Pinterest can drive you huge traffic [with statistics]

Social Media has become a part of our life. Spending a day or two without logging to Facebook / Twitter is almost impossible now a days. The initial idea of using Social Media to remain in touch with loved ones now has been extended to almost everything from news and updates, marketing, display of one's talent over the web, breaking news, shopping hub and much more. If you own a blog / website / business, you must be aware how important it is these days to have a social media profile and how much it can contribute to your profit.

Amidst the big giants like Facebook , Google+ and Twitter, the online marketers tends to ignore the others. Pinterest is one such platform which we do not care much but let me tell you, if you have some niche specific products / blogs, Pinterest can drive huge traffic to your blog. I have tried Pinterest to drive some traffic to my blog and it has given me some good results.

Before I present you the stats, let me tell you what you need and how to promote your blog there. Pinterest is a platform where you PIN an image to your boards and the board's followers can see it, like it, send to a person or to a mail id and pin it again to their own boards. Now, what's important here is Pinterest gives you an option to pin an image from your blog post's URL, and when someone clicks on that image, he is redirected to the website. This is a traffic for you. Since the majority of Pinterest users are tier 1 countries, you can convert this traffic in some good dollars.

Pinterest niche is somewhat specific to Quotes, Pet lovers, Female products etc. and most of the user base of females. So, if you have something that is very much technical (that Linux kinda thing), it's not the right place. I had a blog for Quotes and that's why Pinterest brought me some good traffic. Here's the traffic stats which I receive after a month of promotion over Pinterest. 

This is of course Blogger's dashboard. This is some nice traffic from Pinterest. 

So what's need to be done if you have the right content/product for Pinterest users? Here's some points which you can keep in mind and will help you in getting loyal followers and traffics. 

1. Build your follower list - This can be done by putting a Pinterest board to your blog and asking your blog's visitors to follow you there. Another always working method is to follow the right people and they will follow you back. Now, how would you decide the right people? As I told you, I have a blog on Quotes, so I searched for quotes and followed those people who shared / pinned the quotes recently. These were the active people on that day and since they were sharing quotes, they love it. 

2. Create boards - Create specific boards related to what you are promoting. Pin things on there, and you will soon start receiving requests to share on other boards. Accept those requests and utilize those boards to share your blog through pins. 

3. Never forget to upload pins through your website and not as a direct upload. And while uploading, there is a place to add some text for that particular image. Keep that part exciting with a link to your blog at the end. 

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Pinterest is not so complicated and do not have any feeds algorithms in particular, so working on these 3 points is in itself sufficient and you will in a week start seeing traffic to your blog from Pinterest. 

If you are already using Pinterest and want to add something, feel free to add it in the comment section. Thanks!

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Biggest Content Marketing Challenges You Will Face.

Content marketing is the art of creating and marketing any form of content in order to gain customers. Content can be either in form of Video, text format, Infographics, or ebooks etc. However, while creating and marketing contents, you will face many problems and in this very article I am going to discuss the major problems which you may face while producing engaging contents and marketing it to the right audience.

Content Marketing Challenges.

Content Marketing challenges.

Producing quality contents.

The biggest problem you will face is the production of quality content for your readers. Everything is already written on Google and you will find that re-producing content such that your readers find it more engaging and beneficial than already produced content is a tough job. You will run out of contents and sometimes you will end up writing something which do not prove any relevance to the idea with which you started writing.

Writing regularly.

You will find pro bloggers suggesting you to write about the niche which interests you most. The main reason is that you will not run out of contents and you can produce contents regularly. It is very much important to give your readers something new every time he/she visits your blog. Its equally important to produce quality content and on daily basis. Even the search engines gives a higher ranking to the blogs which are updated regularly.

Producing unique content.

Producing unique content is as important as the above two factors. Rewriting the same old stuffs that has been written a thousand times is not going to help. Why should anyone read you when they can find the same stuff on blogs that have written it 4 years ago? You have to go unique by providing Infographics, stats and charts. You may share real time experience and you may have to do market research before creating unique content.

Getting targeted traffic.

