The 5 Barriers to Success Series — Part 2: Lack of Entry Points
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If you’ve been wondering why your blog hasn’t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I’ve covered part one: content with a lack of significance for its target audience.
In this post, I’ll be discussing the second barrier to success: a lack of entry points to your blog — with some pointers on how to overcome this barrier.
Barrier 2: Lack of Entry Points
Visitors can’t reach your blog without an entry point. There are only three types of entry points:
- Links
- Search engines
- Social media
If your blog is still in its early stages of growth, you will have to work particularly hard to create entry points yourself. In a post I wrote in the earlier days of Skelliewag called Hansel and Gretel Link Building, I referred to these entry points as ‘crumbs’ readers use to find your blog. If readers aren’t yet creating these ‘crumbs’, you’ll need to do it yourself. As your blog grows you can gradually hand over these duties to your readers and focus almost solely on content.
Here are some things you can do to build more entry points into your blog:
- Write great content and pitch links at highly-trafficked blogs.
- Write guest-posts for other blogs.
- Learn the basics of SEO (though I have personally been terrible at this).
- Participate in a social media service and links to your blog in your profile.
- Write value-packed content aimed at social media. If you’re not sure how to start, create a resource list.
- Join a forum frequented by your niche and link to your blog in your signature.
I’m still not sure whether a comments for traffic strategy is an effective use of time. Some bloggers can get hundreds of visitors from comments over the period of a month, but this takes hours upon hours of work. Alternately, an article that does well on StumbleUpon can send a thousand visitors with only a few hours work.
While I do think commenting is a great way to connect with other bloggers and become more visible in your niche, the strategies above will serve you better for generating traffic.
Skellie, I’m glad to see this as your second part to this series. After reading the first part I was thinking “If a blogger writes a great blog post in a forest, will anybody read it?” so I’m very happy to see you talking about the need to be discovered. Great content doesn’t do anyone any good if no one knows about it. Looking forward to the next 3 parts.
Thanks for this series, Skellie.
Being pretty new to blogging myself, I find myself always thinking about my niche — whether it’s specific enough, or perhaps it’s still too general.
I should probably just keep focusing on content (which is hard enough already), and keep paying attention to all the great tips out there.
I know that you and Leo both launched new blogs this month, both being more specific niches, and I assume you both are able to leverage your current readership to turboboost those blogs to a good readership clip.
I’d really be curious to learn about getting to that “critical mass” with your first blog (this one?) — perhaps a topic for future posts?
Anyway, keep up the great work.
I like the way Chrispian puts it. :) I wonder if there are great blogs out there which nobody’s reading because they’ve never run across.
Thanks for including that post about creating social media’s favorite blog post. I’ll look into it.
@ Skellie
Ok then, I’ll join a forum…sigh.
Most forums (or fora??) in my field of spirituality/zen/life are pretty deadly: earnest young men fueling fierce debates about hot air.
I’m just writing my first guest post and it’ll be interesting to check how many visitors I get from that.
@Mrs Micah
I am sure that there are good blogs out there that no-one knows about. However, most blogs I come across are abysmal. Baaaad writing and crummy substance.
In contrast to this one :-)
Thanks for the tips Skellie. I’d better get started making that resource list.
So far, the links article I wrote after reading your post on getting on the front page of Digg got me a lot of traffic far faster than anything I’ve ever done.
And it did take a long time, but it was worth it.
Not sure if I should be commenting here, but I thought this was a very useful post. I’ve been commenting like a mad man for the past month. The number of hits from comments was eclipsed in one day by a highly-stumbled post this week.
Social media really is the quick fire way to generate traffic on a budget. Of course, that is presuming you are able to generate meaningful content for your target audience. My blog has been active for 2 days and I’ve generated 400 visits just through the use of Sphinn & StumbleUpon.
I suspect you’re right about the effectiveness of comments in generating traffic. I’m testing that theory right now :)
Hi Skellie, I think this is where I had the problem with your post on productivity - if bloggers whose blogs are still small cut out all those ‘extras’… they’ll stop leaving the trail of crumbs to their blog :-)
Joanna
This actually puts a lot of things in proper perspective.. and to my mind all three entry points are linked to each other.. for the more you get linked the better you do on search engines… and this type of traffic sustains itself better than say a digg or stumbling traffic..
what happens though is your search engine traffic also begins to add to your social profile if they like what you are doing at your blog.. and in turn helps create a better third entry point .. so i think that all said and done.. getting guest posts done or at least making your presence felt through comments can provide a lasting entry in comparison to social media
All of those strategies are indeed good but they require considerable effort. Most bloggers will read other blogs as a matter of course and if you happen to be reading an article which is interesting it doesn’t take a significant effort of time to stop for a moment and leave a comment. It’s something you can do here and there in odd 5 minutes and it also helps leave your name around which helps with branding which is not something that can be measured all that easily. I’m still a big fan of blog commenting :)
All true, but most bloggers need to pay far more attention to content before they start worrying about the other stuff. Of course you say that: you start with “write great content” but I think some just skip right over that part :-)
Thanks for the tips.
Makes good sense to put effort on getting an article that does well in one of the social media site, rather then allot of effort on commenting.
Skellie, first of all thx a lot for this great series , I am sure most readers are learning a lot from each post.
