Here’s something you might not have thought about before.
So you want to increase your traffic…
You create more content, do more article marketing, buy more ads, and on it goes.
All great things, all helpful.
But have you considered getting extra traffic by…
Maximizing the number of pages each person who gets to your site actually views?
It raises an interesting question…
If a visitor comes to your site and lands on a page, and doesn’t click one of your ads or one of your affiliate offers, but a link to another page on your site, does that mean your site is good or bad? Effective or ineffective?
On the one hand, your first page didn’t generate much interest in whatever monetization was on offer, but on the other hand, you had a good relevant post or page title nearby that did get their attention that made them stay for an extra read AND check out another page that also has types of monetization which the reader may or may not find more enticing…
I think that a visitor clicking to another page on your site is neither, it’s neutral, but if it’s a choice between them clicking to another page on your site, or them clicking BACK on the browser, and leaving… I know which I’d prefer.
This sets the scene for my tip of the day.
I know a lot of times, I get stuck in the mindset of producing as much of my own content as possible, so it’s unique, so it can target the keywords I want, get ranked for the phrases I want, and be used however I want. When I’m in that frame of mind, if someone said to me “hey why don’t you add some good articles to your site, from an article directory for example”, I’d be like umm no – why would I? How is that going to rank in the search engines when competing against all the article directories and other websites that publish it.
What this post is about, is how that thinking misses a vital point… yes, you guessed it… adding value for the reader… NOT just the search engine.
If I add 5 articles to my site today, from Ezinearticles.com let’s say… I know those aren’t going to get ranked well in the SE’s without some serious link building on my behalf… but if those articles are high quality, having them in my “recent posts” could certainly draw some attention and have someone click them rather than leaving my site upon finishing one of my own unique posts.
Why is that important?
Well, besides the obvious fact that keeping the visitor on your site for one page longer means an extra opportunity to convert them into someone who makes you money… the number of page views per user is something seen by Google Analytics and by logic, noted by them as an indication of the quality of a site. As by the way is time spent on your site per user, all things that are becoming increasingly believed to influence your search rankings.
It shouldn’t take much convincing that a little of other people’s content can provide value to your readers and hence be a good idea.
The important part is monetization.
If I slap the other person’s article straight up and do nothing else, sure, I’m racking up another page view, but I’m also not doing more than giving this other person’s link in their author bio a bit of extra exposure, and killing any opportunity to make money from this extra piece of content myself.
Here’s some measures I like to take to ensure that doesn’t happen.
1. Never Add An Article Straight Up, As Is.
I like to add articles to a site but with an introduction from me. So I’ll start out like:
“Surfing around the web this week I was thinking a lot about XYZ (some issue in my niche) and I found an interesting article that talked about ABC. It was rather informative and made me realize how LMNOP is in fact important and worthy of attention. I’ve pasted this article below for you to check out yourself. Just make sure when you’re done, you come back up and check out this link”
ARTICLE PASTED HERE
————
This way, I get the full benefit of the other person’s content and idea but I make it a unique post, that I can call whatever I want, make it target whatever keyword I want, and so on. I’m also doing what I can to make sure that if they do read all the way through, they still come up to check out my link rather than the author’s link.
2. Beef Up The Monetization
Since you can’t go editing another person’s article if you’re republishing it, you’ve gotta do what you can to make sure if people are leaving that page, it’s going to make you money.
You can’t edit an article, but there’s nothing wrong with sticking an advertisement in the piece of content. Whether it means wrapping the text around an Adsense block or a banner for something, you’re putting another piece of “bait” out there (if you can excuse the sleazy marketing analogy) that may get taken rather than the author bio link AND without committing the unscrupulous act of changing around the author’s content and inserting your own links.
3. Be Picky With The Articles You Choose
You want to pick from the cream of the crop of the articles at whatever directory it is. While so much article directory content resembles a regurgitated dog’s breakfast, some of it is in fact profoundly informative. You want to pick both quality content, and content that is light on the author bio links.
