If you own a website or blog and you want to dramatically increase the number and quality of visitors you get, you need to encourage people who visit your site, to share what they find with their friends.
Thankfully, we know that when people find material on a website, which they believe will be of interest to their friends and contacts, they are more than happy to forward it to them. This is why websites like FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Twitter and Digg have become so popular. They allow people to easily share things with their friends.
In order for you to benefit from the viral power of the Internet, there are two things you should consider.
1. Content
Firstly, you need to have content on your site, which is worth sharing. This means your content has to be better and more valuable than the typical material, which people find on your kind of site or blog. Many blog owners feel compelled to write ’something’ every day; indeed many so-called “social marketing gurus” even write posts telling people to do this. The challenge this presents, is that very few businesspeople have the time required to write new, valuable content every day.
Post only when you have something worth sharing and focus on quality, not quantity.
2. Make it easy to share
Secondly, you need to make it super-easy for people to share your material with their friends. I use a free plugin for this blog called sharethis, (see below), which allows people to share what they find here, on any sharing or bookmarking site (or via email) – quickly and easily. Just a few mouse clicks and that’s it!
As a result of focusing on what I believe to be valuable content AND making it as easy as possible for people to share it, I get thousands of new visitors from sharing / bookmarking websites every week.
A quick tip!
Take a moment to look at the last few websites, articles, videos, blog posts or whatever; which YOU have passed on to your friends. Now ask yourself this question: “What was it that motivated you to share that material and how can YOU use that same kind of motivation, to get others to share YOUR content?”
Your answer to that question is a good starting point!
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I tend to disagree with your notion that people are free in a recession and only care of price. I think it is more about trust. I am less likely now to use some nobody store online. I will only shop at amazon because I trust them. I could care less if you offer the same product more cheaply.
Gebadia,
I’m not sure what you disagree with here. Was your comment intended for my previous post? Trust is key, more so in times like these; where people are having to think hard before making a buying decision.
I appreciate your tips. I would much rather read a blog that has something of value on it than a blog that is updated daily just to look busy and important! Quality is always better than quantity.
Just to add a quick thought. “Content” doesn’t always need to be articles. For example, in my case, I offer viral Twitter software for free.
Hopefully the software is useful for helping people to generate traffic and “buzz”, which will in turn get more people coming to my site.
In other words, “content” can also be reports, ebooks, software and tools.
Paul Hancox
TweetFurther.com
Paul. That sounds spammy.
Gerry,
I’m assuming you are referring Paul’s product mention / link?
I was happy to let it through, because Paul made a valid point.
Spam is an emotive word and a bit over-the-top for that comment.
paul dont get it. The stuff hes talking about is what makes blogs seem to impersonal. Filling a blog or website with generic ’special reports’ and such is a waste of time. People want quality.
Internet users are apathetic. They don’t want to work. So I think “Make it easy to share” is a great point, considering that the easier it is for someone to share your content, the more apt they will be to do so, if you take into consideration Internet user’s being apathetic. Great tip!
Jeremiah,
There’s no need for websites or blogs to be complicated – yet many of them place hurdles between Internet users and their content.
I personally REALLY, REALLY dislike those pop-up boxes some people use, which ask you to sign-up for a newsletter. I see that on a site and not only will I not enter the site, I won’t recommend it to anyone either.
Nice and easy!
Great article, and I agree. Being on Ehow and a member that comments on others articles really magnifies YOUR point.
I have about 42 pages of comments I’ve left on other’s articles. From that I see EXACTLY what you are talking about. The authors that offer the most unique, quality information are returned to again and again by others.
The same is true in blogging websites.
Thanks for another wonderful article and chance to get a wonderful do follow!
Jim,
Really a good point. I share blog items when they are filled with content or are enjoyable to read. It has to be an easy process to share. If it is too time consuming, I don’t bother.