3 Traffic Generation Techniques That Use Content to Bring New Visitors to Your Blog 

Have you ever felt like getting into the blogging world was a huge mistake?

Yeah. I’ve been there.

The amount of time and work it requires to call your blog a success is crazy. Especially with the content side of things.

Creating high-quality and holy-shit type of content on a regular basis is tough.

But you need to, right? If your blog is only made up of content that isn’t exactly the most helpful stuff in the world, you aren’t going to find much success.

Yes. A 4000-word epic beast can take a lot out of you. And if you’re pumping them out consistently, you can experience blogger burnout.

Even if you’re not creating epic guides. Writing blog posts every week takes a lot out of you. Especially if you’re solo, like most of us.

And that’s why we’re here.In this post, I’m going to show you how to write epic blog posts that don’t require as much work as most types of content.

Here are…

3 Easy Blog Post Ideas That Get Results, No Matter What

Sometimes you feel lazy to write. Unmotivated.

Or maybe you just like things easy.

That's why we're here right now.

We're going to look at how to create these 3 types of blog posts that are easy, don't take much time, and will still get as good results as regular epic blog content (if not better).

Quick Note: Before I scare you off, there are no big 5000-word ultimate guides mentioned in this post. Those beasts can take weeks to create. We'll be looking at "mostly-crowdsourced content." Meaning it mostly comes from somewhere else, by someone else.

Know what I mean?

So, let's check out number 1.

#1: The Ego-bait List Post

Look:

I know some people won't like the term I used in the name. But it's like the perfect word for this type of blog post.

Why? Everybody loves it when people think you're good at something. That's what this type of blog post does...

Shows the world that everyone featured in this blog post type is great at what they do. Experts in their field.

Does it work?

Damn right, it does.

Here's some proof:

On one of my old blogs, AffiliMarketer—RIP :(— I created one of these egobait posts that featured 24 affiliate marketing blogs. The headline was:

24 Affiliate Marketing Blogs to Follow would've worked, too, but I feel like the "to Follow" headline type has been overused. And, by using the ELP headline type, you can benefit from it a lot more.

Here's what I mean:

Using the headline from AffiliMarketer's ELP (as our example), you can see 3 main pros:

Now for the big question:

How much traffic can you expect from an ELP?

AffiliMarketer's ELP drove more than a couple thousand views in a few days and about 100 shares. At the time, it was practically getting no traffic (about 10 visits per month).

Another one I've done is published on Blogging Aid. It's this post here:

This one did a lot better.

As of September '16, the post has over 700 shares. And that's not counting the hundreds of tweets it got in the beginning (I just got my Twitter share count back a few weeks ago).

As for traffic, so far, it has driven over 3,300 views.

75% of it comes from the outreach. The other 25% is basically organic.

Not bad, eh!

How to Create Your Own

Creating a helpful, traffic-sucking Egobait List Post comes down to these 4 main steps, and they ain't even that hard:

Feeling actionable? Let's go into detail.

Step 1: Your Clickable, Captivating Headline

In the wonderful world of content marketing, headlines are traffic generators themselves.

Here's what I'm talking about:

When you're browsing online for content, whether it's on search engines or social media, headlines are the first things you see.

Headlines are what make you click through to the blog post or page.

With the ELPs, it's no different.

So there are 2 headline templates or formulas that work like magic with ELP headlines:

Let me show you some examples.

Examples for "X Blogs/Experts/Pros That Will Help You ______"

Examples for "Learn ________ From These Top X Blogs/Experts/Pros"

Now it's your turn.

Pro Tip: The more people you feature in your ELP post, the better chance you have at getting great results.

Step 2: Your Worthy Experts and Up-and-Comers

Finding whatever amount of blogs or people for your ELP post requires a lot of research.

But luckily for us content creators, we have access to Google Search and other tools for research.

The 2 I'd recommend for this are Google (of course) and Buzzsumo.

But first, you'll need something to help keep track of all your people and their blogs. A spreadsheet.

For now, you'll only need to put 3 things on your spreadsheet:

Now...

How to Find the Experts via Google

Obviously, you'll have to perform a bunch of searches.

Here's what to do:

Method #1

i. Go to Google, enter something related to your ELP post.

ii. Visit as many sites that show up in the results.

iii. Get their name, URL, and contact info (and add it to your sheet).

You will find the owners' and team members' names in their about pages.

For their email address, sometimes people will have it in their bios and About pages. Sometimes not.

If you can't find anything within the first few minutes, then you likely won't at all.

If this happens, you have 3 options:

Look around for an optin form and sign up.

When they send you emails, take a look in the "From" field. You'll see it.

If you need to use the contact form, then by all means, go for it. There's nothing wrong with that.

With that said, emailing them directly would still be better.

