Posts

Boost Your Traffic with Current Events and Pop Culture

/0 Comments/in /by

All bloggers, even niche and business bloggers, need to be aware of current events. Writing a post about pop culture or what’s happening in the news is a great way to gain more readers. Posts containing current events are more likely to be shared by your current readers on social media websites, but are also more likely to be found organically.

Take Miley Cyrus’s performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards. It’s been talked about to death. Even though there was “some situation” going on with Syria, all the news sources had multiple articles about how scandalous Miley was.

On top of that, I read at least 15 different blog posts about it. Everyone had an opinion, including bloggers. My Facebook friends would share blog posts they agreed or disagreed with, causing me to visit the page and join the conversation. These bloggers experienced huge spikes in traffic because they jumped on the bandwagon.

Finding Current Events

The best way to learn about current events is to be aware and engaged in the world around you. Hopefully you’re already using your social media presence to converse with your fans. You should also try a few of these methods for staying-up-to-date.

  • Take a look at Google Trends every once in a while and find out what users are Googling the most. There’s also an app called Google Currents that will give you articles relevant to what’s happening now.
  • Monitor trending topics on Twitter. Also use Pinterest and Facebook to keep up with what people are interested in.
  • Read news sites, like the New York Times.
  • Check out Buzzfeed for information on what’s popular on the Internet currently. This is a great source for pop culture.
  • Mashable.com is one of my favorite websites for finding out what’s new with Internet trends, social media, and technology. It also has a few serious news pieces and human interest pieces.
  • Read your competition every once in a while. They may have news that is relevant to your niche.

There are many great apps and websites that can help you become more aware of current events and pop culture (one of my favorites is Feedly.com.) Find one that’s best for you, and let the popular stories serve as inspiration for a blog post!

10 Essential WordPress Plugins for Increasing Social Media Engagement

/0 Comments/in /by

Gaining online traffic to your blog is simple to do with social media. But after you’ve started your social media accounts and gathered an initial following, you may feel that your engagement is stalling. With these WordPress plugins for social media, you can design a painless process of sharing online while also encouraging your audience to share, like, +1, and follow you!  

  1. Google Analytics – Google Analytics can give you tons of valuable data about your blog and how your audience interacts with it. One important metric is the source of your traffic; this piece of information can help you determine which of your social media platforms is the most effective, and which is the least. If most of your traffic is coming from Pinterest, you know you’re doing something good there, and you might decide to spend most of your efforts driving Pinterest traffic.
  2. Simple Share Buttons – This WordPress app does exactly what the name claims: it adds social share buttons to all of your blog posts. It even gives your audience a share count, which can often influence them to share your content. Making it easy for your readers to share your content will increase your traffic from social media, as well as your engagement on social media.
  3. Sociable – Sociable adds social media buttons to your blog posts. This plugin adds a similar feature as Simple Share Buttons, but the images are social media icons rather than share buttons. Still, the same call-to-action is there, motivating your readers to share your content on their social media accounts.
  4. WP Pinner – Need a little help managing your Pinterest account? This plugin lets you schedule pins, track your Pinterest engagement, and automate pins of your WordPress posts from your admin panel. With this plugin, you can spend less time on Pinterest with the same amount of progress.
  5. Pinterest Image Pinner – Speaking of Pinterest engagement, this plugin will raise yours by adding a simple “Pin It” button to all of your blog post images. When it comes to Pinterest, readers are more inspired by your pictures than your text. You might lose the share if you leave your Pinterest CTA to the bottom of the post. Using this plugin allows your readers to pin your image the second they see it.
  6. Shareaholic – More social media buttons! These ones “float,” meaning that they follow the reader when he or she scrolls up and down on your webpage. Having the social share buttons immediately accessible will influence readers to share on a whim. Shareaholic also makes images shareable, gives the reader recommended and related content from your blog, and has social analytics from which you can glean valuable metrics.
  7. Tweet Old Post – This plugin will automatically tweet links to some of your older blog posts, reviving them and bringing in new traffic. Bringing readers in to some of your old posts with absolutely no effort on your part – what’s not to love?
  8. WordBooker – WordBooker streamlines the process of posting on Facebook. You can post content from your blog, status updates, and more into your Facebook page, any groups, or your own wall.
  9. The Google+ Plugin – Automate your G+ posts with this WordPress plugin. It also adds a +1 button to your blog and makes the process of adding you to a circle much easier for your readers.
  10. WP Instagram Widget – Use this plugin to display your latest Instagram pictures on your blog.  Attaching Instagram to your blog will direct your readers to follow you – giving them a taste of what you post can also be an added incentive.

What WordPress plugins would you recommend for increasing your blog’s social media engagement?

Expand Your Blog Reach with Twitter

/0 Comments/in , /by

Twitter can be a great social media platform for helping bloggers expand their reach. With the use of hashtags, huge audiences from your industry or niche can be found easily. You can also grow your blog following by having your current readers share your posts through Twitter, or retweet your tweets. Here are a few instructions to help any blogger get started on Twitter.

Your Twitter profile

Before you start tweeting to broadcast your messages, take a look at your profile. Do you have a profile picture? Twitter profiles without a picture look shady and untrustworthy. So do profiles without full bios. Unfortunately, your bio has to be short, so only include the most pertinent information. Twitter allows you to put a website in your Twitter profile, so stick the URL to your blog there.

