The Ultimate Christmas Traffic (Wish)list for Bloggers (and You)

We wish you a merry traffic-filled end of the year – which is why I’m going to be the Santa Clause of traffic today and, with the help of your favourite .ME domain name, gift you the ultimate Christmas traffic wishlist. These are all traffic sources you might have (or probably haven’t) heard about. While there are dozens of suggestions on the list, the only wish I have is that you go through it and think about how you can use every one of these sources to increase the number of elves visiting your blog!

1. Big Bag of Blog Directories

Like Santa’s bag that has too many gifts to count, there are far too many blog directories out there to count them all. Which is why we’re not going to. Instead, I’m going to suggest you start “Googling” directories in your particular niche and posting your blog to them. While the individual traffic might not be as gigantic as landing on the front page of Reddit, it will leave a mark on your Google Analytics over time!

2. Santa Is Waiting for Your Press Release

I know, you’re a blogger, and you don’t send out press releases, but have you ever tried? Most small companies, as well as individuals, think that sending press releases is either outdated or reserved for large organizations with people to handle their press department.

While having a dedicated PR person does help, as does having a PR agency, it’s essential to understand that you don’t need a lot to prepare a great press release. With numerous guides out there, you can create a press release quite easily or hire a freelancer to do it for you.

The secret sauce is sending that press release to all the media outlets you want to publish it. You’ll need a good network, and that’s where contacting journalists beforehand becomes very useful. Do what Santa would do and make a wishlist, but not a list of gifts you want. Instead, make a list of media outlets that you want to write about you!

3. Awards (for the Most Shiny, Red Nose)

Awards are not there just to be won; they’re also there to be one of the best references that you know that you’re doing a great job blogging. Winning a “Best blog of…” award from a reputable source means that the community or some experts think that you’ve created something special.

The most obvious advice is to apply for awards, but even more importantly when it comes to traffic – don’t forget to communicate your award across the web. Don’t just post it to your blog and your audience. Write a press release and get the media in your niche to cover how you’ve created the best blog of the year. Everyone loves a winner – and that’s exactly why they’ll visit your blog afterwards. It’s like Santa knowing you’re on the nice list – it makes you special!

4. Forums Are Awesome (Like Wooden Toys)

Old school, right? That’s what Santa’s elves thought, comparing forums with the old wooden toys they would build back in the glory days. Santa, however, said that kids still played with a lot of wooden toys and that naturally made toys were having a comeback.

While forums won’t soon make a comeback that will jeopardize Zuckerberg’s Facebook, there are still numerous online communities out there that exist outside of the big social networks. Santa’s own elves use “Elforum”, didn’t you know?

…and a bit of Facebook marketing:

5. Santa’s Facebook Profile

The basics you might be missing include using your own, private profile. While Santa always posts to his official Santa Clause Facebook page, he sometimes forgets that he has over 6000 friends that want to see his posts and content, including the Easter bunny.

Thankfully, apps such as Hootsuite and Buffer let you post not just to Facebook pages or Twitter profiles, but Facebook profiles as well – so you’ll never forget to treat your friends with your best content!

6. Do Elves Have a Facebook group?

Facebook pages have become the default way brands promote themselves on Facebook, but never forget that before Facebook had pages and Santa had elves, they both had: Facebook groups.

The great thing about Facebook groups is that members get a notification when someone (you) publishes a piece of content in them. While they’re usually far smaller in terms of total people that follow them, the content that you post reaches almost all the members of the community, with very few ignoring the notifications I mentioned. Like Rudolph whose red nose you can’t ignore, you won’t be able to ignore that Facebook group notification either!

7. Slideshare, Because Santa Loves Slides!

While you’re writing blog posts and articles, others are creating outstanding presentations and showing them off, along with some speaking skills, at conferences and other types of professional events. While you might not yet be eligible for industry events, you can still make great presentations and share them on a little website called Slideshare. It’s the ‘YouTube of presentations’, where lots of people go to find decks about a particular subject. Internet marketing and general business are a particular favourite.

When you do start using Slideshare to share your best presentations, be sure to use their analytics data on how your content is performing. Insights such as the number of Facebook likes and shares as well as the exact users who downloaded your presentation are freely available and pretty easy to access!

8. Facebook & YouTube Video So You Can See Santa

While video seems like a media format that’s out of reach for most bloggers, the truth it that it’s not as hard to produce it as it might seem at first. With the advent of YouTube stars that use their phones and cameras to take short snapshots and even more advanced (yet) simple apps that make it easy to edit your first video, it’s simpler than ever before to post your own videos on the most used video platforms out there: Namely Facebook – and YouTube!

The great thing about posting videos on these two behemoths of video platforms is that they are competing to become the “number 1” place for videos online, which means that the reach you can get on them is massive. Unlike regular posts, both YouTube and Facebook make it very cost effective (so cheap that even an elf can do it) to promote your video content! While YouTube prerolls cost very little money, “boosting” a video on Facebook gives you at least 10x more reach than a traditional post. Let’s put it these way: Even Santa would rather put a 30-second video of Rudolph than a 10-page article!

So when you get that camera you always wanted under your tree from Santa Clause, be sure to use it to create content for one or more of these great traffic sources. You won’t regret it, just like you didn’t regret getting that great .ME domain name for your blog! 😉

In the meantime: What traffic source would you add to our wishlist? Which traffic source is on yours?