While more traffic isn’t necessarily synonymous with more revenue for your online business, the fact remains that traffic is always the starting point.
There are many ways to get traffic to your business website, and you’ve probably heard a lot of people recommend having a content marketing strategy or starting a blog at one point or the other. If you have been blogging for more than a few months now, though, you’ve already realized that this isn’t as easy as it is made to seem.
If your business blog is still struggling to get hundreds of visitors monthly after months or years of effort, it is a waste of time AND resources; you should either abandon that blog or fix what is wrong with it.
If you’re spending thousands of dollars on your blog monthly and can only manage to generate a few thousand visitors monthly, you need to totally revise your blogging strategy or stop wasting your money altogether.
Perhaps You Only Need One Piece of Content
Now, all hope is not lost and perhaps what you need is one article to completely turn things around.
When I say you need just “one article”, I’m not exaggerating; I mean, a single article might provide the fix you need.
To show you what I mean, I’ll be sharing a few examples from blogs I have managed before.
Here’s a screenshot of traffic to this blog a few years ago when I just started it. The screenshot shows the first 4 months of this blog (when it was still guestbloggingtactics.com)
You’ll notice that average traffic to the blog was around 500 monthly visits at that stage; traffic basically plateaued after a few months, and this is where most businesses that blog become confused; at this stage, there doesn’t seem to be much you can do, and pumping out more content would most likely just result in some short term traffic gain that is not sustainable.
Now, take a look at a screenshot of the blog traffic 4 months later; can you notice the drastic change in traffic?
At this stage, not only did traffic suddenly double from 500 monthly visitors to 1,000+ visitors in a month, but it jumped again to 2,200+ visitors the following month month, and it has been going up ever since.
In fact, here’s another screenshot showing 4 months right after the screenshot above, and you’ll easily see traffic growing to an average of 4,000+ visitors:
Also, below is a screenshot of traffic growth to the blog the first year:
Won’t it be nice to have such a chart, where traffic grows consistently and predictably?
While traffic to most blogs only pick up gradually, you’ll notice a sharp and sustained spike in traffic that kept on increasing.
Two strange but VERY important facts:
While the above screenshots look exciting, you’ll find them even more exciting when you consider the following two VERY IMPORTANT facts:
1. This sudden, and sustained, spike in traffic was created by ONE piece of content.
2. Once this content was published, I didn’t publish content on the blog for a WHOLE year, with the exception of one guest post published mid-year, yet traffic was sustained and even grew at some points.
A Quick Clarification
Before I continue, I’d like to let you know that in the example used for this blog, the content published was divided into 25 different articles and published over the span of a month.
The content in question is: The Ultimate List of Blogs that Accept Guest Posts
Don’t let that confuse you however, since this is not a numbers game. In fact, to prove my point that this is not a number’s game, I’ll be showing you screenshots of this same type of content being published as one single “article”, not just in one, or two, but three different instances and the resulting traffic.
The three articles I’m referring to were published on my other blog, and are 2,100 words, 2700 words and 4,200 words respectively. That’s all; each published as a single article – no breaking them into parts or anything of that sort.
Yet, they are MUCH more successful than the example I used earlier, of the article published on this blog. In fact, the first of the 3 articles I just mentioned – the 2,100 words article – has been viewed over 150,000 times till date.
Here’s a screenshot showing traffic to that article the first year:
Do you also notice the nice average time on site of 15 minutes? That’s quality traffic!
Here’s a screenshot showing traffic to the second of the 3 articles, for a period of 8 months (for some reason, Google Analytics tracking was lost on my site for a few months after November 2013 and I didn’t notice; I was mainly using Clicky Analytics then):
Here’s another screenshot showing traffic to the third article of this nature; this particular article was published this year, January 2015, so it is more recent and shows that this formula is timeless:
The above screenshot shows that this most recent article, published barely 2 months ago has now received over 9,000 views, 6,600 of which is unique.
Furthermore, we’re talking about quality traffic here; I did a case study of how I was able to convert 1,200 subscribers from these 3 articles in just 2 months a few days ago. You can read the case study here.
To be fair, a lot of people would wonder if the traffic both blogs were getting at the time these articles were published was a factor, and it could be, but the example where this blog you’re reading went from 500 monthly visits to 4,000+ monthly visits in just 8 months with one “piece” of content shows that blog traffic is irrelevant.