So if you're up for it, use Hunter.io. It's free to use.

And finally, add them to your sheet.

Rinse and repeat.

Method #2

Here, you're going to get names from "blogs to follow" type list posts.

i. Go to Google and enter one of the following:

ii. Visit each of these types of list posts.

iii. Find names, URLs, and contact info and add it to your sheet.

Just like in Method #1 above:

How to Find the Experts via Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is a tool that pulls up the web's most shared content for any keyword or phrase you search for.

I'll show you what to do:

i. Go to the homepage, enter your main topic.

ii. Visit the URLs that show up in the results.

iii. Get their name, URL, and contact info (and add it to your sheet).

Just as mentioned above:

Rinse and repeat.

Another thing you could do:

Click the Influencers tab in the top navigation bar.

Click on the blue search button again.

And kwabaam! You've got a list of influencers with great Twitter followings.

Now it's your turn.

Step 3: Your Easy-to-Read and Shareable ELP Post

First off, I'd highly recommend grabbing yourself a copy of Thrive Architect. It is a way more advanced version of the default WP editor. It will totally change the way you create content.

It isn't mandatory—I created AffiliMarketer's ego-bait post (RIP) without it and still did alright—but it will make your post look 100x better. Visually appealing content tends to generate more shares than anything that's not.

Everyone you feature in your ELP post needs their own subheading section. That means their name or blog will be in heading 3, they'll have pictures of themselves, a paragraph or two, and more.

Option #1:

Option #2:

Now it's your turn.

Step 4: Your Social Media Shares. Go Get Them.

After you hit the magical PUBLISH button, it's time to get your hustle on.

Outreach.

Remember how I got you to collect everybody's contact info?

This is where you'll reach out to them and let them know about your post and what you've just done for them.

So for this, you have 2 options:

i. Email Outreach

A short and simple email tends to work well. Just like the one below that got a response within 5 minutes.

There are a few other things to keep in mind:

ii. Social Media Outreach

Social media outreach is simple. Mention or tag them in your tweet/post. That's it.

#2: Expert Roundup Posts

Expert roundup posts (ERP) are one of the most published types of blog posts lately. Especially the past 2 years or so.

And it's definitely one of the easiest ways to create great content and get great results at the same time.

One thing I feel I should mention is that there are starting to be some people who hate these roundup posts.

Take Jacob King for example. He wrote a post called "Expert Roundups Must Die & Why SEOs Can’t Have Nice Things" that basically talks about why most expert roundup posts are bad.

He says the reason they should die is because a lot of roundup post creators don't even ask legitimate experts. Instead, they get a bunch of no-name bloggers so that they can get mediocre links from them when they show off their "expert status."

That's something you should not do.

Expert roundups are to be for experts. Not for the bloggers and marketers who know nothing about what they're doing.

If you do it right, the traffic it'll bring is ginormous. Huge!

How huge? 20, 231 views, 1500 shares and 84 comments with one expert roundup post. At least that's what Tor Refsland got to this one that featured 80 legit experts.

How to Create Your Own

To create your own expert roundup post that'll get a tremendous amount of shares and even a lot more traffic, you'll have to do everything right. And that means following these 5 simple steps:

Feeling actionable? Let's go into detail.

Step 1: Your Topic and Your Question

Obviously, your ERP topic has to be within your niche. It'd just be too weird to see some irrelevant marketing roundup on a parenting blog. You know?

So. If your niche is men's weight loss, then you might consider something like male breast reduction, healthy eating plan, or home gym equipment.

For a digital marketer, you might go with traffic generation, SEO, or content promotion.

You get it, right?

As for your question, give it a little spice.

For example, your topic is writing tips.

If your question was "what is your best writing tip?" that would just be boring. And you'd likely get a boring answer.

But, if your question was "what tips would you give a beginner who's writing their first blog post?" Then, you'd likely have an epic ERP in the making.

Step 2: Your List of Experts

The more experts that contribute to your ERP, the more shares you're likely to get.

However, with that being said, having 100+ experts contribute would result in a long blog post. And sometimes freakishly long content can cause the reader to lose interest. So keep that in mind.

Now...

Before starting your search for ERP contributors, you'll need somewhere to keep track of them all. The marketer's best friend, the spreadsheet.

In your spreadsheet, you'll need the following:

Now you'll need to fill some of it in. How? you ask.

How to Find ERP Contributors via Google Search

There are plenty of keywords and phrases you can search for. But the ones I'd recommend are:

Step 3: Your Approach, Your Template, Your Outreach.

Now that you've got a great list of potential ERP contributors, let's get them to actually contribute.

It's time for some email outreach.

There are 2 ways you can approach this. Cold outreach or pre/2-step outreach.

With cold outreach, you'll be asking your list if they'd contribute and sending them the ERP question straight up.

