Are your blog’s traffic numbers in the dumps? Do you struggle to draw new visitors to your website? Have you seen your total number of site visitors plateau? If so, don’t worry! This is a lot more common than you think. Many bloggers “hit the wall” when it comes to blogging and get discouraged.
Hitting the Wall
Hitting the wall is what happens to NFL rookies after the 11th and 12th game of the NFL season. NBA rookies hit the wall after the 40th game of the basketball season. It’s called hitting the wall because they simply run out of gas when they are asked to perform for a longer period of time than they are used to. This happens to bloggers as well. Bloggers with low traffic numbers are ready to give up when things get difficult.
Giving up is no solution at all. The key is to keep pressing on. Keep churning out content and your numbers will make a comeback over term.There are however a few tactics that I use to break my blog out of a traffic slump. Each day over the next few days I will detail one method for jump starting your blog’s growth.
Write Something for a Big Blog
You already probably know about the power of guest posting. Writing for another site is a great way to find new readers. While guest posting for any site will do, write a guest post for a larger site. Go after the big boys. I am talking about sites that get 300,000 or more pageviews in a month.
The larger blogs have the ability to bring in onslaught of traffic to your site in no time at all. One big traffic day from a big blog can make your month with Google Analytics. Most bloggers are scared to contact the larger sites out of fear of rejection so they just stay in their comfort zone. This may be easy to do but it won’t help your blog grow. You have to be willing to take the risk of growing your blog.
Getting over Rejection
Let’s be clear about one thing. You will probably get rejected by most of the bigger blogs. Who cares? Don’t take it personal! If you can land a guest post with one big site then it will be well worth your while.One successful reply will make you forget about 50 rejections.
I am speaking from experience. I have contacted all sorts of large national sites about running a post from my financial blog Buy Like Buffett. There were plenty of thanks but no thanks and no responses. I didn’t let that stop me. Eventually a few of the larger sites ran my stories. I was able to generate nearly 10,000 page views in a day on multiple occasions by having my content picked up by sites like The Daily Crux, Forbes, Yahoo,and Wisebread. Right now I have a national site ready to run one of my posts next month!
Keep on Pitching
So, how do you score a guest posting gig at a larger site? The key lies in the pitch. You have to show the large sites that your story possesses some unique angle or interesting concept that would benefit their site. Most bloggers make the mistake of just pitching one idea. That’s not enough. It’s best to pitch at least 3 fully thought out, well crafted ideas at the same time.
Include an outline of key points or a bulleted list. They will take notice of your efforts and it will set you apart from the competition. This will increase your chances of landing a link in a premium publication.
Last but not least, make sure that you have content on you site that will keep your guests coming back from more!
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Like the new blog Mark.
Will there be an RSS feed? That’s where I read content.
As our site is new we’re always interested in learning about strategies, old and new, to help bolster our traffic, improve and optimize and provide quality content – much like you do.
Thanks! Yes, I just installed the feed link in the corner.
Agree, it’s key to hit those big blogs; it’s all about shots on goal. I always struggle with using a great idea or post on another site instead of my own, but it’s a balance. If you have no traffic and audience, it doesn’t matter how great your initial content is; better to get some publicity.
I struggle with that too. Sometimes a post is so good that you want to keep it for yourself. That is shortsighted though.
Its funny, I’ve been procrastinating for months now about asking a bigger blog about a guest post. Should get onto it – maybe that can be one of my new years goals.