Either you’re getting a lot of traffic but yet you’re not getting the responses you want or you’re getting a very small amount of traffic.
And it sucks, doesn’t it?
You may feel like you’re doing everything right, but yet your results are disappointing.
In this case you figure that you may be missing something.
But what could that be?
Well it has a lot to do with the purpose of your blog.
Without purpose, then people don’t have a great reason of why they should come to your blog.
Especially for growing your returning visitors.
It starts off with purpose and branches out to other vital elements.
You may have a great habit of publishing content on a specific schedule or you may have a list of sites to promote your blog.
But yet doing a lot of work doesn’t mean that you’re going to generate the amount of traffic you want.
As a matter of fact it isn’t about the amount, but who’s coming to your blog.
In this post I’ll talk about the important elements to focus on that will improve your traffic generation.
Have you ever come to the point where the harder you work at a specific task or skill, the more you stay stagnant with no signs of improvement?
You literally stress yourself out just trying to make it over a hump.
it’s almost like trying to climb a pole with oil on it.
You don’t budge even though you’re putting overtime with the little time you have.
You may even sacrifice spending time with your family and friends just to see one notch of improvement.
Some of your peers looks as if they only publish one blog per month and they get a swarm of traffic almost instantaneously.
So you ask yourself what’s wrong with your blog?
Yea, a lot of us tend to get self conscious with our blog posts when we don’t see the results we want, but it’s not the end of the world.
Why?
To Start off, there are two questions you should ask yourself about your blog.
What is the purpose of your blog?
Who is your blog for?
Yes it’s as simple at this, but many don’t start from these questions.
Many of us, including myself, jumped into talking about generating traffic, SEO, sales conversions, social media marketing, etc..thinking these are the only topics that will lead us to being a successful blogger/solopreneur.
But for the average solopreneur, it doesn’t work out like this.
It’s great to get started, but eventually we have to find out what type of people you want to come to your blog.
And you start off by answering those two simple questions.
Answering these questions will give you a better perception of who you want to attract and what type of content they respond well to.
Once you get great idea of the purpose of your blog and who your blog is for, there are a few more obstacles that you want to bypass.
The idea is to be on the same level as your potential visitors so that they’ll like, trust and eventually buy from you.
5 Things To Consider For Generating Traffic As A Solopreneur
One thing that’s great about blogging is that it’s a gateway for people to get familiar with you.
It’s a great way for people to connect with you and build a community of followers.
There are many who believe that only numbers is the way to become successful and to a degree it is true.
The numbers, or statistics, will help you figure out where you need to focus to build your blog so eventually you’ll generate conversions in email subscriptions and sales.
Having a nice following will empower your marketing. You’ll have visitors who are just looking for information, visitors that will be your support, visitors you build relationships with, and those visitors that will buy from you.
But before any of this happens, there are a few things you want to bypass and here are 5 that you want to consider to attract the right type of traffic:
Nobody knows who you are
People don’t know what message your trying convey
You don’t have a target audience
You don’t talk about specific topics geared towards your target audience interest
You’re always “selling” instead of educating more
All traffic isn’t equal, and you want to distinguish this. But to simplify it, there’s going to be traffic that’s going to benefit your blog and those that won’t.
Let’s dig deeper in the 5 things you want to consider.
Nobody Knows Who You Are
Your visitors really want someone they can relate to.
If your personality and your story relate to them, then this gives them a great reason to connect with you.
This is what’s going to make you stand out from the rest. You can market the same product and services that your peers do, but you will attract certain people that resonate with you personally.
This is why branding yourself is vital to your success.
You want people to remember you not only for the products and services you market, but also the message that you’re conveying.
When you have your personality, your story, and the message you want to convey, these become the basic components of your brand you build from.
This will give your audience an overview of who you are and what they’ll expect from your blog. You can see it’s similar to a Table Of Contents or a Quick Summary of what a book is about.
People Don’t Know What Message You’re Trying To Convey
An answer like “Showing people how to make money online” is something that the average solopreneur answers.
Sure, the novice visitors would be intrigue since this may be the first time they came across an answer like this, but those that been around the block a few times wouldn’t be so much.
This is why you want to be specific as you go along your blogging journey.
You may start off with an answer like this as a beginner, but as time passes the best thing you can do is be more specific.
For Example:
You start off saying “Showing people how to make money online”.
Then.. Showing people how to make money online through blogging.
Then later you may say “Showing single parents how to make money online through blogging”
Then finally you may say “Showing single parents how to make money online through blogging by leveraging social media”
Not only will your visitors get the idea, but also this looks great to search engines using their semantics to drive organic traffic to your blog.
You Don’t Have A Target Audience (Market)
Speaking of message, how many times you gave a generic answer to those that ask you “What exactly do you do?”
Your target audience depends on your personal brand and the message you convey.
But keep in mind there’s going to be different types as I mentioned before.
You’re going to have people who only comment and share your blog posts.
You’re going to have people who just subscribe to your email lists.
You’re going to have people that buy the products or services you promote.
But if you want to figure out who they are, there a few ways of doing so.
There are some important things you want to consider when it comes to your target audience.
You want to know:
What Problems They Have?
Who will find your content valuable?
Who do they trust and respect?
Where do they hang out?
What topics do they respond well to the most?
I go more in detail in the blog post 7 Ways On How To Define Your Target Market where I also show you where you can get more detail information via Google Analytics.
You Don’t Talk About Specific Topics Geared Towards Your Target Audience’s Interest.
One rule of thumb:
If you convey the message within your About Me page, you want to make sure that you’re posts at least relates to it in some way.
Other than that, it would defeat the purpose of your message.
When it comes to your blog, consistency between your posts and message is vital.
Your genuine target audience are going to come to your blog based on your consistent message.
And more importantly, it’s crucial to publish topics that’s geared towards their interest.
The only exception would be if you have a multi-niched blog, but even then you still have to be wary of what topics brings in the most traffic.
You’re Always “Selling” Instead Of Educating More
People hate to be convinced, but they love the be persuaded.
And yes, there is a difference!
If your visitors doesn’t see how they can benefit, but yet you steadily try to convince them why your product or services are the best, then your convincing.
But if you’re focused on their common problems, and show them why they have those specific problems and how to resolve them, then you are persuading them.
Why?
Because none of them want to stay stuck.
They want to keep progressing with their businesses without consistently feeling like failures.
How do you benefit from this?
In this fashion, through persuasion, you give them the opportunity to buy from you.
It puts you in the perfect position to get the best out of your promotion instead of scaring your visitors away.
You creates opportunities for them to promote your blog posts whenever they click on those share buttons.
Conclusion
When it comes to generating traffic to your blog, yes, you do have to promote. I mean how else are people going to find you.
But, the foundation behind your promotion is why do you people want to come to your blog.
It’s the purpose of your blog.
What type of visitors do you want to come to your blog, and what message do you want to put out there to catch their interest.
You can talk about all the strategies there are in the blogosphere, but from my own experience it’ll leave many of your visitors confused about what exactly you do.
This would result in you being all over the place but yet you’re not going anywhere.
When it comes to blog traffic, you want to become as specific as you can and it starts with the two questions:
What is the purpose of your blog?
Who is your blog for?
Now It’s Your Turn!
Are you struggling to generate traffic to your blog?
Do you find people constantly asking you what exactly do you do?
Do you feel that you’re not being specific enough with the purpose of your blog?
What type of visitors do you want to attract?
If you’re struggling with generating traffic, then you may need to be more specific who you want to attract and only focus on the content they like to read.
Please leave your comments below and share this post with your friends. I look forward to read them!
