Traffic Generation Strategy: Drive Blog Traffic Like a Boss 

​Blog traffic  is really hard to come by these days.

Especially in certain areas like weight loss and online marketing.​

Have you ever wished you could get traffic without doing that much work?

Well. Fortunately for you, there are a lot of ways to get blog traffic.

And in this post, I will show you one of the easiest ways...

The egobait list post.​

​I first got the idea of it when I landed on Ana Hoffman's link roundup guide Traffic Generation Cafe.

She explained how the bloggers you link out to might stop by, leave a comment, and even share it on social media.

So, I thought I'd give it a shot.

But, I didn't really feel like linking out the way you would regularly...like this:

Image from Traffic Generation Cafe

​So, I did some reading on it. I eventually found content curation.

And I went with this:

The results?...​

Here are the traffic numbers before:​

And here's the traffic I got after I published the link list post:

As you can see, the site only got 2000 pageviews in total from January 15 to September 15.

And from September 16 to 30, it received 2500 pageviews.​

Plus, the average time on site and the pages viewed per session went up a little bit, too.​

Note: If you would like to see the post, it's at AffiliMarketer (follow the link). I've also published one here at Blogging Aid.

So...

How exactly did I​ do this?

I'll tell you...​

The Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Curated List Post That Drives Traffic​

​Alright. So this simple traffic hack is made up of 4 major steps:

Now let's get into more detail.​

Step 1: Pick a Topic

Like any other traffic-sucking blog post, the first thing you need is a good, relevant topic.​

​Over at AffiliMarketer, the people I target are bloggers who want to make money with affiliate marketing.

And since they weren't experts, I thought of topics that would help them learn more about generating affiliate sales.

So, instead of going with something like, "affiliate marketing strategies", "how to make money with affiliate marketing", or anything like that...

I settled on "top affiliate blogs to follow".​

You can also go with guides.

Take Brian Dean for example:

Over at Backlinko, he created a definitive guide to link building that is made up of ​more than 40 links.

And that guide got over 1000 shares, proof that this strategy really works.​

So, as soon as you've come up with a topic, you can move onto the next step.​

Step 2: Find High-Quality Resources

​This is where you find and choose the links that you're going to feature in your link post.

If you're going with something like Brian's link building guide, you'll have to do some research. If you don't, your​ post will be a big bust.

If you're going with something like my AffiliMarketer post, it's going to be a lot easier.

So...to find some links for your post, you can start by Googling your topic.​

​Another search you can do is something closely related to your topic. Something those blogs would blog about.

For example, in my "affiliate marketing blogs" post, I searched for:

​Another way to find links for your post is to check out Alltop.com.

​​Simply type in your niche or industry and Alltop will send you to a page full of relevant blogs and their 5 latest posts.

But let's say you're doing a guide. Your searches would be entirely different.

Instead of searching for blogs to feature in your post, you'd search for blog posts.​

Let's go back to Backlinko's guide...

For your first chapter, you'd search for posts that introduce the main topic. Like "what is" and "how it works" articles.

And then you'd just keep moving on, chapter after chapter, step after step.​

After you get about 20 to 50 links, or 3-5 per section, you can move onto the next step.

Step 3: Create Your Link Post

You've got your topic, you've got your links, now it's time to turn your research into​ a traffic-sucking link post.

So open up a new post, and get shit done.​

Here's what to do:

1)​ Whip up a solid headline.

Your link post's headline, like for any other post, is extremely important.​

The headline is what gets the reader to take that magical cursor, hover over your post's link, and click.​

​Without a good headline, you won't get any traffic.

Here's a simple, yet popular headline formula that would do great with a link  post:​

Note: If you need more help creating headlines, check out Neil Patel's headline guide.

2) Create your outline.

An outline is pretty much just subheads. This makes it 10x easier to write out your post because you'll just be basically filling your content in.

Like like, look:

See?​

If you were doing a guide, your setup would look something like this:​

3) ​Fill that sucker in.

Now that you've got your outline, you'll fill it in with your links (and maybe even a 2 to 4-sentence summary.

​Tip: Have your links in a bullet list.

4) Visuals.

Blog images are essential these days.

At a minimum, you should have at least the featured/title image.​

But to make your link roundup stand out, add at least 1 image per section. In other words, under every subheading, have a matching custom image. I'd recommend you make your own with a tool like Canva or Snappa.​

But if your post features people/blogs, like the one I posted at AffiliMarketer, use the blogger's head shot.

If you have no idea about blog images,​ then I'd suggest you get started. Dre has everything you need to learn all about this at The Branded Solopreneur.

Tip: Run every image through TinyPNG before uploading it to your blog. This will save you a lot of loading time.​

5) Proofread, Edit, Publish.

So you've got pretty much everything done.

All that's left is the editing part. Which, I might add, is very important.

If you don't proofread your stuff, then you're setting yourself up for a low-quality blog with low-quality content.

So...

Read through your content. And every time you have to make an edit, read through it again until you're completely sure that it's the best that it can be.

Sue has some great blog post editing tips over at Successful Blogging.

Step 4: Promote it​

This step is crucial.

This is the key to getting traffic to your link post.

Now don't worry. It's not that hard.

Here's what you need to do:​

​1) Gather up everybody's email address.

​A couple great tools that help you find bloggers' email addresses are Content Marketer and Ninja Outreach. Both offer a pretty cool free trial.

But if you want to do it manually, then that's cool, too.

​If you can't find their email, no worries. Social media will do just fine. Particularly Twitter or Facebook chat.

2) Send them an email.

It doesn't have to be a long-ass email. In fact, keeping it shorter is better because the people you linked out to are busy. Like you. Maybe even more.

So, a good email will:​

Or, if you couldn't find their email, send them a tweet or a Facebook message.​

3) Share it.

​Share it on all your social media accounts and pages.

​Check out CoSchedule's post on the best times to share on social media.

Tip: Schedule shares with a tool like Buffer.​

4) Go all out. (Optional)​

There are a lot of other ways to promote a blog post.​

And here's 31 different ways Stuart shows us at Niche Hacks.

Conclusion

The curated link post is a great traffic generation strategy that doesn't take that much work. Comparing to an epic 3000+ word blog post,​ work wise, a quality link post is peanuts.

And with the 4-step guide I showed you above, you can drive hundreds of people to your blog. All you have to do is take action.

If you have any questions, leave it in the comments below.​

And don't forget to share this with your people. :)​