How can you increase readership without breaking the bank? Great content is key but so are the methods you use to promote it. Running GreenDeals Daily on my own with a non-existent budget has taught me a few ways of promoting environmental content online that can send hundreds if not thousands of readers your way. These steps have worked well for me, but of course they can’t guarantee success.
I use Google Analytics to figure out how many readers I have, what they’re looking at and how they’re finding us. It’s free and gives you amazing insight into your site. Looking at my logs since October 1st, I can see instantly what my top referrers are:
Stumbleupon has quickly become my top source of readers. For those who don’t know, Stumbleupon allows you to rate sites you like, and find other sites you may like via a browser toolbar. When I write articles like this one I “stumble” my own work to get it into the system. I should caution however that some say the effectiveness of self-stumbling may wane after doing it 15 times or so. Read this for more on growing your traffic with Stumbleupon.
Before starting this site I had never paid much attention to Care2. I was a loyal Treehugger reader and figured Hugg was all I needed in terms of social news. As you can see though, Hugg sends me far less traffic than Care2 - three times less in fact. This just shows it’s important to explore a variety of social sites when thinking about promoting your content - you may just find a whole community of readers you didn’t know existed.
Next on the list is Google. I’ve done what I can to improve how quickly Google finds my new content by providing them with an XML sitemap. Beyond that I figure there isn’t much you can do to improve the amount of traffic they send besides building up a lot of inbound links and a library of content people might search for.
Finally, there’s Webware, they wrote an article on GreenDeals Daily that sent us a lot of traffic. I’m not exactly sure how the author found out about GreenDeals Daily but I suspect it may have been via one of the social sites I submitted to. This demonstrates the importance of promoting your site outside of the green niche, the indirect effects of your promotion efforts, as well as the importance of luck.
I promote using many other social sites, in fact I have a handy folder on my bookmark bar to help with the task:
Every time I write a post of any significance I go down the list and submit it to these sites. This way I hit all the promotion methods I consider relevant. I also post a link on my personal blog which is linked in to my Facebook account. I find the following tips make for a successful submission to a social news site:
- Use a catchy or even controversial headline and description.
- Always include an image if allowed.
- Be a real participant in these sites, not just a self-promoter. Add friends, vote for stories other than your own and post comments.
Well that’s about all the tricks I’ve got up my sleeve, what’s worked for you in the past?
10 responses so far ↓
1 anne // Nov 20, 2007 at 12:03 am
Thanks for this article JP, very interesting, and worthy of greater attention (when i have time).
I have noted your story on Care2,
Please consider noting mine:
http://www.care2.com/news/member/860859703/546086
together we scratch the surface of awareness!
Thanks again,
Warm regards
Anne Goddard
http://globalclimatechangeaction.org
2 Anna // Nov 20, 2007 at 4:58 am
JP-I have to agree with you. I get most of my traffic through Stumbleupon. One of my posts made it to Treehugger and I did not get that much traffic. Perhaps the author paraphrased it so well, why bother to come to my site. I also agree with you about stumbling yourself. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.
I personally do not like google because it does not account for people who do not allow cookies. I use a WP plug-in called ex-slim and my numbers are 3x higher than on google. My numbers were confirmed with bloglog’s widget too.
I have not done well with Digg either. Most of my traffic comes from my comments. Who know sometimes? Thanks for the care2 tip. Have to check them out! anna www.green-talk.com
PS check out problogger. Very interesting info about blogging and Darren is a great writer as well.
3 Betsy Lou // Nov 20, 2007 at 6:04 am
Yes! Thank you so much. A friend saw your article and then posted two articles from my site, Pretty Patrol (prettypatrol.com). In just two hours my Top 11 Eco-Friendly Toys, Games & Kits for Children article was on the Care2.com FRONT PAGE! It was on top of Green Living on Home, Green Living Main and Popular Stories. I’m so excited, as my site is so new.
Please note it: http://www.care2.com/news/member/799974218/546161
Thank you so much!
4 Betsy Lou // Nov 20, 2007 at 6:10 am
I’m so tickled pink, I forgot. My second article also is hot on Care2.com, my Top 12 Eco-Friendly Gifts for Women.
You can note it here:
http://www.care2.com/news/member/799974218/546141
Thanks, again! I noted your article.
5 pelf // Nov 20, 2007 at 8:39 am
I don’t promote my environment blog as much as I would love to due to time constraints.
Perhaps I should. Thanks for doing my research for me!
6 Enjoying Stumbling // Nov 25, 2007 at 7:52 pm
[…] installed StumbleUpon a little while ago to help increase traffic to GreenDealsDaily (and it worked) - but I hadn’t used it for randomly finding good sites (its intended purpose). Well I gave […]
7 jane // Apr 30, 2008 at 5:01 am
heres a blog for reviews of green website hosting providers, its got quite a few on there… http://www.greenhostingreviews.com
8 jojo // Sep 8, 2008 at 9:58 am
http://qreep.blogspot.com
9 Tamar // Sep 17, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I am looking for a list of green websites to hand out at one of our office’s Environmental Movie Fridays, (we’re a solar company) and I found your site by typing in green websites into google, this article was 9th on the list.
10 Clara // Sep 26, 2008 at 5:31 am
Had no idea this was such a thing as green hosting. Thanks!
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