There are many ways to drive traffic to your blog. From paid traffic sources to search engine optimization, I’ve pretty much tried them all with varying degrees of success.
Of all the traffic sources available, one stands out head and shoulders above the rest. The great thing about this traffic source is you are in complete control of it and can use it to drive traffic to anything you want. The results can be spectacular. Take a look at the following example.
The above is a traffic graph showing traffic to my blog from midnight August 18 to about 10:20AM. You will notice the huge spike at 9AM. This happened because at 9:30AM, I activated the traffic source. What did I used to increase traffic three times higher than normal?
The Mailing List!
To spike my traffic, all I did was log into my Aweber account and sent out an email about my post on How To Secure Your WordPress Blog. Within an hour, thousands of readers flooded the blog to read the post.
Most bloggers think a mailing list is used to promote other things like affiliate products, but a list is also a great way to drive traffic back to your blog. The response is generally higher than any other methods because the readers are double opted in and knows who you are. Of course, the bigger the list, the bigger the bang, but this is something you can build up over time.
My list is the reason my blog makes the money it does, but it’s also a huge driver of the blog’s traffic. It was because of my mailing list that I was able to survive being nuked from the Google SERP for three years! The mailing list is the single most important asset a blogger has but most bloggers don’t have one! If you’re one of them, you are making a HUGE AND EXPENSIVE mistake.
Start Your List From Day 1
My biggest blogging mistake was not starting my mailing list from day one. Because John Chow dot Com was a personal blog back then with no intentions of making money, I never applied my normal marketing tactics to it. Had I started the Email list from the get go, this blog would be making double what it’s making.
Start your list from day 1. Don’t put it off. If you have a blog and don’t have a mailing list yet, start one now. God help you if Google decides to nuke you and you don’t have a list.
You Must Choose The Right Email Provider
Choosing the right email marketing solution is even more important than choosing your blogging software. When you switch blog software, say from Blogspot to WordPress, you can port over all your post without losing any. However, switch email host providers and you’ll stand to lose up 80% of your subscribers. This is because the provider will require your subscribers to opt in again.
This was my second Email marketing mistake. I was hosting my own list and decided to move it over to Aweber because they’re simply the best in the business. Because of the Canspam rule, Aweber required everyone on my list to re-opt into it before they can host it. Those subscribers were already double opted in but that doesn’t matter. If you change providers, your subscribers need to opt in again. Only 20% of my list did that when I switched to Aweber. Had I gone with them from day 1, my list would be twice its size now.
Don’t Be Penny Wise and Pound Foolish
This is a mistake I see new bloggers making all the time. They try to save some money by hosting their own list on use some free software with the hopes of moving to Aweber at a later date “after they’ve made some money.”
This is just being penny wise and pound foolish. You can build a list for free but the instance you try to import that list to a service like Aweber, you’re going to lose 80% of the subscribers because they won’t opt back in.
Big money bloggers treat their blogs like a business. And businesses have expenses. Hosting the email list is one of them. And if you do it right, there is no way you can not make the $19 a month that it takes to host your list on Aweber.
If your blog doesn’t have an email marketing list yet, RIGHT NOW would be the time to start one. Everyday you wait means money and traffic flying out the window.
Try Aweber for Only $1.00
My recommended email list provider is Aweber. They offers a $1 trial account for all new customers. The account is just like a normal Aweber account and includes unlimited email campaigns, newsletter, broadcasts and follow ups. It’s a great way to test drive Aweber to see what it can do for your blog. Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If you find that having an email list is not for you, contact Aweber within 30 days and they’ll give you the $1 back.
