Traffic.
It is something we all want.
And we use several methods to get traffic.
Social media and blog commenting are among them. But, they suck as traffic sources.
In an argument, I like to go against the crowd/masses, even if that goes against my principles.
Same is true for blog posts. I have always been fascinated and interested in writing articles that are usually against what other bloggers say (My post on why you shouldn't plan before writing is an example). Now, to the article.
Most of us have written about driving traffic through various traffic sources (As far as the main ones go, they are: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Blog Commenting, Guest Posting and SEO).
We have to spend our time based on the type of traffic we need. We can divide traffic into various groups based on different factors such as visitor loyalty (visit length and bounce rate), based on sources (direct vs referral) and based on their visit (first time visitor vs returning).
In this article, we will talk about what the several traffic sources are best and how we can use them to achieve our specific goals with traffic (for the purpose of this article, your goal is to drive more new visitors to your blog).
Note: In my 3 years of blogging, this is the only post I have edited and added information after writing the post; I have a lot of expectation for this post – So, if you find it useful, please do share and comment the post. Thank You!
The first thing we need to do with traffic generation  is to identify our goals with traffic.
- Do we need first time visitors or do we need to bring back our old visitors?
- Do we need more visitors (with high bounce rate and low visitor length) or do we need less visits (with low bounce rate and high visitor length)?
- Do we need direct traffic or referral traffic (for the most part, this doesn't matter much).
Once we answer these questions, we will be able to identify our goals and make a decision (=choose one or two traffic generation methods to work with).
Now, let's take a look at various traffic sources and what they are best for.
Commenting Traffic Source – Bringing Back Visitors
Commenting is best for bringing back our old visitors or buddies. I comment on a certain number of blogs on a consistent basis, because I want those guys – who are my blogging friends – to read my content and share it to the world. From my own experience with a recent commenting experiment, I can tell you that commenting is best for bringing back old visitors. Sure, commenting can also bring us new visitors – but not much, compared to other traffic sources. Another advantage to commenting as a traffic sources is that visitors we get through our comments are most likely to be loyal with our blog; we get low number of visitors with low bounce rate and high visitor length.
Conclusion: Use commenting as a traffic source when you have plenty of time to spare or when you want to bring back old visitors (or get some real loyal visitors).
How to get more new traffic out of commenting?
It is about engagement within your comments more than anything. When you are commenting on other blogs, comment not just on the articles, but also on the comments left by other bloggers (This allows you to engage with the blog owner and the commentator). The more you do this, the more exposure you get and the more likely you are to get new visits.
I will be writing another post in detail about generating maximum new traffic from commenting – just follow my social profiles for updates 😉
Social Media Sites as a Traffic Source
Yup. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are all suited for bringing back visitors. Sure, they can also bring us new visitors. But the chances are low. Let me explain: In most social media sites, your posts are only visible to people who follow/friend/like your page/circle you.
Let me give you an example:
You want to promote your site – let's say there is a potential visitor A.
Your post might only be visible to visitor A if you and Visitor A has many common connections – and if, only if the common connections shares, comments and or likes/pluses your post.
Yes, there are also social media sites that are geared towards bringing new visitors – such as StumbleUpon and Pinterest – The only problem is that visitors from these sites are usually not loyal, they don't stick around (high bounce rate and low visitor length). If you want more visits, then sites such as StumbleUpon and Pinterest might sound attractive to you 😀
Conclusion: Social media sites as a traffic source isn't a good idea, but then again, it depends upon the situation. If you get lot of retweets/shares/comments on a specific tweets or status you posted (And if your potential visitor and you have a lot of common connections), then you are definitely going to get more traffic – new visitors – out of it.
The  best way to get more traffic and followers via Social media is to participate on blog chats, blog groups and blog pages. For instance:
In LinkedIn, we have the Blog Engage LinkedIn group. In the LinkedIn group, Bloggers share our opinion and experience on weekly discussions, polls and other discussions posted by members. I encourage you to join the group.
Guest Posting as a Traffic Source- Best For New Visitors
Guest posting, by far is the best way to gain more exposure – and more new visitors. It is also the best way to get more loyal visitors (like I mentioned earlier loyal visitors means they stick around for a while). But, like any other method, guest posting also has its own disadvantages.
The best method to approach guest posting is with consistency. The more you guest post on a site, more likely you get more new visitors (Some people may visit your site after they read your posts, but there are many others who wait a while – whose impressions of you weren't good enough to convince them to visit your blog). In that case, writing another guest post is the best solution. But, as time passes on, the audience will become familiar with you, and you will eventually start loosing out on new visitors (because the new visitors you got earlier were converted into returning/loyal visitors).
