In order to drive traffic to your site, you have to drive traffic to somebody else’s site.
Don’t! How many blog followers can you get per hour? How many page views do you get per day? If you divided the answer by the number of hours it took you to get those coveted statistics, would you be pleased? Odds are, you wouldn’t.
Trying to get new blog followers is like a job. How much is your time worth?
Who is a famous author? Stephen King? John Grisham? J.K. Rowling? (I am a huge Harry Potter fan.) Their currency is money. I heard at one time Rowling was richer than the queen, so I know they make boat loads of money for each hour they spend writing.
What is your currency? Blog followers? Page views? This post is about how to make your statistics high enough that it is worth the time that you spend on your blog.
I’m sure whatever you are doing to drive traffic to your blog is working for you and actually driving traffic to your blog. I even bet I could learn a lot of good ideas from many of you.
I am not judging anyone. I am simply sharing common sense that I heard, and I heard it from blogging guru Jon Morrow who is considered an authority in this field.
According to Jon, the way to drive traffic to your site, is NOT to drive traffic to your site.
To quote a song from the stage version of the musical Beauty and the Beast, “unbelievable, inconceivable,” right? Wrong. Jon’s advice actually makes perfect sense.
According to Morrow, the way to drive traffic to your site… is to drive traffic to somebody else’s site. In other words–guest post. My experiences in the time I’ve been blogging prove that to be true.
If you’ve read my About Me page, you know that I have been a guest blogger five times. I guest blogged for Jason Cushman’s Harsh Reality site. There were many benefits from that experience. First, I got new followers. Next, my writing was reblogged by his followers which also led to my getting new followers. At the time, Jason had thousands of followers. In other words, I had thousands of new eyes on my blog. I got many new followers overnight on the weekend that I wrote for him.
The benefits of guest blogging is that you expose your writing to additional eyes. You expand your blog’s reach. However, there is a caveat. The person you guest post for has to have significantly more followers than you do or you will not get the return on your investment. Your investment is your time.
All my guest blogging experiences have paid off in increased traffic and new followers. Once again, the numbers increased in direct relation to the numbers of followers the person who hosted me had. If you look for guest blogging opportunities, and I recommend you do in order to increase blog traffic, make sure the blog you write for has that criteria.
I have two more guest blogging opportunities scheduled in the next month. I am beyond excited by the possibilities.
Readers, what are your experiences with guest blogging? Do your experiences support the research? I look forward to your views.