If marketing is not done keeping in mind the niche of your blog, you will end up targeting wrong audience and it is not going to help much. Not only you have to write unique and quality contents, you have to reach to the right readers. Sharing an article in a Facebook book lover group may get you traffic for a "seo" post, but it surely is not going to increase the number of loyal readers.

Social Media Influence.

Peoples who are in pro-blogger lists have huge followings on social media like Facebook, Google+, Linkedin and Twitter. You have to increase your social media influence and have to connect to people with your niche and interests. It may take most of your time setting up accounts on these social media and finding the right people to connect with. But once done, they are going to be valuable to you. You cannot ignore the number of active peoples on these social media and the amount of engagements they generate. Although its true that social media traffic is momentarily and you need to be active always to drive potential readers to your blog, you can increase your readership and the chance of going viral is increased.

Build yourself as a brand.

People follow brands. If you are a name in your niche, people will remember your blog and will always visit you for new contents. They won't need a link on any social media to visit you. You can build yourself as a brand by working on all the four above factors. Producing high quality and unique contents and sharing it to right audience is the key. Improving your social media influence and connecting with people on different media will improve your branding.

My opinion. As I said, Content marketing challenges is not limited to producing quality and unique content but reaching to right audience is necessary too. It can only be achieved by engaging on social media and spending a portion of your marketing strategic time on them. So, go on, write some unique and quality contents, connect with the right audience on social media and overcome these content marketing challenges.

I missed something? Please correct me if I am wrong or I missed something in the comment section. 

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How to build your Email subscriber list and why.

Email marketing is a direct marketing service in which you use emails to market your contents, product or services or to engage with your audience. It can be used to distribute contents, market your blogs or promote sales through affiliate marketing.

Growing up an email list is one of the hardest thing in your blogging campaign and in this post, I am going to discuss the importance of building one such subscriber list and the steps that may help you.

Why you need to build an email list

The basic reason for developing an email list is the fact that it is direct-to-people service. Email will get delivered to the people who are in your subscriber list and will remain in their mail box unless deleted by them. To better understand - Compare the number of times you click on a link posted on a Facebook page you are following to that of a mail you have received. 

The second important reason is that your email list is highly targeted. People who subscribe to your blog must be (highly) interested in your content and hence gave you the permission to deliver your content directly to them.

How to build a successful email list

Redirect your readers to the sign up  page.

When a user reacts to your contents through either a comment or a contact form, you can always redirect them to a custom landing page asking them to register to your blog to receive all your contents.

Give something valuable for free.

You can always attract people to subscribe to your email list by offering them something free like an ebook, free promotion for their blog for a day to your readers, a backlink on your blog or any services like providing a free optimization solution to the subscriber.

You may even organize giveaways where participators need to subscribe to your email list before participation. 

Placing a banner on your blog.

A right sidebar 300x250 banner will do the job. You may go to pop-ups that asks exclusively to respond to the subscribing option. Various studies has proven that the chances of your readers subscribing to your blog is 3 times through a pop-up as compared to a banner placed anywhere on your blog. However, some people find these subscribing pop-ups a bit frustrating and you may lose some readers on your way. The trade off has to be made.

Make your sign-up form more obvious. People don't look for the sign-up form in blogs.  

Offer your readers valuable contents.

If your readers find something valuable and rich-quality content, they will subscribe to your blog to receive all of your contents in future. Offering high quality content is the best way you can attract your people to subscribe.

Convert your social subscribers to an email list.

You can convert your social media followers to subscribe to your email list by asking them exclusively. Chances are that people following you are already aware of your blog and are regular readers. These people will surely won't mind to receive the content they are looking for in their mail boxes. You can promote your sign-up form on social media platforms like Google+, Facebook, Twitter making a generous request to subscribe to your blog so that the content is delivered right into their mail box.

Getting an email marketing software.

There are various email marketing software available in the marketing with different pricing plans. 

Aweber

They are the best in the market. They have an effective, affordable email marketing service. The main features include over 600 ready-to-use templates that makes it easy to create professional looking emails. They have a great email delivery system and you can use autoresponder service to deliver a sequence of messages automatically. They have great signup forms too.