So, along with consistency, you need variety. You need to guest post on several blogs on several occasions for the best results – and I mean, more new (and loyal) visitors.
Extra: As you may know, I am kind of a regular contributor here are Basic Blog Tips (I do take long breaks in between, because I want to counter act familiarity – The more I wrote here, the more familiar I became to you all. So, I take breaks – and in those breaks, I am sure that BBT has grown with some new readers – and I am mainly writing this article with them in mind 😀
So, here is my best tip:
Write guest posts on several blogs on several occasions in a consistent manner with long breaks in between 😀
The Conclusion
Well, I don't have a good conclusion.
That's just my point on why commenting and social media sucks as traffic sources – more specifically, traffic sources for new visitors.
If you found the article useful, please do comment and share this post 😉 Share the love. Thank you!
Go Guest Post.
Being a Marketing person I would surely agree to your blog. Social media Optimization surely depict these informations. I do suggest do follow blog commenting, which can bring you a good traffic through their enormous number of back links..
Thank you for the comment!
With certain tweaks, we can generate lot more leads to our blog through blog commenting and social media optimization.
Here is why I don’t agree with your social media(specially with Google+) thing:
1. when you are posting on Google+ your blog gets more backlinks thus better ranking in Google search and more visitors to your site.
2. When you are posting on Google+ people will actually use +1 which will boost your seo and thus more traffic from Google via SPYW.
Not necessarily, Rahul. Do you have any guarantee that those back links are going to get you traffic? No. Sure, those back links can get you traffic, because when someone you are connected with in G+ searches for that specific keyword, they may get your site result (Even in that case, it is not new traffic, they were already connected to you, hence they knew your site – they are just a returning visitor).
Not necessarily. I don’t remember Google actually saying that plus ones are going to SEO – sure, there are speculations regarding it, Google is also changing their algorithms monthly. One thing we don’t want to do know is the rely too much on Search engines (What if Google decides to shut down tomorrow? I am not saying they would, but we never should rely on them for our traffic).
And to be clear, I never said that Social media can’t drive traffic, they can. But, is that good enough for us? Depends.
One thing about Google+ to remember is that Google seems committed to it, not just as another Google site, but as the social glue across their platforms.
I agree, Lane.
I think Google will be announcing more integration of searches to G+ (In that case, people will be start to invest more time with it). Now, there are many people on G+, but it doesn’t seem to be a “social” platform – at least not among the bloggers I know and have circled.
Commenting and social media in particular do not suck as traffic sources, unless you don’t what you’re doing. In fact, for two of my sites Facebook is only 2nd to Google in terms of referral traffic. Beyond direct traffic, looking at my aweber stats, one of my facebook pages which has an email list signup form on it has the highest subscriber rate, which brings lots of indirect traffic and sales. Guest posting can be effective, but requires much more time. You just have to measure the ROI on each campaign and optimize.
I am not saying they can’t drive you traffic – In traffic, I mean new visitors. They can. But, guest posting can do a much better job at driving traffic, new visitors to our sites. Like I mentioned in the article, Social media sites aren’t good for driving new traffic because the things you post are only seen by people who already follow you (returning traffic). If your post is to be seen by others, each and everyone of them is to be shared and or commented on (I am not saying it is an impossibility, it is possible, but you need to have considerable number of people interacting with every post to get more exposure (and new visitors). Most visitors we get from these social media sites are just returning visitors – they know us and follow our sites already.
Commenting isn’t that great either. I know a lot of people who have achieved great results with commenting. And most of them comments only on big sites (and the audience of those big sites are new bloggers – which aren’t the typical target audience of any established bloggers, because if you target them, you have to compete against the popular sites). Now, you could say, we should comment on medium sized blogs (Which is what I do). Commenting is good for relationship building and relationship marketing not necessarily for direct new traffic.
Tory – when you say 2nd to Google, do you mean G+ or just searches through Google?
Thanks
Good question – second to Google searches. In my experience, G+ hasn’t sent much in terms of traffic. But, that doesn’t mean it “sucks”, I just personally haven’t had much motivation to test it out and fully utilize it as a traffic source. Social media, including G+, can play an integral part in a diverse traffic strategy.
FB can be tricky for a beginner, as far as being a quality traffic source, since one of the factors of how many fans your content reaches depends on the interactivity of your posts. So, be sure to post everyday, post a lot of pictures, teaser content, reply to users, etc to get more interaction. You’ll reach more of your fans, potentially get new fans AND get more traffic.