With the 2-step approach, you'll ask if they'd like to contribute first.

I've gone with both and got about the same response rate.

They both have their pros and cons.

Cold outreach tends to get responses quicker. But may not get as many yeses due to the fact that you're virtually unknown.

The 2-step approach may get more responses because you're, in a way, showing respect. However, it can take longer because it might take time for them to reply to either email.

So, it's totally up to you.

Cold Outreach For ERP Requests

2-Step Outreach For ERP Requests

Step 4: Your Expert Roundup Post

Now that you're getting some content from your experts, it's time to start putting it together.

Every expert should have their own subheading section, just like in the ELP posts. And in their sections, you'll need the following:

Just like how Corinne Kerston formatted her ERP here:

For your headline, other bloggers and content marketers tend to craft theirs like this:

It'd be a great idea if you did it, too.

Step 5: Your Shares = Your Traffic

After it's published, it's time for a little more outreach.

One by one, go back to your email and reply to everyone who contributed to your ERP with the template below.

80% to 100% of them will likely respond and share your post.

#3: The Resource Guide

Resource guides are probably the easiest blog posts to create (that'll actually help the person who's reading it).

What exactly is a resource guide? you ask. It's basically a guide with multiple sets of links.

Here's an example from a resource guide about driving traffic:

And another here, which I did for Blogging Aid a while ago.

Does this really work?

Hell yeah, it does.

The traffic you can get is from the sharers, who are the owners of the resources you mention.

When you're done the post and it's all published, you let everybody know that you've linked to them in your guide. And when they know, they should return the favour by tweeting it out. Sometimes, they'll even mention it in their own blog posts.

Here's some proof.

The first one is from Andrea Beltrami and The Branded Solopreneur. It's called The Ultimate Visual Blogging Resource Guide.

It's made up of 5 categories (you can also call them chapters or simply sections).

Each category has its own subheading, several links to reliable resources, and the authors' names under each link.

This simple blog post generated more than 1,000 social shares in total. (It's about to hit the 1.5K mark.)

For a blog post that didn't require hundreds of words written, that's pretty impressive.

How to Create Your Own

Creating an epic resource guide that'll effortlessly get results comes down to the following 5 major steps:

Feeling actionable? Let's go into detail.

Step 1: The Topic

When it comes to topic selection, you have 3 options:

When you've got the perfect topic, you'll need an outline. Chapters. Sections. Categories. Whatever you want to call them. It's best to write it up before Step 2 so you'll know exactly what resources to look for.

It should look something like this:

Step 2: The Worthy Links (Resources)

You may have to read a lot of content before deciding on your resources. But you already knew that, didn't you?

You can find worthy links via Google, Buzzsumo, and any of the social networks. But mostly Google.

Here’s what to do:

A minute ago, you created your outline. Or at least have an idea of how it’ll look like.

Anyway, this is how you’ll find your links. By Googling your categories and reading the posts.

You probably dislike that last part. Reading. But you have to.

If your resources are a bunch of random links, you may end up with a bad post. So read. Alright?

Step 3: The Guide

Now, it’s finally time to put it all together. And if you drew up your outline in Step 1, this will be easy.

If you did, it also means you already have the “Resources/Links” section of the post done up. Like this:

Now all you have to do is fill in the [INTRODUCTION],[CONTENT HERE], and the [CONCLUSION] fields in the template above.

Step 4: The Outreach = Traffic

When you’ve published your post, you’ll have to get your hustle on. The traffic isn’t going to magically come to your site. You’ll have to go out there and get it yourself.

Doing that, for your resource guide, requires a lot of outreach. Mostly email, but you can mix social outreach in there too.

So. Here’s what to do:

i. Pick one mention and find their contact info.

Use Hunter.io to find email addresses. It’s easy and accurate.

If you can’t find their email, then you’ll have to turn to the contact form. The last resort.

You would think people would read and respond to emails from their contact page. But for some weird reason, it’s not like that. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because spammers use contact forms.

Anyway...

ii. Let them know you mentioned them.

Outreach.

Many influencer outreach pros offer their readers templates they could follow. I’ve done the same. But I always try to tell the reader to use it as inspiration. And not copying it word for word.

Today is no different. I’m going to show you a couple templates below.

But please, try to give it a little personality. Make it yours.

Email Outreach Template #1:

Email Outreach Template #2:

iii. Rinse and repeat.

Pro Tip: Take turns mentioning them in your social media posts.

Conclusion

When you've been blogging for a while, you can get quite lazy sometimes. Blogger burnout, right?

Right.

Sometimes, it can hard to get out of a funk. Real tough.

But with the 3 blog post ideas we've shared here, you have everything you need to get started.

So get off your ass and pick one. They're not hard to do. They're easier than creating some epic 3000-word guide.

No more excuses.