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10 Tips For Benefiting From Unexpected Traffic

10 Tips For Benefiting From Unexpected Traffic

Sometimes we will write something and it will unexpectedly deliver you lots of traffic without you needing to do anything.This happens surprisingly often after your blog gets established with readers and search engines.

While this is nice in itself, many people just bask in the reflected glory and do nothing. But there are ways to properly benefit from this attention …

Here are some ideas:

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  1. Put in a call to subscribe – “Hey, thanks for dropping by, if you like this you will love what I am going to bring you soon, so sign up so you don’t miss out”
  2. Add links to related content – Get as many page views as possible but also the more value you offer the greater connection you are going to make
  3. Promote it – While you didn’t need promotion to get it noticed, that doesn’t mean it is too late to give it a good push now
  4. Get links – If your article is already proving popular then if you ask for links you have proof of sorts that readers will like it
  5. Do a friend a favor – While you are linking up you could link out to some friends who have similar or related articles
  6. Add product links – If you are getting visitors every day some of them might turn out to be buyers
  7. Add your own product or service – Buyers do not necessarily need to be sent to 3rd parties – add a message saying “if you need help with XYZ ..” and sell your own services
  8. Sell ads – Some of those adwords advertisers who are bidding on your search term might be pleased to send some dollars your way to feature on a page that ranks naturally
  9. Write part two – You might have written the original so fast you missed important elements, a natural reason to write a part two or even more and make it into a series
  10. Ask for questions, additions and further tips – Can your readers expand on it? One way to find out – ask!

Can you think of any other ways you can benefit from unexpected traffic? Please add your tips in the comments …

View Comments (6)
  • Test out multiple layouts with multi variate testing tool. If you are getting a large number of visitors, you can finally find out which design format is the most user friendly. Instead of just guessing, you’ll have actual data from unique visitors and that is one benefit from unexpected traffic.

  • I can remember one which is useful for websites rather than for blogs: develop a series of articles or a manual based on a good-ranking article. On my site, Heptagrama, I got an article about musical notes with many visits. I talked with a music teacher and developed a nice music section from it.

    My .02

  • You can also do yourself a big favor by trying to always have a couple of blog posts sitting on the backburner so that if you do experience a big spike in traffic, you’re not suddenly at a loss for new, interesting content to capitalize on the flurry of new visitors.

    I had a guest post published on Problogger several months back. It was an incredible and unexpected honor! But I was unprepared for the rush of new visitors that a mention on such a well-traveled blog would bring and didn’t have new material to publish on my site. I could’ve made the most of the rare opportunity by having some reserve material that could’ve been published quickly, easily, and steadily over the 2-3 days after that guest post went live.

    So, I try to keep a couple of things simmering in Google Docs that I can flesh out in a hurry if need be.

  • Hi, I have written quite a lot (on paper) about the difference between the traffic you receive from search engines vs. social media traffic. I think the most important fact for anyone to take notice to is that there actually is a difference in behavior.

    I call the social media users “information seekers” as they tend to like to be updated more than buying anything.

    1. Use language such as “Get the latest news” or “More of this” – for the subscription forms rather than “Greatest offers – signup now!” – which might trigger a buyer or search engine visitor.

    I would really say that you should add some subscription boxes of your choice, but from a variation of services. DO NOT use the Add This or ShareThis plugins. There are too many choices in them. Select the few where you can actually have time to track the results.

    2. Add three social media services (one crowdsourcing, one social network and one microblog – perhaps), so that you know you can follow through and follow up – whilst not giving your user too many choices so that he/she doesn’t sign up at all

    It is allways good to write what you want your user to do. And really what you want is to convert your suspect users into prospects or leads. You do this by asking them to leave some info.

    3. Prompt users to leave a comment, don’t rely on your comments field at the bottom. Use phrasisngs like the author of this article “if you have any better ideas”. This is a good way to get people to want to prove their intellect. Plus, commentators are allways good to know of and have contact with as they tend to be influencers – and as we know, that’s the new (old) black when it comes to online marketing

    Cheers,
    Jesper

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