinners to want to learn more and cause them to visit
your site.
I also suggest that you have a Pinterest Board that provides
links to all of your social media accounts like this one.
I created a training video several months ago that can be viewed here.
It goes into detail about how to use Pinterest for your business and
blog. Matter of fact, that particular
post has about 25 tips for using Pinterest and driving traffic with Pinterest.
How
do I develop a bigger following?
Isn’t that the million dollar question? By providing value you keep your readers
coming back. “Value” will be defined by
what your target audience is looking for and you need to know your target
market like they are your best friends.
By engaging with your followers you build a tribe of loyal
followers who will share your content and spread the word about your
awesomeness. It really comes down to the
ripple effect and you start the ripple by connecting with a small crowd and
from there more people find out about you.
By getting in front of new audiences you introduce new
people to you. In the blog world, guest posts are an ideal way of how to do
this. Networking online follows a lot of
the same principles as networking offline.
By using Pinterest above there are always new people coming
to your site. I believe one of the
biggest keys in developing a bigger following is by consistently being seen,
helping people and showing up in new places for people to find you.
Here is a post that shares some ideas about
networking your blog and some of the things you can do to build traffic and a
loyal following. Trust me, it takes time
so do not give up and give your following time to develop.
Do
numbers really matter? How and why?
I’m a numbers guy, so to me numbers definitely matter. If you’re trying to attract sponsors or
brands, they’ll want to know your traffic numbers. They’ll want to know who your target market
is and how you are attracting them.
Be honest about your numbers!
It’s always interesting to me the numbers that bloggers
decide to share. You may have a HUGE
facebook following, but unless you are promoting your sponsor on facebook, the
huge facebook following is of no use to your sponsor. It may give a blogger more people to promote
your brand to but it does not necessarily translate into page views on your
blog unless you are being very intentional to drive people to your blog.
Most savvy sponsors and brands will want to know the number
of page visits that you have on a daily basis and your monthly average. I’m always interested in the number of email
subscribers you have to whether or not your email subscribers are going to your
site to read your blog or if they are getting the full article in the
email.
Ideally, a blogger is growing their email list but that is
only helping a sponsor out if you are sending your subscribers to your
page. Again, it comes down to page
visits for most sponsors. But for the
blogger, you want to know your overall reach.
Wait, this question was about numbers and whether or not
they are important. They are to sponsors
so if you are trying to attract them, yes. If you’re trying to generate leads
or traffic to your site, then yes. If you’re
just blogging for the fun of it and don’t care if anyone is seeing your pages
or not, then no, they are not important.
What’s
the most effective way to promote a post?
IF you have captured the email addresses of your blog
followers (and you should be doing this), email is the best way to promote your
post. Your existing readers are the
ideal and best audience and are the easiest audience to engage with.
There is a saying in marketing that says “the money is in
the list.” If you’re growing a blog and
building an audience, you need to build your list. By that, I’m saying you need to begin
collecting email addresses of your followers.
You may change blogs, you may change companies you work for, blogger or
wordpress may shut down. You want to have
easy access to your list.
The best way I’ve found to keep a post alive is through a
wordpress plugin called “Tweet Old Post.”
It does exactly what it sounds like it would do, it automatically tweets
old posts and keeps them alive. Your
post will continue to generate readers long after you have forgotten about it!
You have to think long term and several moves ahead.
Here is a very interesting infographic on one of my Pinterest boards
that will tell you what you need to do on social media for each post. Outside of your email list, promoting your
post in as many places as possible will gain traffic.
____________________________________________________________________________
I hope ya'll found this post as helpful as I did. I'll be featuring him again next week, so make sure to check back! For more amazing posts, check out his blog by clicking HERE.
