“Old School” Free Traffic for Your Blog

by Uncle Alan

Online publishing success, just like most marketing success, is all about traffic. You have to get enough pairs of eyeballs reading your posts and visiting your blog to gain the kind of momentum that attracts advertisers earns you money from other ads you place on your own.

You can always buy traffic, if you’ve got the money to spend and prefer spending money over making it — at least at first and possibly for a good long while as you build.

I prefer trading a bit of my time and talent to get those eyeballs, instead.

You can and should offer guest posts to other bloggers who cover your topic of interest. Offer them free of charge if they will include a “resource box” at the bottom that includes a link to your blog. Avoid blogs and sites that are direct competitors of yours and focus on sites that are peripheral to your subject and you’ll get a lot of traction.

But — don’t overlook print media.

I know print media’s been taking a beating because of the huge surge in popularity of online publications like yours. However, print media is still alive and it reaches millions of readers, some of whom you won’t reach any other way. Even though people today are more and more turning to online sources for their news and information, they also still hold print in a higher regard than they do online media.

Why not write some articles for print publications in your niche and submit them to print publications that reach your target market? Let the editor know the article is free of charge, just as you would a fellow blogger. As payment, request the same resource box and link to your blog at the bottom of the article that you would ask of a blogger, in lieu of cash.

You can put these articles together fairly quickly. Just dive into past blog posts, combine two or three related posts on the same topic and you have something new to submit that’s also a great reflection of what you offer visitors to your blog.

It’s so simple and effective, it makes you wonder why you’ve never done it before now. I’ll tell you why you haven’t. It’s because it takes time and extra effort and the results aren’t immediate.

Get over it. This works – big-time!

You need to research any publications you plan to submit to. You might have to get off your chair, leave the comfort of your home or office and go to a newsstand, to actually buy the magazines or papers you plan to submit to, and spend some time studying them.

After you’ve put together an article to submit, you have to print out your article and mail it to the editor at the physical address of the publication.

And then — worst of all — you have to wait.

Tom Petty said – “And the waiting is the hardest part.”

At least, I think that’s what he said. He might have been singing about going wading, but I’m pretty sure it was waiting. I love the guy’s music, but he does mumble a bit sometimes. For the sake of this post, let’s assume he was singing about waiting.

You might have to send out five or six pieces to get one to say “yes.” And it can take a while for them to say “yes” or “no.” In fact, if you want to hear from them at all, make sure you include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for them to get back to you or they might not say anything unless they accept.

It can then take up to six weeks for a weekly publication to run your piece, if they do say “yes.” Monthly publications sometimes take 90 – 120 days.

It’s enough to make you wonder why you would bother.

Remember, print publications are hurting. Now more than ever, they’re under budget restraints, trying to make every penny count. If you send them a valuable article that fits their readership and offer it to them for free, you stand a very good chance they will accept, much better than ever before.

Ever notice how many members of even major print and broadcast media regularly feature bloggers these days? Why shouldn’t you be one of them? If they say “yes,” you’ll reach a readership that, hurting or not, would put most blogs to shame. And these are paying readers, people who actually will go through the publication and possibly read your piece.

When they do, many will visit your blog to get more, after an introduction to you in print.

Here’s a couple of tips for you:

Read each publication before you submit. Study the demographics. Who reads it? What advertisers do they have – this will tell you a lot about their readership and what they’re looking for. What other stories do they run? What story could you provide that adds to or enhances their slant?

Check the front of the publication for the editor’s name and the mailing address to reach her. Send your articles to the editor by name at that address. If there’s an email address for article submissions, fine – but I still suggest you print it out and mail it.

Include a cover letter with your article. Let the editor know you’re submitting an original article for consideration. Make sure it’s an original article. Something you’ve written uniquely for them. It can be a topic you’ve covered frequently – but it has to be original.

Let the editor know that, whatever they pay, you’re not interested. The article is free if they include your resource box as-is. Also let them know you’re offering them “first rights,” meaning they get to publish it first then, once it appears in their publication, all rights revert back to you. Then you can still run the article in your blog after it appears in print!

You could even say “as seen in…”

Just one or two articles of yours appearing in leading print publications could send you more traffic than you’ve ever seen. It’ll definitely give you a solid boost. If you’re lucky, the editor will ask for more. You could even become a regular columnist.

Weirder stuff has happened!

Try sending an article to one print publication a week for a couple of months. By the time you get around to month three, you should be hearing from some of the first you sent out. Back off to one or two a month only after the third month.

Do this diligently and I guarantee you’ll have built yourself a powerhouse traffic funnel that’ll keep pulling readers to your blog long after you DO quit submitting articles, as if you’d ever want to, once you see the results that are possible.

Good luck and keep me posted on your success!