How can you get more traffic by doing simple tasks? How can you get more traffic by using your existing traffic? In this post, we will try to answer these questions. We will compare long term traffic building with short term traffic building.
Before we begin our post, we will have to look at the differences between Long term and short term traffic.
Long Term Traffic Vs. Short Term Traffic
What is long term traffic?
Long term traffic is the number of people who visit your blog on a regular basis (or read your content via a reader). It doesn’t have to be on a daily basis. Your subscribers, unanimous readers, and all others who read your blog on a daily, weekly or some other basis are included on the long term traffic list.
What is short term traffic?
Short term traffic includes the number of people who just come by and visit your blog. They may read one or two articles and comment/share (on) it. Short term traffic is basically everything else that is not included in the long term traffic.
So, What is your goal? As a blogger, what are you supposed to do ?
As a blogger, you are supposed to convert the Short Term Traffic into Long Term Traffic. Let’s take a deeper dive into Long term and Short term Traffic. Let’s take a look at the Short Term Traffic, first.
Short Term Traffic
To be more precise, Short term traffic is those traffic spikes you get. If you look at my stats, you will notice a lot of spikes. You will see a whole range of Himalayas if you look at my stats. This is because of my behavior. This is mainly because of my blogging activity. My stats will fluctuate based on content creation, promotion, and networking. And it is great. I think that these traffic spikes are great. But creating traffic spikes is just one part of my overall goal (in blogging). The second part comes in when you consider the fact that you have to convert those short term visitors into long term readers.
Goal Part 1 : How can we get more Short Term traffic ?
Do you get traffic spikes ? I am sure that 90% of active bloggers get these traffic spikes, so most likely, you are one among them. If you get traffic spikes, then think about the things you do before you get the spike. What blogging related activities do you usually do before getting a traffic spike? Look at your stats to figure it out. Think about what you did. Note them.
Get paper and pencil and write down the things that come to your mind. Ask yourself : What activities earn me traffic spikes? After you have done that, move on to the next section.
Now that you have got a list, let’s look at the things that can possibly earn you more traffic spikes.
Short Term Promotion
By short term promotion, I mean promoting your content to a usual set of 6 or 7 sites (doesn’t matter if its social media, blog marketing or forums). To me, Short term promotion includes “Submitting my content to Twitter, Facebook, Blogengage, Stumbleupon and Digg”. It is kind of like your immediate family. Short term promotion can be really useful.
Note : When it comes to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, Short Term traffic is when you retweet/update your status just one time. You should really practice short term promoting if you don’t have much time. If you really have good time to spend or if you want to get more traffic, you might want to consider long term promotion.
Anyway, that puts an end to our discussion about short term promotion. The next thing I would like to talk about is Short Term Commenting.
Short Term Commenting
No, Short term commenting is not about the “drive by commenting” technique. Rather, it is when you comment occasionally – like 6-10 blogs per week. Most of us are short term commentators (granted, there are many long term commentators out there). We comment on about 6 blogs per week. We do it due to several reasons. Mainly because of content and because of the immediate benefits we get through commenting. To me, commenting is just fun. I only comment on articles that I personally find useful (which means that I don’t comment on articles that I find old or that havw been posted many times. An exception would be a post that has new information on it).
Short Term Networking
The third most important source that will bring you traffic spikes is Short term Networking. Short term networking is basically what it sounds like. You network for a limited time. A perfect example would be when you say “thank you” to others for re-tweeting your content. Short term networking can bring you a decent amount of traffic if it is done effectively.
The three things mentioned above (ST Promoting, Commenting and Networking) will bring you a lot of traffic spikes. And these three are the most prevalent sources – in terms of short term traffic. If used wisely, these three can bring you a lot of new visitors to your blog.
Our discussion about short term traffic generation ends there. Now we need to look at the second step of getting more traffic.
Goal Part 2 : How to get more Long Term Traffic
The second part of the goal is to get long term traffic for your blog. Long term traffic means regular readers, followers, comments etc. for your blog. They will be your faithful subscribers who will help you to get more readers. Long term traffic is also the reason why you can make money out of blogging-related activities. For example : Advertisers look at your long term traffic stats before they decide to advertise on your site. We include tips through which we can get more Long Term Traffic.
Long Term Traffic : Subscribing Options
Do you have appropriate subscribing options in your blog? Do you provide easy, user friendly newsletters for your visitors ? Subscribing options play a very important role in getting you more long term traffic. What are subscribing options? Subscribing options include subscribe to newsletter feature, reader options (google reader etc.) and so on. These will help your readers to keep track with your content. For example : the newsletter option can help your readers to decide whether they should visit your blog to read the latest post.
Long Term Traffic : E-books and other free things
Another thing that would really help you to get more long term traffic is e-books and other free things. These things are really powerful because they act as an extrinsic motivator. In this case, the reader is motivated (by the e-book or some other thing) to join your long term traffic list. Use e-books and others things to motivate others to join your list.
Long Term Promotion, Networking, Commenting
Long Term Promotion includes submitting your content to many sites – more than a usual set. This is much better than short term promotion, because in long term promotion, you get more exposure. More exposure = More traffic = More Traffic because of the Multiplier Effect. Long term promotion also includes using certain techniques like rewording and re-tweeting to maximize your traffic. In long term promotion, you will re tweet your article based on the rewording technique (you may use audience – targeted rewording, in which you re-tweet for a specific audience). Long Term Networking is when you really engage with others.
To make the maximum out of this, you need to share links with others (while engaging with them). This technique will work most of the time because most bloggers will be willing to help others who engage with them. Long Term Commenting is when you comment on 15+ blogs per week. There are many bloggers like this out there. The main advantage with this is that in the long run, you will get more comments. But it will consume a lot of your time.
Guest Blogging : Long Term or Short Term ?
Guest blogging has benefits. But, I am really confused about guest blogging. Is it short term or long term ? When outlining this post, I had guest blogging for both of these because it is really hard to classify guest posting.
But, there is one thing that will play an important role : The quality of the guest post. If you have a good guest post, then you will surely get some ST/LT traffic out of it.
Conclusion
- Get more Short Term Traffic – Aim for it!
- Convert those short term visitors into Long Term ones – Convert your Aim into your Goal!
You should try your best to get these done. Use the tips that I have mentioned earlier for your success. I wish you all the best with your blogging career. I hope that my post helped, thank you!
Don’t forget to leave your opinion about Long term and short term traffic !
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