Thanks, Tory
I’ve always how to balance my activity on my fan page. I have nearly 5000 people over there and they like my content, but I post that only 4x a week. The rest of the time I use personal stories about our dogs and other shares I see. I like the idea of teasers. I have a giveaway going on!
Kimberly
Of course, Social media can drive us traffic, but most of that traffic is from returning visitors (Think about it: Unless every one of our posts is shared by a considerable number of people with good number of loyal followers – how are we going to get more exposure?). If our posts aren’t shared and or commented, only people who are going to see our posts are people who have us in circles.
Now, we could get more exposure, by having our followers share and/or comment on our posts – we don’t need to have that many followers, what we need is good number of loyal followers who like our content (and if those followers have loyal followers themselves, then yes, we get more exposure for our posts and may get more new visitors to those posts/blog).
In social media, participation is the key – network with others and get more exposure. Social media can bring us new traffic, but it is still geared towards bringing the old traffic in (think about it: Our followers see our content, and who are those followers? People who already know us).
Can we bring in lots of new traffic through social media? Yes, we can. And it takes a lot of effort to build up the network (and it takes more efforts to maintain it).
Thank you for sharing. These are great tips. What do you think about YouTube videos or using YouTube videos on the blog?
No problem, Yusuf.
Youtube can be a great traffic source, if used effectively (that means, you need to make a useful video, rank it properly and promote it to your followers as you do to any piece of content).
Everyone is different and we all have our specific ways on getting traffic.
I actually do get traffic from some commenting but you always have to adjust and see what comments work or not. Commenting is not only used for traffic, but for links in SEO.
Social media works great as well, and have been able to leverage those social sites to my advantage.
If these methods don’t work for you, and you found another way to do it, that is fine. Like I said, we all have our ways of getting what we want.
Of course, Samuel.
I didn’t talk much about the SEO part, because I don’t actually care about it anymore. Google is changing their algorithms monthly, and relying on them for traffic isn’t a great option.
Of course, they work well. I am not saying they won’t work (I never said that in my article!).
They do work. But, are they good traffic sources for driving new visitors? No. Most of the traffic we get from social media are from people we already know (they are returning visitors – returning visitors are great, but that is not what I am focusing on this article). If you want to get new visitors out of social media, only way you can do that is through participation and through getting more comments and more shares for each of your tweets/updates (which means more exposure and more exposure can mean more new traffic).
Guest posting works because you have the ultimate control – you can choose where to write, how to write and when to write. Other traffic sources, not so much control. For instance, in social media, you can’t really control who shares/comments on your tweets/updates – if most of your shares are from people who aren’t influential, then there is not much value for those shares, in terms of exposure and new traffic.
Personally, I never click on any links that I find in blog comments that why I also think that blog commenting is not the best source of traffic. Guest blogging, however, can bring a lot of visitors to your website if you manage to publish your article on a great website.
Yeah, Daniel, not all people will click on the links.
But, there are things we could do about that (increases our chances of exposure and increase the chances of a user clicking on the link).
Thank you for the comment, Daniel!
Hi Jeevan, you know I’m big on the social networks but one area I would like to improve in is blog commenting. I have so many great article at my finger tips but the problem is it’s extremely time consuming. I”m a slow read to start with, I have ADD so I have to read things 2 or 3 times to even take it in and then I need to comment, and edit my comment as I 100% always have grammatical errors. I tend to have extremely lazy typing fingers. P.S. Thanks for the suggestions to create our LinkedIn Group, over time it will do great.
Hi Brian,
Of course 😀 I see you everywhere.
Yeah, I can understand. Even with a reading list, I am kind of struggling with blog commenting, the time it takes is just “not awesome” (then again, I guess I shouldn’t worry about commenting on each article, should I?). Ultimately, it is for the greater good – relationship building.
I improved my typing over time (thanks to computer classes in high school – I was actually forced to, because I would typically be the last one to finish typing!).
No problem, Brian 🙂 I hope to see great participation in the group!
The quantity of traffic isn’t really important for me, it’s the quality. I find engaging people one on one or in short groups (via comments, guest posts, social media, etc) is the best way to do things. It’s easy to convince one person to buy from you once you’ve formed a relationship with them.
I don’t run websites/blogs that count on massive amounts of traffic to make money, I just need a few customers each week or month to make decent money.
Both are important, Jamie (they are equally important to running a viable business). Relationship marketing, of course. Build the relationship. That is best way to go for building loyal followers and friends.
Yes, I can understand that, Jamie. But, quantity does matter in certain issues such as this one 😉
Anyways, thank you for stopping by!
