Think Outside The Box: Grow Your Blog’s Traffic By Helping Others

“It feels better to give than to receive”

Could that saying prove to be true for growing your blog’s traffic?

You’d probably be a little surprised to find out that the answer is a resounding YES.

Giving is one of the easiest, yet most effective ways to grow your blog’s traffic.

But what in the world can you give to other bloggers that can help you grow your own blog?

What To Give

Before you start scraping up all the spare change you have laying around, I am here to tell you that this has nothing to do with money.

Not that there’s anything wrong with spending money to grow your blog, but that’s not the point of this article.

Below are 5 things you can give that will help grow your blog’s traffic immensely.

#1. Name Recognition

Being recognized by your peers is perhaps the biggest compliment you could ever receive.

People love being recognized by others, and bloggers are no exception.

Bloggers actually love taking it a step further by bragging about where they have been mentioned:

You can use this to your advantage by mentioning other bloggers within your niche every chance you get.

I don’t mean that you should focus your content around other bloggers within your niche, but that you should mention other bloggers within your content.

Example: I wrote a blog post about the 9 things you should do after publishing your first blog post. One of those things was contacting influencers so I took the chance to mention a few of my peers in a way that was not forced.

Now you might be thinking that your blog isn’t well recognized so nobody is going to care if you mention them or not.

You “might” be right, but because you’re trying to grow your blog IS the reason why you should mention other bloggers.

The key is to let them know that you mentioned them.

Below is a perfect example of how this works in your favor:

As you can see the only thing I did was let them know that I had mentioned them in one of my blog posts and that I appreciate their work.

Simple reach out emails like that will go a long way towards growing your blog’s traffic.

Try to personalize them to each individual so that it’s authentic and don’t get discouraged by not receiving a response.

I normally get a 20% response rate. 

Responses vary from what you see above, to just saying thanks, to them linking out to the post in one of their articles.

You just never know what the response will be.

However, just receiving a response helps you in many ways…

1. Puts you in front of your peers (brings awareness to your blog)
2. Possible share (new eyes on you)
3. Possible link (Google loves this)
4. Possibility of new relationships (could be priceless)

Takeaway

Make it a habit of reaching out to every blogger that you mention in your blog or on social media.

After a while, the connections that you’ll make will be crucial to your blog’s success and will certainly help grow your blog’s traffic in unmeasurable ways.

#2. Backlinks

As counterintuitive as it might seem, giving backlinks to your competitors is one of the best ways to grow your blog’s traffic.

Yes, the more relevant and authoritative links your blog has, the better chances it has of ranking higher on Google.

So, why in the world would I tell you to help your competitors gain more backlinks by linking out to them?

Well, because by linking out to relevant information on other blogs, you’ll provide your readers with well-researched information, as well as bring awareness to other bloggers hard work.

And what did we just learn?

Bloggers love being recognized.

Think about it this way…

I’d rather receive 1 backlink from 100 bloggers in my niche than $10 from each of those bloggers.

You want to know why?

Because in the long run, those 100 links will most certainly be worth more than $1,000.

Once again the key is to let them know that you linked out to them.

Here’s a perfect example of this:

This email uses different wording than the last one, but in the end, it gets the same point across… I love your work and I linked out to it.

If you notice, I didn’t ask for anything in return, but they responded by saying thanks and that they would return the favor.

Point being, you lose nothing by linking out to other bloggers. Especially when starting out as your blog will have no authority or a large enough audience to make any difference.

However, their blogs might already be well established so any mention you get from them is a godsend to the growth of your blog’s traffic.

Takeaway

Link out to other blogger’s relevant information whenever possible.

Let them know about it and reap the rewards later… especially in your first year of blogging.

#3. A New Fan

Becoming a fan of other bloggers in your niche should be a top priority for you.

And when I say fan, I don’t just mean following them on social media, bookmarking their blog, and forgetting about it.

I mean becoming a true fan that follows them and interacts with them on social media and on their blogs.

Not only that but one that also understands what made them become a success and how they tend to interact with their audience.

So how can you do this?

• • Follow them on social media and interact whenever possible… This can be anything from a comment to a retweet on something that they’ve said or shared.
  • Leave well-articulated comments on their blog posts.
  • Occasionally tag them on things you feel would be of interest to them.

I think you get the idea.

So long as you do it properly, they’ll appreciate having you as a fan.

This can help your blog’s traffic growth in two ways:

1. 1.  They’ll know you – in other words, they’ll be more keen on sharing your content if they already like you.
   2. Their fans will know you exist – you’ll be in front of a new audience who will eventually be curious to know who you are.

Remember that they are in the same niche as you, so their followers will probably be interested in following you as well.

Therefore, providing value to them on their blog and interacting with them on social media will put you in front of new eyes that will be willing to find out more about who you are if they like what they’re seeing.

Takeaway

Interacting with other bloggers in your niche will put you in front of new eyes.

Do it everywhere you can and your blog’s traffic will thank you for it later.

#4. Your Expertise

Giving away your expertise is a genius way of growing your blog’s traffic.

Why?

Because if people consider you an authoritative source of information they will flock to your blog.

Below is a list of places where you can give away your expertise and gain traffic:

1. Your blog (Blog posts, pages, reader interaction)
2. Competitors blog (guest post, comments, etc)
3. Social media (answering questions)
4. Quora (asking and answering questions)
5. Reddit (finding topics that need to be elaborated on)

You can get as creative as you want with this… many bloggers turn to public speaking in order to build their brand.

Just depends how far you’re willing to take it.

Takeaway

Find places where you can show your knowledge on subjects relating to your blog.

Doing so is guaranteed to grow your blog’s traffic over the long haul.

#5. “Free” Labor

I don’t do free labor.

If you ever see me working for “free” it’s because I am getting something in return.

Doesn’t have to be money… it could just be a quick mention on your blog or a backlink on your websites resource page :).

To go off on a tangent here, my payment can be as simple as knowing that helped someone accomplish something.

However, in this case, our “free” labor is for the sole purpose of growing our blog’s traffic.

Yep, you heard that right… your payment is going to be in the form of blog traffic.

So how can you work for free and generate traffic to your blog?

There are many ways of doing so, but my favorite is by keeping tabs on my competitors and interacting with them as much as possible.

Honestly speaking, I no longer see bloggers who run bigger blogs than mine as competitors.

I truly like what I do, so I enjoy interacting with my peers, seeing what works for them, and implementing the things I like.

Sometimes you’ll come across a blogger that’s putting together an expert roundup post or something similar in which they need others to help in order to accomplish their task.

This is where your “free” labor comes in handy.

You can suggest that they contact some of your friends, as well as provide your opinion as an expert.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but I assure you the more you interact with others within your space, the more chances you will have to collaborate with others.

Which in turn will help grow your blog’s traffic.

Takeaway

In the beginning, everything you do will be “free” labor.

Make it count!

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