Traffic Building for Beginning Bloggers

How to Win Friends and Avoid Making Enemies

Transcript

1. Traffic Building for Beginning Bloggers (How to Win Friends and Avoid Making Enemies) Saturday, September 14, 13
2. Who Am I? Elizabeth Urello Happiness Engineer for Automattic @eurello elizabeth@automattic.com Saturday, September 14, 13
3. Introductory Q’s • For you: Website or blog? • For me: Why traffic building rather than SEO? Saturday, September 14, 13
4. STEP ONE: FIND YOUR PEOPLE Saturday, September 14, 13
5. Who Are You Looking For? • Readers who share your interests. • Readers who need the information that you have. • Readers who share your voice, perspective, sense of humor, lifestyle, etc. Saturday, September 14, 13
6. How to Find Them? • Browse, browse, browse! Read, read, read! • Explore comment sections/blogrolls on sites that you love. • Search for the keywords that you think others will use to search for you. • The WordPress.com Reader, WordPress.com Topics, The Daily Post. Saturday, September 14, 13
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10. Not Procrastinating Saturday, September 14, 13
11. STEP TWO: INTRODUCE YOURSELF Saturday, September 14, 13
12. Be a Good Guest • Comment with something substantial and on-topic. • Don’t link-beg: don’t be that kid. • Interact with the other commenters. • Reblog others’ work and respond to it at length (pingbacks and trackbacks). Saturday, September 14, 13
13. Trackback module: Pingbacks in a comment section: Saturday, September 14, 13
14. Eventually, you will intrigue someone . . . Saturday, September 14, 13
15. STEP THREE: PREPARE FOR COMPANY Saturday, September 14, 13
16. • Write! • Pay attention to what your readers like, and give them more. • Blog about what others are blogging about (or don’t). • Reply to your commenters with substantial comments -- keep the conversation going. • Capitalize on a traffic spike. Be a Good Host Saturday, September 14, 13
17. Now Everything Is Going Swimmingly. Saturday, September 14, 13
18. STEP FOUR: SPREAD THE LOVE Saturday, September 14, 13
19. Be Smart About Social Media • Know how your social networks differ -- family, friends, co-workers, etc. • Don't exhaust your followers with irrelevant information. • Write original material for each service as well. • Publicize, sharing buttons, and more! Saturday, September 14, 13
20. Post shared on Facebook via Publicize: Sharing buttons: Saturday, September 14, 13
21. By now, you should be very popular But should you still need some help . . . Saturday, September 14, 13
22. Extras • Giveaways • Challenges • Polls • Series Saturday, September 14, 13
23. Case Study: ModCloth.com Saturday, September 14, 13
24. Forget all that, and just entertain yourself! And but also... Saturday, September 14, 13
25. Resources • The WordPress.com Topics pages: http://en.wordpress.com/read/topics/ • The Daily Post: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/ • WordPress.com support (step-by-step guides for WordPress features): http://en.support.wordpress.com/ • All About SEO & WordPress: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/seo-on- wordpress-com/ Saturday, September 14, 13