Aweber Email Marketing Service

The best part is they have a service called RSS to email that turns your latest blog posts into an email newsletter and will send it to all the subscribers.

Pricing: $1 for the first month. $19 per month for following months for less than 500 subscribers. For more than 500 subscribers, these are the rates: 

501-2500 subscribers - $29.

2501-5000 subscribers - $49

5001-10,000 subscribers - $69

10,001-25000 subscribers - $149

MailChimp

With MailChimp, you can send targeted messages to your subscribers. You can pick a predesigned template or use the email designer to create beautiful, mobile friendly newsletters.

MailChimp is preferred by most of the small bloggers due to the fact that it offers a free service for less than 2000 subscribers. You can send at most 12,000 emails per month for free forever. 

MailChimp Email Marketing Service

For 0-500 subscribers with unlimited mails per month, you need to pay $10. The other pricing offer includes: 

501-1000 subscribers -  $15.

1001-1050 subscribers - $20

You can purchase email credits to send additional emails. For more details you can visit their pricing options on the website: http://mailchimp.com/pricing/growing-business/

Other services: There are many other email marketing services like GetResponse. You can select according to your preferences and your budget.

At Last: Building an email subscriber list is as important as building your traffic. Email subscribers are much more targeted and are of high quality than the followers you will have on any social media sites. Start working on building a subscriber list and engaging directly with your followers. 

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How to drive [huge] traffic through Disqus Comment System

Lately these days, most of the blogs have shifted to Disqus comment system from the conventional or CommentLuv. Disqus commenting system is very efficient in handling conversational comments and is free from spamming. The person has to login through Google, Facebook or enter his details before being able to comment. So, any blog owner only wishing healthy and non-spammy comments are going for Disqus these days. 

For one of my blog, I was trying some comments over various websites/blogs and found that almost all were having Disqus and in the process, also noticed that Disqus can drive huge traffic to your blog if used correctly. So, in this article I will show you how to drive huge traffic through Disqus Comment System to your blog. 

First thing which you want to do is make a list of the blogs that are famous and have Disqus comment system. It's better to choose highly popular websites rather than an average one. If you are going for it, go for big. 

Next, once you have compiled the list in the process of driving traffic to your blog through Disqus Comment System, find articles on that blog that are recent and is somewhat related to article which you want to promote. 

Now, Disqus Comment system allows you to put links in it through anchor tag. Write a short about 100 words comment in such a way that linking your blog in it through the anchor tag looks natural. Once done, submit the comment, and you are done. 

Important things to remember while commenting

• In process of driving traffic to your blog through Disqus comment system, you must follow some of the commenting etiquette.

• Make sure you comment at the earliest on any post. Try to be the first one to comment. Being the first one will bring much more traffic than ending up later in the list. However, if you missed it do not worry, these blogs are highly engaging and will still drive traffic to your blog. 

• Be genuine. Do not comment just for the sake of a back link or traffic. For each Disqus comment, the blog owner receives a notification and there are high chances he notices the link. So, be contextual and yes, be genuine. 

• Anchor tags can be used in this way.

      <a href="link">Anchor tag</a>

• Choose only very high traffic sites, and prefer news sites. Stick to your niche. 

Some websites requires moderation. If you are commenting in a contextual way, there are very low chances of your comment being deleted. So, don't worry. 

And the last thing, do not forget to upvote your own comment. Also, if you maintain more than one Disqus account, up vote from the other one too. You can even ask your friends to do the same. It will keep you on top in the discussion. 

Here's a screenshot of a day of traffic to one of my niche blog, where I just commented on 3-4 blogs of my niche.

You can drive huge traffic to your blog if you do it right and for long. There is a huge potential in using Disqus Comment System to reach to readers. Also, the traffic coming through it is highly targeted. 

Next, your words. What do you think, will it work for you? Give it a try, return back here and tell me yes, it worked.

Note: I didn't see any SEO benefit by building backlinks through Disqus. So, use it for the purpose of driving traffic only.

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