How to Get Traffic to Your Blog… A Comparison

Today I’m doing a comparison.

2 blogs.

1 target market.

2 Very different traffic strategies.

The first blog is a very niche related, product focused blog. The other is a more information related site, with plenty of products to be sold as well.

Site one:  Toddler Ride On Toys

As you can see it is very specific and details a lot of excellent information on ride on toys. Very specific, and very keyword rich.

Tina’s best bet for getting traffic to this site is to go for search traffic. She wants to find people who are interested in a specific ride on toy ~ they’re looking online to buy that toy. She wants to get them from the search engines.

To do this, Tina will identify targeted keywords with good search volume and low competition ~ write up a post targeting that keyword and then build links to the post. As she builds links to the post it helps the authority of the overall site, but it also helps push that particular post up the search engines for that keyword.  As she continues to work on this she will find her site is ranking quite well in Google for her targeted keywords ~ she gets traffic and makes sales.

This is pretty straight forward. However, I am guessing that  most people do not have a blog that is this straight forward. So let’s look at blog number two.

Blog number 2: Fun Kids Activities

As you can see this blog focuses more on ideas and concepts than solid things you can sell ~ so it’s going to be harder for Mary K to simply target keywords and get traffic from Google. While I’m sure there are plenty of keywords out there she could target Mary K is a very interactive person and has a writing style that doesn’t exactly fit the mold of “keyword targeted posts” Never fear. She still has options.

I think her strategy for getting traffic to this blog should focus on creating a community. Once she gets a group of regular readers they will help her spread the word organically. They will also trust her opinions and buy from her because of it. How’s she going to do this?

1. Identify her target market.

Who needs ideas for activities to do with their kids? First time moms? Busy moms of multiple kids? Single moms? I’m sure she could brainstorm even more and come up with some very specific groups of people who need what she’s offering. (I know as a first time mom I LOVE her site and use it often!)

2. Identify where her target market hangs out.

She needs to start connecting with these people, so she’s got to figure out where they are spending time online. Do they have their own blogs? Do they hang out on twitter? Facebook? A forum? Hell, they may still be at myspace. She’s got to figure out where they are and then get involved and get to know them.

3. Get involved with her market.

No matter where she finds this target market she’s got to get involved with them, she’s got to create relationships with them. Now, I personally know that Mary K is a master of creating relationships which is why I think this strategy will work QUITE well for her. If she was a loner who hated people I would suggest she get her hiney into the keyword tool and start finding keywords to target. (that’s part of the art of internet marketing ~ knowing your strengths and weaknesses and creating your business around what works for YOU).

She can comment on their blogs, she could add them on twitter and start conversations ~ same with facebook. She could join the forums they hang out in and help ~ answer questions, provide support ~ you know ~ be friendly.

In all of this she is able to link back to her blog so as people get to know her better they stop by and check it out. Since her content is top notch they will likely keep coming back ~ not only that ~ as she becomes more a part of their community they will also retweet her posts, recommend an activity she talked about to other moms they know and thereby build her community even more.

4. Be consistent.

This is the final item of this plan, and the whole plan hinges on it.  To become part of a community you have to be there. You have to be around, interacting regularly (read daily ~ especially in the mom niche). Have you ever had a friend who pops up for a week and then disappears for months? Think about how you feel about those friends. I love them, but they aren’t the people I talk about all the time. Nope the people I talk about all the time are the people who are in my life all the time.

It works the same here ~ you hear me talk about people, bloggers, friends, accountability partners regularly around here… that’s because they are part of my daily life. They’re like family to me, so of course I would talk about them, just like I talk about Hanna and my husband.

I’m not saying you have to connect with these people 15 hours a day, but you need to create a reliable presence in the community so people will know you’re reliable and really part of the community.

As you can see these are two very different blogs ~ however targeting pretty much the same market ~ but driving traffic to them is done in very different ways.

What kind of blog do you have? What kind of traffic plan do you have? Are you implementing the plan? Sticking to it? I’d love to hear what you’re up to in the comments.