You’ll see certain articles with author bio’s that you know have been written by a marketer and others that you know have been written by a real “expert”, who does it for the passion and enjoyment. The latter is likely to be better quality and have one humble link in the author biography rather than 3 links with a super enticing offer of some kind. You know which ones to pick
All making sense?
So the point of the post?
Don’t discount the benefits of other people’s content.
No it’s not duplicate content. No it’s not spammy. No it’s probably not going to bring any search traffic. Yes it can provide value to your readers. Yes it can increase your page views per reader. Yes it can give you more opportunities to maximize your monetary value per visitor and have yourself a more profitable site!
Try it out and let me know the results.
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I imagine this can also be a positive if you are using social media to drive traffic to your site. People from twitter or facebook are going to click on a good title, and appreciate an interesting article ~ thus being more likely to come back to your site the next time a new blog post comes up in twitter.
Great idea, I find myself too often in the “I have to create it all myself” mindset, so this is quite a nice reminder that I don’t have to do it all ~ all the time.
Thanks,
Jackie Lee
Hi Andrew, I like your idea about using other people’s article. In fact I have used it the way you mentioned after reading the ’1000 visitors in 30 days’ report. Thanks for another fantastic tip.
Another good post! I already do introductions when I publish other peoples articles on one of my sites. But it is good newbie advice.
Great post Andrew and I believe you mention the same type of action in your ebook. If you haven’t already downloaded Andrew’s “1000 visitors” I highly recommend it!
If you’ve got the time it may be worth adding a short video to your blog post on the topic you’re discussing and revealing some unknown secrets or even a review on an affiliate product. Video’s huge at the moment and it gives people a way of engaging with the Blog owner.
you have great tips here Andrew and specially how selective you have to be, maybe I will try it out on my blog too …..and I loved DesDrec’s point on adding a video to your blog to reach out and be effective even further, I am trying my best to get that done too sometime maybe I will master that art
Hey Andrew,
this is fantastic advice for a newby like me. I’ve been trying to get lots of good content for my blog and had been stuck in te mindset that I needed to write it all myself.
What is you suggestion for adding other peoples videos to your site? Do you think this would be beneficial as well as articles?
Just wondering wouldn’t this cause Duplicate Content issue and will be SEO penalized?
I recommend you check out the video I made here:
http://andrewhansen.name/seo/lets-put-duplicate-content-to-rest/
Andrew
Great Post.. I got here because I am on your list and really like the stuff you do….very informative and eye opening.
Thanks Again
Thanks for the great post! I had wondered how I can use other peoples articles and make it my own, I didn’t know it would be so simple. Thanks for the tips.
Makes sense Andrew.
I do already this, and it’s true what you say about experts who write for enjoyment.
In the past I’ve found some good articles with NO links in the resource box, or links that are not related to the content.
These are gems, but they’re hard to find.
Cheers,
John
Hi Andrew!
I just read your post and it’s really good advice that i will follow for sure!
By the way i download your 1000 new visitors and it’s worth the time i put to read it!
I already follow some of your tips. My brand new website (blog) have come from page 14,000,000 to 4,971,000 in just one week on Alexia.
So i recommend you people to follow this guide!
Thank you!
Really great post on time – I have started to create content to my site recently.
I think it’s important to make sure that no matter what your articles are UNIQUE. You can draw content from other articles, but the bots are smarter than us, and look at most of it as spam. But still this is a good article, as it helps us churn out more content without having to pay someone.
Good tip about posting a unique intro to a borrowed article, never thought of doing that.
Good article, gave me a lot to think about, will certainly save me some time from writing all my website content myself, Sally
As one who write contents for others as well as myself I tend to not think about using other people work too. Great idea! Thanks…
Belinda
Fantastic idea, I generally shy away from using other peoples work but this seems like a good way to leveradge good content. Thanks for sharing.
You know, this is a very good idea and I’ll be implementing it on some of my sites right away. Anything that improves a visitor’s time on your site is worth doing, it gives the visitor a better experience and also improves your ranking. I like it.
Great article, thank you. How does this change with the Google Panda update? I see the articles was written a while back so I am wondering if now you would be penalized for using duplicate content. Thank you.