I comment on the blogs that I like when I have the time. I know that I should comment more on other dog blogs, but I don’t want to keep dipping in that pool for traffic. I think I can find dog lovers everywhere and I can leave more thoughtful comments and have better interaction if I stick to my favorite bloggers.
I get loads of traffic when I do a giveaway, but that brings my bounce rate straight up. I’ve decided to start treating my blog more like an online magazine. I’ll still host giveaways, but not as a tool to increase traffic.
I get a lot of traffic from LinkedIn thanks to the groups over there and other forums. But your post reminded me that I need to take another look at my analytics to see where people are coming from.
Kimberly
Hey Kimberly,
Yeah, for the best results, you should focus on commenting on blogs of your niche, Kimberly. But, blogging is also a great niche to follow – help us to learn and blog better.
Yeah, Giveaways are great for traffic, but like you mentioned, the bounce rate goes up.
Social media sites can drive us traffic, but they aren’t that good with new traffic. If we use some small tricks (mainly participation), we can get more exposure and therefore more traffic through social media.
Thank you for the comment, Kimberly!
You present an interesting concept, Jeevan–considering the end goal and adjusting traffic-generation methods accordingly. It seems to me that is sage advice for every facit of one’s endeavors.
Hey Lane,
Thank you! I hope I am being helpful. Yes, it is important to consider the end goal and analyze how we are doing with different factors and make changes based on our observations.
Thank you for the comment, Lane!
Hey Jacob,
I’ve been using both social media networks and blog commenting for over 2 years now to drive traffic to my blogs. I think blog commenting works terribly awesome, if you’ve started a new blog. Without doing a lot of commenting on other blogs, I couldn’t been able to get the initial traction on my blog (it’s pretty good for a month old blog).
Now, I focusing more on doing guest posting. Guest posting is something that can drive tens of hundreds of new visitors, but you need to convert those visitors into traffic. The best way to do it either by using a popup plugin or creating a custom landing page. Back in 2009, when I was just starting out I did few guest posting and got good traffic but never been able to convert those visitors.
Apart from getting quality traffic, guest posting can also help to build high quality backlinks.
Becoming a regular contributor on big blogs like this one, is a good idea to get quality traffic to your blog.
Fantastic work, Jacob. Keep up the rocking work, dude. I’m so glad to have you on board.
Hey Devesh,
Commenting can drive lots of traffic, Devesh. But, we also need to look at the types of traffic and the audience itself. Commenting, to the most part, is helpful in bringing back our old visitors (visiting their blogs and commenting back). Commenting on really big blogs can drive us lot of traffic, but most of that traffic consist of new readers – unless we are targeting new readers, we shouldn’t comment on big blogs (and even if we are targeting new bloggers, we need to do something different because new bloggers often rely only on popular blogs – because they start by searching through Google). Overtime they learn blogging and switch back to medium sized big blogs (like BBT) to engage with bloggers like themselves and learn from bloggers like Ileane.
Both aren’t bad (although some people get annoyed by popup plugins). Custom landing pages aren’t bad, but they can take up some space, especially if we guest post a lot on lot of sites.
No problem, Devesh. Thank you for your comment! Great to work with you 😀
Great post Jeevan and there is so much truth in it. We always want more traffic but what is our goal with that traffic, if we don’t convert it and make use of it, then we ca nget millions of visitors but no effect will be made.
Blog commenting is as you said just to bring back some visitors and blogging friends back to the website or blog, and I also personally think that from time to time it’s not that useful.
thanks for sharing
Hey James,
Thank you!
Blog commenting, as it is, is just not viable for bringing in new visitors. But, we could increase our chances of getting more traffic by following certain tricks, I mention in the post.
No problem and thanks for the comment!
Commenting and social media in particular do not suck as traffic sources, unless you don’t what you’re doing. In fact, for two of my sites Facebook is only 2nd to Google in terms of referral traffic. Beyond direct traffic, looking at my aweber stats, one of my facebook pages which has an email list signup form on it has the highest subscriber rate, which brings lots of indirect traffic and sales. Guest posting can be effective, but requires much more time. You just have to measure the ROI on each campaign and optimize.
“In most social media sites, your posts are only visible to people who follow/friend/like your page/circle you.”
I have to disagree with this as a lot of social media sites are starting to carry out hashtag (#) type systems that might bring you extra exposure outside of your following.
I’m not one to suggest “hashtag stuffing” but a few hastags per google+, twitter, or Facebook post has always helped me get a few extra visits outside of my following.
Hey Josh,
Yes, I didn’t forget about hash tags, I consider that as part of participation, which is the solution to driving more traffic with social media (I have linked a specific article I wrote about that in the post).
