Whether you are just considering consulting or are seasoned in the field, demonstrating your expertise should be one of the foundations of your business. These days, people often demonstrate their knowledge and experience by educating potential and current clients through a niche blog or similar type of website.
Yet one of the biggest problems business owners have with blogging is they don’t know how to increase website traffic. A website that is not connected to any others, is like an island in the midst of a very large ocean.
Linking Strategies
Getting high-quality links to your business website or blog is an important way to get traffic. It also improves your Google ranking, which means your site will display higher in the list of Search Engine results. Obtaining these backlinks can be involved and time-consuming, so it’s best to develop a linking strategy for your business to keep you on track. Schedule tasks on specific days to accomplish some of the strategies discussed here.
Follow proven linking strategies such as the ones below.
Create Value
A basic premise for building backlinks to your site is that it must provide value to your audience. Whether it’s a site of technical tutorials or business advice, it should be so compelling that other sites will want to link to your site. Here are some ways to create value:
- Add reviews to products that are relevant to your readers
- If you have enough traffic, add a forum so visitors can discuss topics related to your consulting business
- Provide content that is difficult to find elsewhere
- Teach how to do something related to your niche, or
- Write articles, white papers or eBooks of interest to site visitors and offer these as a free download
Write Articles for Other Sites
An effective way to build links is to write articles related to your consulting business. You can submit your articles to Ezine directories, which in many cases allow others to reprint your article as long as you, the author, is given due credit. You can also ask blog owners if you can write a guest post. Often bloggers are seeking more content and will oblige. Be sure that your business site url is clearly displayed on the article.
Industry Directories
Search for the authoritative directories in your niche or industry. Remember you want links from the highest quality sites. Then submit your site to these directories. Many directories have an obvious way to submit a url using a form. Others charge a fee. In some cases, you will need to email the webmaster and ask if he or she will link to your site.
Blog Directories
If your site is based on a blog using blogging software, such as WordPress, you can submit it to Blog Directories. After your blog has around ten posts, submit your blog to the major Blog Directories, such as Bloggeries, All Top, and others specific to your area of expertise. You can also request to have your blog listed in the Blogroll area of some of the most popular blogs in your niche. If your blog provides value, blog owners are usually very willing to add you to their list. This is a good way to drive a targeted audience to your site.
“Write Articles for Other Sites”
The list is great, but I agree with this method of blog promotion the most. Writing articles for other sites (guest posting) will get your blog a generous amount of traffic from a targeted audience.
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