Increase Web Traffic By Recruiting Influencers as Guest Bloggers
“When it comes to blogging, creating the actual content is the least important part of the equation.”
Those are some powerful words by Ryan Deiss of Digital Marketer. In a recent blog post by Ryan titled Why Blogging is Dumb, he shares some rather enlightening and inspiring insights for content marketers.
In short, content is not king. Traffic is.
Generating traffic is the central purpose of blogging, is it not? You can publish amazing content all day, but if it goes unseen by your audience (no traffic,) then your blogging efforts are pointless.
So how do you leverage traffic without spending hours and hours of your day writing content?
The answer is influencers.
Leverage Influencers’ Audience and Traffic
“Influencers” are authority figures who are well-respected in a certain niche, industry, or profession. By recruiting influencers as guest bloggers, you can leverage their audience and traffic for your own website or blog.
Wehn influencers see their guest content live on your blog, it’s likely they’ll share the content with their social followers. Depending on the size of their audience, this can drive a lot of quality traffic to your blog.
I know what you’re thinking: “That’s a good idea and all, but easier said than done.”
That is true. But with the right approach, you can recruit powerful influencers to contribute to your blog. The trick to is incentivize and offer something in return.
Incentivize and Reciprocate
In most cases, influencers do not have the extra time and energy to contribute content to anyone who asks. In addition to asking politely, you should try to offer some kind of incentive.
If you’re struggling with traffic as it is, it’s not plausible to pitch the “brand exposure” benefit to a prospective influencer. Rather, get creative and think about what it is that you can offer that they would be interested in.
Some ideas that I use to recruit influencers are:
- providing links back to the influencer’s website or blog for SEO
- offering free banner ad space on your blog for given period of time
- trade your skills or services to benefit their behalf
In conclusion, blogging is really not all that dumb if you do it right. You should focus be a content curator, in addition to a content creator. Voicing the insights of many different people (particularly influencers) can help increase traffic to your blog in more ways than one.
About the Author
Tyler Tafelsky has over five years of experience as an organic SEO expert with intensive experience in content marketing and copywriting. He is the lead SEO and Internet marketing manager here at the Web Presence Group, and spearheads most client campaigns and content marketing projects.