Hash tags are usually part of twitter chats, and they are great for driving traffic and getting more exposure.
Thank you for your comment!
Hi Jeevan, This is really helpful article.
I do comment on other blogs to get loyal readers and bring my old visitors to check out my new blog post.
I’m going to start guest Blogging because it is quicker way to build a better readership than commenting on other blogs. Thanks for the post.
Hi Eshan,
I wouldn’t say ditch blog commenting. Simply incorperate guest posting into your normal routine. Best of both worlds?
Hey Ehsan,
Like Simmeon said, I wouldn’t recommend you to ditch commenting. True, commenting isn’t great when it comes to traffic, but it can work wonders with relationship building. If you are planning to try guest posting, I would recommend you to follow a comment first policy (comment on the blog and establish a relationship with the blog owner and the readers before you guest post).
Jeevan bro, I’m going to get in guest Blogging, but that doesn’t mean I will ditch blog commenting. I know the importance of commenting when it comes to building a relationship.
Thanks for your suggestion Simmeon and Jeevan.
sorry Jeevan , but after reading the whole article i am still not clear why does the traffic from social media sucks? really no offense , i mean the title said why social media traffic sucks but the article talks in favor of social media lol
i read it two times and you said in article that ‘In this article, we will talk about what the several traffic sources are best and how we can use them to achieve our specific goals with traffic ‘
title is soo much different than the content.
social media traffic is great , i mean they come , they comment and keep your blog alive! so it attract many new visitors when they see that you have a active readers and commenters on your site.
Hey Saad,
Seems like you got a bit confused buddy 😀 I meant, why they suck as traffic sources (I didn’t mean that traffic from those sources suck).
Yes, they are great. But, both social media and commenting aren’t viable traffic sources (set aside certain circumstances in which we participate and/or get more exposure through shares/comments. In commenting, we could use certain tricks to increase our chances of getting more traffic).
Hope I have cleared your doubts 😀
well if you are getting a good traffic from a source , then how would it suck? 🙂
Compared to the time and effort that is spend on these sources, they suck 🙂 (and compared to number of new visitors they can give us – it is good, but “good” isn’t good enough for blogging :D)
agree with you if you are talking about the time , then what do you think of other sources of traffic for a normal starter blogger 🙂 would love to hear
Time is one factor we always have to worry about. Of course, we could get more out of these traffic sources (In the article, I mention some ways through you can do it).
Well, for a starting blogger, you should spend your time with learning (Reading blogs and while you are at it, you should also start commenting). The first step is to learn blogging and start establishing relationships (commenting and social media are great for that).
Hi,
I’ve been commenting on many blogs, yet i’m loosing traffic. Could tell me some efficient wordings that might help and make it socialize by just commenting and make the webmaster to certainly visit my site.
And if you could through more tips on return visitors, I’ll be glad.
Regards,
Suraj KV
Well, I am not an expert on this topic, Suraj. But, you can always stop by my blogs (Blog networking 101 and Blogpreneurs) for any commenting tips you might want – I have done some experiments with commenting, so checking these sites will help 🙂
The most important thing with commenting is to leave honest, valuable and personal comments (also try to comment and engage with other commentators of the post and try to build a relationship with the regular commentators of blogs you visit).
No problem,
Jeevan
“I do take long breaks in between, because I want to counter act familiarity – The more I wrote here, the more familiar I became to you all. So, I take breaks – and in those breaks, I am sure that BBT has grown with some new readers – and I am mainly writing this article with them in mind”
I don’t know whether it’s your own idea or not, I’vent read anywhere this tip. Extraordinary tip Jeevan 🙂
I’ll follow it from now on and this is called immediate reaction after reading a great blog post. You cleared one more doubt here, starting the post with one or two lines. I always prefer writing(&reading) short lines than longer paragraphs. You can find them on my blog every time.
And here on BBT 95% of the authors prefer writing long paragraphs. So I always had a doubt that if I’ve to guest blog for BBT – I should use longer paragraphs. And you cleared my doubts! One shot – two birds 😉
How could I end up my comment without saying THANKS??
Haha thanks Jeevan for the awesome post.
Thank you, Rahul 🙂 It is my own idea.
Well, I am more of a write as I go guy. If I feel that I should start with a sentence, I do (If I don’t, I go for a sentence). I try both, even though I know they can play a good role in my readers’ mind (Little things matter, but in this case, I think it is something negligible).
I think you should stay with what you like – if you like to start with short sentences, then go for it. I have done both at BBT – long paragraphs and short sentences.
