5 Little Known Ways to Grow Your Blog

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This is a guest post by Kim Roach of BuzzBlogger.com. She provides us with some novel ideas for growing our blogs, some of which I’ll be trying out very soon. Enjoy!

I just finished off a large Starbucks Doubleshot and have now settled into my favorite chair to share with you some of my favorite (largely untapped) traffic strategies.

These aren’t your traditional, run-of-the-mill traffic tactics that you hear all over the web… article marketing, guest blogging, forum marketing, Twitter, etc…

All of those are fine and good, but in this article, I’d like to go outside the box a bit and show you 5 little-known traffic strategies that I’ve been using to grow my blog.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in…

1. Convert Your Content into Ebooks

This one little strategy is bringing me thousands of extra visitors with very little extra work on my part.

You simply convert one of your articles (or a collection of related articles) into a PDF. You can do this for free at http://www.youconvertit.com or http://www.pdfonline.com/convert-pdf.

You then submit your newly created ebook to:

• http://www.free-ebooks.net
• http://www.getfreeebooks.com, and
• http://www.myebook.com.

There are hundreds of ebook directories online, but these are the most popular one’s that will send you 99% of your traffic.

If you’re a blogger, you could easily be driving thousands of extra visitors to your website simply by converting your existing content into ebooks.

Important Note: You MUST make sure that you have links pointing back to your blog within the report. I also highly recommend that you include a promo at the end of your report that sends people to your squeeze page where you can grow your list of subscribers.

If you have paid ebooks, you can submit them to http://e-library.net/add.html.

You can also submit your ebook to a few document sharing sites like Scribd.com, DocStoc.com, eSnips.com, Calameo.com, Issuu.com, and Yudu.com.

There are so many ways that you can re-purpose your content for extra exposure. You could easily be getting 10x more traffic from every article you write simply by reformatting it into ebooks, videos, podcasts, forum posts, etc…

2. Build Your Tribe

Social media seems to be all the rage nowadays.

However, there are very few people really teaching how to take full advantage of this worldwide phenomenon.

But as a blogger you have a very unique opportunity to create exponential growth using the power of social media. But to do that, you must first build your tribe.

With a blog you’re able to create a small cult-like community of raving fans. However, very few people are building and fostering their tribe appropriately.

Because to build a real community, you’ve got to be in the trenches… replying to every comment, engaging in every Twitter conversation that touches your sphere of influence, reading and replying to ALL of your emails, offering special chat times, and most importantly – adding value at every point of contact.

Once you have a tribal community, you will have created an invaluable asset – an ARMY of people who will comment on your posts, Tweet your content, engage in conversation, and become your very best social evangelists.

Everyone on the Web has now become a content creator or buzz facilitator using tools like email, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Wikis, and instant messaging.

It is now easier than ever to create rapid growth in your company using the buzz factor of your existing audience.

Create remarkable content and then allow your readers to promote your content for you. Your readers are now the center of any successful marketing.

3. Content Integration

I’m sure you’ve heard about the power of article marketing and guest blogging, but you can take this a step further with the use of content integration marketing.

Content integration is basically where you integrate your content into other people’s traffic funnels. So this could be blogs, membership sites, products, emails, etc…

But the one’s I’d like us to look at further are products and membership sites.

Most of you are probably very familiar with creating content for other people’s websites, but we rarely think about creating exclusive content for other people’s products or membership sites.

These are HUGE, largely untapped traffic sources.

Membership site owners are constantly looking for great content that they can put inside their member’s area. In fact, that’s one of the hardest parts of owning a membership site (continuously updating it with new content).

But it represents a huge opportunity for you to come in and provide exclusive, high-quality content in return for massive exposure to a large group of buyers.

I’ve done this myself with other Internet Marketing membership sites and it has sent me thousands of extremely high-quality visitors and hundreds of subscribers.

You can also integrate your content with other people’s products. Simply find a popular product in your market and then create some extremely high-quality complementary content that they could offer as a bonus.

This is a win-win for both of you because they get to delight their customers with even more premium content and you get exposure to a large base of buyers.

By pairing your products and content with other products within your market you are going to create an instant, perpetual flow of traffic to your website.

4. Ad Swaps

One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is not building a list of subscribers. Bloggers could dramatically increase their income if they focused on building their list of subscribers rather than their RSS readers.

(This is Pat stepping in really quick. I just have to reiterate what Kim just said, because the list is hugely important! For those of you who do not yet have your own lists setup, you can check out my Beginner’s Guide to Starting a List Here.)

So, why is a list of subscribers so powerful? Well, essentially it allows you to create traffic on demand. With a list, you can send thousands of visitors to the page of your choice with the push of a button.

So you instantly have a built-in community of readers that will read all of your future posts, comment, tweet, and drive sales 10x higher than you would be able to produce with your blog alone.

With a mailing list, you have now built extreme leverage into your business. It doesn’t matter how Google changes their algorithm, because you’ll always have a fan base that you can tap into at will.

Plus, once you’ve built an initial “seed” list of 500-1,000 subscribers, you can then start building your list exponentially using the power of ad swaps to add hundreds of new subscribers in a single day.

Essentially, an ad swap occurs when two list owners each agree to mail their list about the OTHER person’s free offer. This is usually a free offer placed on a squeeze page in exchange for someone’s name and email address. As a result, they both add hundreds of subscribers to their lists in a single day.

Some of the best places to look for ad swap partners include:

• Matt Garrett’s Internet Marketing AdSwaps
• Warrior Joint Ventures
• Adswap Finder
• ListSwapper.com
• JV Notify Pro Joint Venture Community (You Must be Registered to View this Section)
• JvMe.com
• The IM Joint Venture Social Network

5. Bonus Strategy

Now, before I end this article (and the caffeine high wears off), I’d like to share my all-time secret traffic strategy.

You can generate all the traffic you could ever want by using this one little secret…

Are you ready?

Come a little close so I can whisper it in your ear…

*** At the end of the day, it’s really all about VALUE.

If you deliver truly remarkable content on an ongoing basis, then no one can hold you back. You’ll be surprised how quickly you start to build up a group of raving fans when you put out truly great content.

And when I say truly great content, I’m not talking about good content or even great content. I’m talking about producing remarkable content on an ongoing basis.

I need to crave your content more than I do my daily Starbucks.

It’s got to be that good.

Turn your marketing into an experience that your readers look forward to each and every day.

If you’d like to discover ALL 24 of Kim’s hidden traffic sources, go to http://www.buzzblogger.com/freetraffic to claim your FREE Underground Traffic Report.

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