Well, I have been a bit confused by the suggestions of ‘guest-blogging’, how do a newbie blogger like me get to guest-blog? Who would let me write on their blog? Any strategy place?
Hmm. I think it can be really hard to leverage a guest post. As what can fee like the token Brit I sometimes get asked to write guest posts about specifically British topics (which is not a problem at all, I like helping people out) but does mean that not all that many people (Americans) are going to come across and read me.
Comments for traffic is great, if like me, you would be commenting regardless of whether you had a blog or not. Then it’s like traffic for free.
I have some great plans for a resource post. I just haven’t quite decided what I’m going to resource yet.
Thanks for the comments, everyone :-).
@ Joanna Young: But I think you’ve misunderstood the original article. I would never suggest that you cut out any of the ‘crumb’ generating strategies above. It’s about cutting out practices that take up a lot of time but don’t have much benefit.
@ Caroline Middlebrook: I know you’re a fan of the commenting for traffic strategy, but if you do the maths on it, it’s incredibly time consuming. As you say, it’s two minutes there, five minutes there, but let’s say you leave a hundred comments in a month which take an average of three minutes to write, that’s 300 minutes a month, or five hours. You could write two posts aimed at going viral on StumbleUpon (or one aimed at Digg) in that time. Having said that, if you’re the kind of person who’d be commenting like crazy regardless of whether it yielded a bit of traffic, then the traffic is a nice bonus :).
@ Hersh: The simple answer is to visit a popular blog in your niche, think of a good post idea which matches their blog (one which they haven’t written about yet) and then pitch the idea to the blogger via email. Good luck!
@ Plonkee: I think leveraging guest posts will depend on where you write them and what you write. Not all guest-posting locations/topics are born equal, as they say, and it sounds like you might be drawing the short straw ;-).
Skellie, Thanks for this list of ideas. I’ve been doing the forum one and its been helping. I have a tutorial site and I submit my tutorials to list sites like good-tutorials.com and thats been helping a lot. I’m mostly focused on generating good content now though. I’m trying to get a publishing routine. I started two blogs at about the same time and its tough to cater to both of them while freelancing. Thanks.
Skellie, I was recommended to your site by a friend of mine, which I guess must be one of the best ways to generate traffice…word of mouth. I’ve also included you on one of my blogrolls, so that I can refer back to your site to read your articles (the great content effect). I’ve also voted for you on the bloggies…great site!
I agree to you about comments..
It takes a lot of time and something the results is not good…
I think the content is important and must updated,..Also the info must popular too..
[...] The 5 Barriers to Success Series — Part 2: Lack of Entry Points [...]
I think commenting on blogs is productive if you leave quality comments. But if you’re spending hours upon hours to search feeds then comment on blogs then it’s not. You could be posting or doing something other than commenting in hopes that someone will find your comment worthy enough to see what you’re about.
Of course we all know to drop comments in your niche….but in a high traffic blog unless you’re the first couple of comments who’s really scrolling through all the comments? I mean, I know people do but is the return worth your investment of time?
I truly believe that if your content interests your audience…they’ll come. They’ll read, they’ll digg, they’ll stumbleupon….. You just have to know your market
Thanks for the advice. I’ve also found Blog Carnival to be usual for building traffic.
[...] A lack of diverse entry points to the site. [...]
[...] The 5 Barries To Succes - Part 2 [...]
ugh, this is the hardest part of blogging for me! but i’m slowly learning. you’re right, stumbleupon is terrific for creating traffic — even though i’m still a bit clueless how to really make the most of it. anybody know of any stumbleupon tutorials out there?
i’ve been pleasantly surprised to have gotten a very few links from leaving comments on blogs, but i don’t really use it to get traffic. there’s something so fake about it. i post comments when i really do have a comment, and only on the blogs that i truly care about.
[...] 5 Barriers to Success Series (Part 2: Lack of Entry Points | Part 3: The Absence of Definition) from [...]
One entry point that always seems to be forgotten is direct traffic, those who actually type in the URL. These are QUALITY visitors, they are going to your site for a reason.
Though the web is important in linking, rankings, etc., printed media and word-of-mouth are frequently left behind.
There are millions of blogs on the web, but only a few that get published in print. I suggest send press releases, stage an event, utilize publicity. These are ways to gain on your competition, because only a few blogs are doing this.
As a corollary to what Caroline pointed out about commenting, bloggers interested in increasing their traffic (and comments) really need to ensure that it’s easy for readers to actually leave comments!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run across a blog where the comment section is slow-loading, or where it takes over a minute after I press “submit” for the comment to process and display, thus slowing down my ability to move on to someone else’s blog. Sure, that might mean I have to stick around that blog a little bit longer this time but it also means I’ll probably never, ever comment there again.
“or where it takes over a minute after I press “submit” for the comment to process and display”
Problogger.. annoys me every time.. but doesn’t stop me from coming back.
[...] Lack of Entry Points — Visitors can’t reach your blog without an entry point. There are only three types of entry points: (a) Links; (b) Search engines; and (c) Social media. [...]
[...] Entry points are what lead people to your blog. They can be comments, email signatures, forum posts, mentions on other blogs, anything that creates a link to your site. And they correspond strongly to how much of an audience your blog can have. [...]
[...] A lack of diverse entry points to the site. [...]
[...] A lack of diverse entry points to the site. [...]