No problem, buddy. Glad I could help 😀
I tried dropping by my visitors’ blog but I can hardly find new posts. I think they have stopped blogging for a while and think of ways to get ahead of Penguin. But your tip about using comments to bring back visitors is a sure fire way to rekindle old bonds. Thanks Jeevan 🙂
Thank you for agreeing, Penny.
Yeah, it isn’t great to see a site that is not updated for months.
I agree most of the social media traffic sucks big time and are worthless. Perhaps one or two where your links are propelled to the top but in majority of cases they are not worth a penny. I din’t know about Blogengage LinkedIn group, I just joined it.
Hey Shalu,
Yeah, in the way millions use it, they are worthless. But, certain things like participation can earn us more traffic through social media sites – we can make them worth our time, we just have to spend it in the right way 😀
Glad you joined 🙂
Yes i totally agree with you that social media and commenting is the main traffic sources. We can get traffic using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus etc. Also we can get traffic through commenting on blogs, articles etc. When we comment on a blog post then the owner of the blog also comment as a reply then it is easier to communicate with that person and to visit on their blogs.
Of course, we can get traffic through every traffic source.
Question is what type of traffic it is and whether they are worth our time.
I do agree with you Jeevan,
It’s not all about commenting – it’s about engagement and offering / contributing value to the post. When it comes to commenting people tend to see it as a chore – And that is one of the big reason you see a lot of low quality comments. They want the link sharing opportunity – not an opportunity to actually contribute useful information / views on a topic. And one thing people have to realize – the more value you bring by commenting the better chance you have of a user actually following through to your website.
Hey Anton,
Glad you agree. It is indeed about contributing value to the post. I agree, lot of people think that if they go on a commenting spree and leave some silly comments, it is going to get them traffic. But, things are far from true. Only thing they are going to get is to be labeled as spammers (and once you are labeled as one, it is really hard to become a trust worthy guy).
Commenting comes to my rescue more often. I had once got about 44 visitors from just commenting on an article on a SEO blog. And best social media platform for me is stumbleupon from where I get decent amount of traffic.
Yeah, commenting alone will be huge traffic if you do it properly
Nikhil and Robert,
Yes, they can give you traffic, but are they worth it?
Traffic from popular blogs are mostly new bloggers (unless you are targeting them, it is of no use). As far as SU goes, traffic from SU isn’t loyal, they just check out and leave almost immediately.
Commenting is one of the best strategies to get back linking; it is one of the safest strategy also.
Yes, of course. But, commenting just for the sake of back linking isn’t a great idea. SEO is important, but more important is relationships and adding real value through your comments.
Hi Jeevan!
Certainly blog commenting gets you more traffic and its been an art you got to learn something special style to get the more traffic back to your blog, though its been a really helpful post.
Yes, of course.
With a few tricks up our sleeve and targeting the right audience with a valuable comment can earn us some traffic 🙂
Blog Commenting and Social Media are good way to attract same readers and visitors again and again. But if you write interesting and informational article then there are good chances that you article could get more shares, retweets and so on which results more exposure to your article. And you article will attract new visitors.
So I feel it would basically depends upon the quality of your article and loyalty of your audience, who don’t shy to share and vote your content.
Your site is really awesome 😀 but why don’t u apply for adsensE?
@Bharadwaj, I think adsense is already there. Its on the home page as well.
Yeah I forgot I am using ad plus 😛
Hey Bharadwaj,
First off, it is not my site 🙂
Adsense is already there. I think you are not seeing it because of ad blocking plugins/add-ons.
That sound very impressive indeed. I somehow never seem to get that much traffic from my comments. I guess one has to write very specifically within one community.
Hey Jerry,
Well, then you should consider the places you are commenting in – are those targeted? are you commenting on places that can send you potential customers/visitors? and maybe even try a different approach to commenting itself.
Can you explain, Pulkit?
If you mean, article syndication to blog communities, well you don’t just get traffic for submitting the link, you have to engage with other members of the community and start building relationships.
Effective points on improving traffic. But I think every blogger has different source to get visitors. Some get from Facebook, Stumble Upon others get from forum sites, twitter etc. But I agree guest posting is a great place to increase visitors if you write in a famous site
Yes, of course. They are different because each blogger spend time on different sites, doing something different.
Even so, we can define how the traffic is going to come, and how we should divide time between traffic sources to get the best results.
I am really eager of reading content concerning developing new website, or even concerning Search engine marketing.
Times have changed so does ones opinion and i guess its right to say blog commenting and social media have became great source of returning visitors to blogs ..! which are essential part of your SEO strategy..!