Having a cover photo and background picture makes your profile look so much more professional than the default ones provided by Twitter. You can copy a common marketing strategy many businesses use and create a background image with your blog URL, social media contact information, or a CTA.

What should you tweet?

Before you send out your first tweet, sit down and think about your goals. This should partly tie into a social media strategy you’ve already made for your blog (or are in the process of making). Each social media platform is different, so while your tone or style for Twitter might already be set out in your strategy, think about what you can accomplish with Twitter. Are you mainly trying to show your readers a social side? Are you working on gaining more traffic? Are you trying to establish yourself as an expert in your niche? Or are you networking? It’s important to pick one of those objectives and diligently stick to it in your tweeting ventures.

Once you pick your objective, it should be easier to develop a content strategy for your tweets. Many bloggers find success in sharing the title of their individual blog posts – which means you’ll have to keep Twitter in mind when you create your titles. You can also share excerpts from the text of your post, especially if it’s a pithy quote or juicy tidbit. Asking your followers questions that you would genuinely want an answer to is also a good strategy.

While you’re learning Twitter, explore hashtags that are relevant to your industry or niche. Many of them will be similar to Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram hashtags. Follow accounts that are similar to yours or interesting to you or your readers. Retweet tweets from others as well as posting your own original messages. Once you’ve learned the hashtags that you need, include them in some of your tweets, but limit it to 2-3 hashtags per tweet.

The more you use Twitter and follow accounts that are similar to yours, the more comfortable you will be with your tweeting. You’ll learn the best strategies either through example or through trial and error.

Quick tip: Use a URL shortening service if you are sharing links in your tweets. The long URLs will take up too much of your 140 characters. Websites like Bitly offer the service for free.

How often should you tweet?

Twitter is kind of like Pinterest when it comes to posting frequency. You should post multiple times a day, but it is possible to get carried away and annoy your followers. However, that would take many, many annoying tweets to get that far. Tweeting daily is the best policy, but every couple of days is adequate.

Twitter, your blog, and other social media platforms

You can use embedded posts, apps, and plugins to connect your Twitter account to your blog and other social media platforms. Use a Twitter social media button on your “About Me” page and on blog posts. You can embed a tweet to encourage users to follow you or respond to you via Twitter.

Twitter can also be connected to your Pinterest, Instagram, and Vine accounts. Use an app to show your latest tweets on your Facebook page.

Measuring your Twitter success

Just as Facebook and Pinterest have an in-house analytics program, so does Twitter. Use ads.twitter.com to access statistics on your tweets and followers. This program mainly exists to keep track of paid campaigns on Twitter, but is accessible for free. Analytics will tell you how many people clicked your link to go to your website, as well as favorites, retweets, and replies. This can help you see not only how much of your traffic comes through Twitter, but also which tweets attract the most clicks or shares.

Use Twitter analytics in conjunction with Google analytics. Twitter analytics can tell you which of your tweets were the most effective, but Google analytics can tell you if your website lived up to its Twitter promises. If traffic that comes through Twitter has a high bounce rate or doesn’t stay very long, you can use that information to work on user interface techniques.

For more information on how to use Pinterest as a blogger, check out our blog post “8 Tips to Help Bloggers Get Started on Pinterest.”

Creative Ways to Improve Your Content

/0 Comments/in /by

If you were to ask yourself whether or not your favorite blog frequently has boring or dull content, the answer would probably be a resounding “no.” Instead, your favorite blogs are your favorites because they consistently put forth interesting and memorable content.

It may seem frustrating to be told to put forth more interesting content but not have a clear concept of how to do this. To help you improve your blog’s content – and thereby improve its readership – here are some creative ways to improve your content.

Content

Look at What’s Trending

We aren’t saying that you should steal titles and write an article that fits. In fact, this usually looks like a cheap ploy to get views, and that’s typically exactly what it is. Instead, look at trending topics on Yahoo! or Google. Without looking at what any other bloggers have chosen to write about within these topics, instead take the trending topic and create a completely and original article about it. This ensures that you are not only hitting a popular keyword and topic, but adding something completely unique and original to the overall conversation.

Relationships with Other Bloggers Matter

You might already understand that relationships with other bloggers are essential for trading links and the like, but you might not understand how relationships with other bloggers can be useful for creating creative content. One of the best ways to create unique content is to request that your blogger friends do a guest post for your blog. This is a brilliant way to add something unique – something that will be out of the ordinary for your regular readers. Naturally, it is customary to write a guest post for your friend’s blog in exchange for theirs.

Create Something Worth Sharing

Next time you’re on Facebook or Twitter, really look at the articles that your friends are sharing. The most popular articles – as in, the ones that get shared the most – are the lists and the posts that contain image macros. Don’t think that putting up a few blogs like this will turn you into a cliché. Find a unique way to make the concept of creating these lists unique. For example, if you run a website about gourmet cooking, toss up a post on the top ten non-gourmet foods that even the most snobby foodies love, accompanied by some funny pictures of kittens in a kitchen. You’ll find that people are eager to share these types of posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Take a cue from professional writers and comedians and always have a notepad with you to scribble down ideas for posts when you’re on the go. Your most inspired ideas will rarely come to you when you’re sitting down to write a new article or blog post. The most important thing to remember, besides being original, is to be consistent. Every single post you put on your blog won’t be legendary, but if you keep at it, more and more will start to be.