Every instance of me publishing this type of article has almost always doubled my traffic within a year, and in a particular instance traffic increased by over 700%.
The initial spike in visits could have something to do with the traffic the blog is getting, but you’ll notice pretty much all the articles get way more visitors on the long term than the initial traffic spikes.
These articles also eventually get 20 times, and in some cases as much as 100 – 200 times the traffic an average article on both of my blogs are getting, so this is about more than just how many visits a blog is getting.
How Well are the Articles Converting?
1. The first example has been responsible for over $20,000 in revenue since it was published; this revenue comes from people finding out about my services after reading the article.
2. The articles from my other blogs weren’t initially optimized for revenue or conversions. However, I believe they are responsible for several thousands of subscribers to my email list; I’m talking at least 3,000 email subscribers.
In fact, just this year, I created a special newsletter for all 3 articles and optimized all 3 articles to recommend that people sign up to that newsletter. This has resulted in over 1,200 new subscribers to that email list within a span of 2 months; engagement is also very high, especially compared to my main email list.
Costs/Effort Involved in Creating the Articles
Here are the costs/effort involved in creating all 4 content pieces used in this case study:
1. Example #1 published on this blog; $3,000 for around 30,000 words 2+ years ago. This was outsourced to writers on my team; with over $20,000 in revenue just from this content, the ROI is definitely over the roof!
2. Example #2 published on my other blog; around 30 hours in research and creation. This was research, compiled and published personally by me.
3. Example #3 published on my other blog; around 24 hours in research and creation. This was researched, compiled and published personally by me.
4. Example #4 published on my other blog; at least 100 hours in research and creation because this is a resource MUCH larger than the other 2 combined. This was also researched, compiled and published personally by me.
As you can see, this takes more time and effort than the typical article, but the result that comes from it is massive compared to just publishing 6 months or even 1 year of random content on a blog. In my book, it is more than worth it.
These 4 articles alone have been responsible for at least 300,000 views; that’s an average of 75,000 views per article. They are also highly read and have been linked to hundreds of times.
What’s Special About this Content We’re Talking About?
The content I’m talking about, whose success has been demonstrated at least 4 different times, is what I call a RESOURCE article.
The idea behind this article is simple: Strip away the tips and give your readers actual resources that they can use right away.
So, if you teach people how to make money online, don’t just give them tips for once. Give them actual places where they can go and make that money.
If you’re giving people tips on how to study online, don’t just give them tips. Instead, give them the actual resources they can use.
This changes things drastically. Your content changes from just theory to a really practical resource; it becomes something the same reader reads 10 times in a month, and sends to more than 20 of his friends. Many people will bookmark your article and come back to it regularly.
Every instance of a resource article I have created has been a success, and it has been massively successful everywhere else I have seen it effectively utilized.
How to Create Your Own Resource Article Today
So, here are some quick steps to help you create your own resource article today:
1. Identify the most common questions readers have; find out what these questions are by looking at your most popular articles, questions and comments resulting from these article, etc.
2.Decide on a SPECIFIC topic you want to create a resource on; be VERY specific. Your resource can’t be about everything, or it will flop; instead, make it about just one problem that readers need a solution to now.
3. Instead of sharing another tips/lists/how-to article, map out how you can give people the ACTUAL resources they need to implement the suggestions you and others are giving them in your niche.
4. Compile and create that resource; make sure it is as practical and detailed as possible. Avoid just giving them links if possible; instead, make their work easy by giving them specifics about each resource, so that they can make their decision on which of the resources to use right there and then on your page.
5. Publish your resource and spread the word as much as you can; the more places you can legitimately share your resource, the better. In all the above examples, the resources took a life of their own; I just published and things grew naturally.
To further enhance growth, at some point I started mentioning these resources in my guest posts on other blogs, and their popularity soared.
Does Your Business Need Just One of this Article?
While one such article, if done right, will have massive impact on your bottom line, building a successful online business is about a series of actions instead of just one.
So don’t just do a single resource article and let it end there; it might not be as successful as you expected. Even if it is, it shouldn’t end there.
That said, focus on having a solid content strategy involving this type of content and ensure you’re carefully executing this strategy to give you the results you desire.
Let Me Handle Your Content Marketing
If you need a solid content strategy developed for your business or startup, and/or someone to help you execute this strategy, be sure to reach out to me so that we can talk!
I have experience building successful blogs in several niches, including a blog that has been read by over a million people.
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