Hey Raheel,
They are also great for driving new visitors, if used effectively (although they aren’t as great as guest posting). But they do have the potential.
It’s true that social media and commenting is the best source to generate a traffic.but sometime it can be reduce your website traffic.we should consider some tips like should we get a first time visitors or regular visitors and about bounce rate.
Hey Ricky,
They aren’t the best sources, but we could use them to get more traffic and even make them the best traffic sources for our blog.
I have had my website for almost 2 years now. Until recently I didn’t bother to learn much about SEO or blogging or anything like that. Needless to say–I had a small but steady following and somehow ended up on page 2 of Google. My main purpose was to provide information (for free) to those struggling from infertility. About 2 months ago it hit me in the face–I was paying yearly more for my website then I was making. Something had to change! In the last two months–I have made more $ than I did in the prior 2 years freelance writing and blogging– (not that it’s lots of money–but more than I had made)
I am finding that traffic is coming from Pinterest and StumbleUpon. However “that” traffic isn’t the traffic that is converting.
Being a freelance writer I enjoy reading and leaving blog comments. I have a pretty good following on Twitter and Facebook–but I’m still trying to figure out where this converting traffic is coming from. Blogging and commenting has proven to be simply fun for me..and after reading your article I think I’m on the right path!!
Sincere thanks!!
Hey Carina,
I am glad that you are seeing change in your blogging career. Yeah, traffic from Pinterest and SU isn’t something that is worth following.
Blog commenting and social media are great, but as they are, they aren’t great for driving new traffic. But, we could use some tricks to make it worth our time and get more results out of it.
No problem. Thank you for the comment!
Oh my gosh, this is one of the best & most informative blog posts I’ve read today! You have shared with us a great marketing strategy that works if you work it & I’m impressed!
I am bookmarking this & sharing this with my followers & subscribers….thanks so much!!!
Hey Toshiba,
Thank you! I am glad you found my work useful.
No problem!
Engagement is the key when it comes to commenting. I would rather look for a blogger friend to visit my blog through the link in the comment than a couple of visits. That one friend would prove to be better than a thousand visits, what say? 🙂
Yes. Building relationships are way better than anything else. But, at the same time, we must remember the sole purpose of blogging: To provide value, and our goal is to provide value to the most people (So, we need to take care of driving traffic too). Building relationships can also earn us traffic – but it takes time and effort (of course, it would and it should), so I recommend that relationship marketing should be among our long term goal, but at the same time, we should have short term goals involving driving traffic through various other means.
I think that having Guest posting is one of the number one things to do! Anyone can benefit from it! So hard work gets you where you need to go! This has been an incredibly helpful post!
I am glad you agree, Jake.
Thank you for the comment!
Hi Jacob, we all are working for traffic to our blog. So we take commenting, social media and search engines as a source of traffic and work for it…..
thanks for sharing it…………
Of course, we must utilize all means of traffic, but we should invest our most time on sources that can give us the best results (time is important, isn’t it?).
Thank you for your comment, Prakash!
I think nowadays, social media has been playing an important role in assisting the online business owners to increase exposure among the online users.
Yes, the importance of Social media is rising, but simply wasting time on social media isn’t going to get us anywhere – we need to invest time in the right areas to get the best results.
This is really helpful article.I do suggest do follow blog commenting, through which you can get more traffic.What do you think if using YouTube videos on the blog?
Youtube videos are great for driving traffic, if they are used in the “right” way – you need to target an audience and keyword it properly (for youtube, keywords matter!) and promote the video as you promote any of your posts. You can leverage the video further by writing a post on it, a follow up guest post and even comment on articles related to it.
Hey Jeevan,
Loved your perspective about traffic sources. I agree we can bring back our old readers by commenting but it needs a lot of time. But I still do that, a little, sometimes.
And yes, I have experienced by replying to other comments on article, it is useful to grab attention, and sometime take the reader to our blog.
The last is guest blogging. Well, I am looking into that. I am just going to guest post on all of my favorite blogs one by one.
I did see you have guest post on many blogs out there. What would you say about, increase in YOUR blog traffic and readers count, by guest blogging. How much % of increase you have noticed?
Hey Abhi,
I am glad you agree about commenting and replying to other comments on articles, Abhi. They are great ways to drive new traffic to our site, if used effectively.
Yeah, I can see that 😀
Well, it depends upon the blog you guest post. For instance: I wrote a guest post for Pro blogger and good traffic out of it – of course, it wasn’t the traffic that I wanted – because it was mainly new bloggers.
It also depends upon who we are targeting (and ultimately the content itself). I have got lots of traffic with guest posting for my old blog.
