Over the last couple years I have responded to numerous e-mails and most of them ask the same basic question: How do I get traffic to my site?
I was recently thinking about this and tried to find similarities in all the websites that needed help getting traffic. And as I gave it some thought I realized that most of them were lacking valuable content.
But how do you tell someone this? No one wants to hear, “Dude, your content sucks!”
One question to get more traffic
Instead I ask, “Would you refer your friends and family to your website?”
Photo by mikebaird
If Aunt Petunia has a problem with her hair falling out in large clumps every time she showers, would you refer her to your website on how to prevent female hair loss?
If Uncle Wally is having trouble fitting through doorways and wants to lose 400 pounds, would you refer him to your website on weight loss?
Would you tell them that your website can truly help them and is the best resource available?
If the answer is No then you have a content problem.
Not good enough
If your website is not good enough to refer your friends and family then it’s probably not good enough for anyone else and you’re going to have a very difficult time getting traffic to it.
Many websites now get more traffic from social media sources (i.e. twitter, stumble upon, etc.) than they get from search engines like Google.
But crappy content won’t get any traffic from social media because no one is going to retweet your website to their friends unless it has something to offer.
But Nick…
But Nick, I posted over 27 articles on my topic from ezine articles and I think the articles are pretty good.
It doesn’t matter how many articles you have copied from ezine articles and pasted on your website. The only thing that matters is actually providing content that helps people.
But Nick, generating good content is hard!
That’s true. But because it’s hard very few people actually do it. So there’s lots of opportunity if you’re willing to produce something of value.
Checkout:
- Video: Fast ways to generate ideas for content for a new blog
- Video: Super Simple Way To Build Content That Gets Traffic
- Video: How To Get Thousands of Visitors To Your Blog
Would you refer your friends and family to your website?
Seriously, would you?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I think you should be able to go ahead and tell them the content sucks. There would be no way to misinterpret the words. ha/ha
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This comment made me laugh. Maybe I'm being too nice.
"Seriously, would you?"
Yes – because I hae experience in the industry my site is about and this successful site is online for 10 years beginning of February.
But Nick, the question is a good one, the real test if something is quality.
If the answer is yes then you're well on your way.
I think if you ask your readers what they want to read about, it is much easier to create good content. Where I faced a problem was at the start, when I didn't have too many readers.
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Very true. That's why you need to find related blogs/forums and see what's popular.
I totally agree with your opinion that quality content will bring visitors. Readers visit our site to find information about what they want to get an answer. If the answer is not found, they immediately leave. I want to actually practice what you conclude from visiting many sites of your readers.
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This is a great post. I have done this in the past, although I wasn’t quite as analytical.
I guess it might also be useful to ask if the site loads quickly enough, or gets to the point quickly enough to keep the reviewer reading..
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