I haven’t seen that much increase with my new blog since I haven’t guest posted much for this blog (I am starting to pick up the pace and get back to my guest posting schedule).
Anyways, thank you for the comment, Abhi!
Hi
Thanks for posting this tips. They are great. I have shared this to my blog, i find it very interesting, I have linked it back to you , so others can read the full article .
Ed
Thank you for the share, Ed!
Appreciate it!
Social media and commenting is the best source to generate a traffic.we should consider some tips like should we get a first time visitors or regular visitors.Thanks for your post.
Hey Sojan,
They aren’t the best sources, but we could generate a lot of traffic through them!
Great great great article Jeevanjacobjohn !!!!!!!!
I just loved the way you explained each point. Guest posts are really the best way to get more visitors. Your article was simply rocking. For the first time I have read the whole article that concentrates on getting traffic. Because it wasn’t just another article. It was a superb article.
Thanks for providing with such information 😀
Thanks, Arbaz!
I am glad you do 🙂 Thank you! I am glad you appreciate my post. I hope that you apply my concepts to your blog and get traffic through them.
Well, I always try to give more advice in my blog comments and I do get a decent amount of traffic going back to my website. I get at least a couple visits on each blog comment I do which is pretty decent in my opinion.
For social media, if you interact and build relationships with people it will be successful as well. Although if you are and sound like a robot just posting links in almost all of your messages, you aren’t going to be successful.
Hey Caleb,
Yes, with some tweaks, we can get more out of both of these traffic sources – they are great, but most people don’t realize participating or actually engaging can drive us more traffic in the long term.
Thank you for the comment!
Commenting is a great way to bring back old visitors, yeah I’ve known that much. I don’t know how many old visitors I have brought back since I started blog commenting. I try my best to comment on my blog posts too so the discussion will be flowing with information.
Commenting and social media in particular do not suck as traffic sources, unless you don’t what you’re doing.
Hey John,
Thank you!
I am glad I could give you more ideas. I hope you get better results through those ideas 😀
I whole heartily agree to disagree. Writing a blog post that everyone agrees with is no fun for starters, but most importantly, people love to argue. All that aside, great post. Till recently I have avoided guest posting, although the desire to generate more traffic is pushing me to expand outwards.
I couldn’t agree more. Instigating the discussion is something that is part of being a blogger, as not only you are expressing yourself but also poiting out and allowing other people to comment on it.
People have a limited amount of time, therefore to be really successful you must either get their attention on the social media (as we see a huge reach on Facebook but a small click through rate) by being unique and really informative, or by being funny and sharable.
rightly said…with google making seo difficult…social networks are going to be the biggest source for website traffic
Social Media can bring traffic if you’re active in that.
Like my friend that have 5000 friend in fb, the first time she launch a blog, many of her friends visit that blog.
If we want to increase the traffic then we have to be active on social media sites like facebook. Well, very nice article. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Jeevanjacobjohn,
I really inspired with your post about your this post and I wish you to keep going on. Don’t stop.
Yeah, you are right about commenting is better than social media. Thank you so much for sharing this information.
I think no it’s no that the social media sucks but in case of having loyal friends on social media sites, you will surely be getting a good exposure from Social Media.
I am bit confused in your blog because your title implies that commenting is useless but then within the body of your text, commenting gets a favourable review. I think commenting is a terrific tool to build a commuity and to get others to notice when you write something. I agree that trying to keep up with social conversations on different blogs is a challenge but I have been using Engagio for that specific reason and it is a terrific tool.
I don’t agree with this post (except for guest blogging), especially because it is too broad, and the tips do not work for every field.
You seem to forget that commenting on blogs should be done not only to attract traffic, but also to engage with fellow bloggers and build relationships. At the end of the day, traffic is secondary. You are looking to build your expertise and become the leader of a community. In the long run, traffic builds up naturally as a result.
Social media can be an awesome source of traffic. You just have to know how to leverage the platforms. One great way to achieve this is to be a content curator.
You’re probably right for most bloggers, but for me who does it for fun and just likes to get a few comments for my posts and nothing else, then commenting on other blogs works for me. It’s a social thing with my blog, no ads, no affiliate links or anything else so I don’t really care if they’re the right type of people or not: as long as they’re people, they’re nice and they like my post I’m happy. 🙂
Great and unique tips to getting traffic :), commenting on other bloggers article is a great way to become a part of blogging community,
Blog commenting is still important though. A good traffic source would be the search engines and by blog commenting, you are building backlinks which helps increase your rank for a certain phrase.
From there, if you are on page 1 of google, you will get traffic,