GoViralNaija Exclusive: How Top Bloggers Get 93% of Their Traffic

When it comes to driving traffic to your blog, one of the most common mistakes people make is spending too much effort on things that barely move the needle. The entire goal of establishing an effective online presence, after all, is to one day cross the threshold where people find you more often — ideally far more often — than you spend time trying to find them.

Social networks, for example, can be a great way to drive traffic to your blog. But they are not the most dominant force out there. Similarly, advertising on social networks can be effective, but only for the length of time you are running them and spending out cash. It’s yet another machine which, with rare exceptions, does not compound upon its success. This is why the vast majority of top bloggers, even those spending a lot of time promoting themselves on social media, will tell you that social media is not where they get the majority of their traffic from.

 I watched Darren Rowse,  speak to this issue of — where bloggers get traffic — on his podcast, so I reached out to him to get more detail.

“Most bloggers that I talk with admit to focusing most of their promotional efforts on social media,” he said. “However, when you dig into where most established bloggers get the majority of their actual traffic, the answer I often hear is from Google. It seems to me that many bloggers are overlooking one of the biggest and most lucrative sources of traffic: search. The lure of viral traffic from social is strong but if bloggers put a little bit of time each day into their search strategy instead, I believe they would be far more successful.”

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is really the only traffic-driving force that has the potential to one day cross the bell-curve and work passively in your favor. The chances of someone stumbling across your social post from a year ago and sharing it with their audience, for example, is highly unlikely. And yet year-old blog posts constantly find their way to the top of search queries and continue to bring in big ticket traffic for websites that understand the value of quality content.

For example, according to a study by Hubspot, “66 percent of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority.

So, what are the steps to creating content with an SEO strategy in mind?

1. Start with relevant keywords, and search for the low-hanging fruit.

You need a firm grasp on what people in your industry or niche are searching for in order to create successful content. A few ways you can do this:

• Use Google’s keyword planner, or a tool like Ubersuggest.
• Search keywords on Quora, and look for what questions people are asking.
• Do a few web searches with those related keywords to see who is currently dominating the first two pages of search.

Once you have a sense of what people are searching for surrounding your area of expertise or interest, you can start to cater your content toward the keywords that are not as competitive. For example, ranking on the first page for “social media” is going to be much harder than if you were to try rank for something more targeted like “real estate social media strategy.”

2. Create long-form content for better searchability.

Marketers often talk about how today’s online readers have short attention spans, but I don’t buy this for a minute. Readers don’t hate long form content, they hate bad content. They hate bad content even more when it’s long. If the content is great content, then they want even more of it.

A study by Buzzsumo found that long-form content between 3,000 and 10,000 words ended up performing the best online. In fact, according to the study, “There are 16 times more content with less than 1,000 words than there were content with 2,000+ words.”

What this means is that trying to stand out with short-form content in a world of saturated short-form content is extremely difficult. However, if you come in wielding long-form, keyword specific, valuable content, you are far more likely to rise to the top of the rankings and accumulate more organic search traffic. Just make sure it’s great content people actually want to read.

3. Establish a network of backlinks from other websites.

If understanding the landscape is step one, and creating valuable content is step two, then step three is expanding your reach and having other blogs and websites point to your website via backlinks. According to Hubspot, “Companies that blog have 97 percent more inbound links.”

Here are a few ways you can get websites and content publishers to link back to your content:

• Reach out via email to relevant content publishers in your space or market, and let them know about your content piece. Ask them if it’s a good fit for their audience, and if so, to feel free to share it.
• Create a similar piece of content for another website, and link back to your own content as an added resource or reference.
• Quote or otherwise include relevant content creators in your space in your content, and when you publish it, tag them in your social media posts with the article. Do you think they’ll share it? Of course they will!

The key is to get what you’ve created in front of the right people, whether that’s through email outreach, social media or even good old fashioned networking.

With SEO there’s bad news, and there’s good news. The bad news is that SEO is a long-term strategy, which means you’ll need to do a lot of work for a long time to get consistently great results. The good news is that because it’s a long-term strategy, most of your competitors won’t focus on it, and then you win.

Shock:Innocent Girl Dies in WhizKid’s Concert (Video)

Wizkid’s concert at the Kenya International Convention Center (KICC) on Saturday turned tragic after a police officer shot a young lady for no apparent reason.

Reports indicate that the unidentified lady, who is a student in one of the local universities was shot by the cop as she was waiting for a friend in her car.

A video has surfaced showing an irate gentleman pursuing the officer and asking him why he shot the lady. The cop is seen covering his face while walking in the opposite direction.

In the clip, some people can be heard telling him to kill all of them if that’s what his job is all about.

Watch here

The man asks him to go and record a statement at a nearby police station but he refuses and warns him that he (the officer) will also kill him.

The clip has elicited strong reactions from many netizens, with some demanding that the Inspector General, Mr Joseph Boinett takes harsh action against the rogue officer.

Goviralnaija Exclusive: Is Modeling Prostitution?

Many  persons  in and outside  the showbiz  industry  have in  so  many  times , tagged Entertainers  as  flirts,womanizers, Promiscus, prostitutes  etc.

How True ?

Entertainers range from Musicians, Actors, Filmmakers, comedians, to  models. It is a  lime-light  friendly career and as such meeting new persons every day is a norm ,and the  quest  to ‘’mingle ‘’ ‘’flirt’’ is quite Enormous male and female alike, Entertainers have a high tendency to flirt or prostitute either for money, opportunities or mere Self pleasure.

Are models prostitutes?

This is a very big question I will try to proffer an answer to in my almost 10years around models. Models have quite the highest rate of promiscuity & flirtatiousness amongst Entertainers, not because they earn the most, but because an average model is desperate and purpose un-defined.

People get  into modeling  undefined , simply  may be because some persons tell  them  how  ‘’model like‘’ they look or  walk, some because their friends or siblings have ‘’made’’ it, modeling, others simply  because they love  the  concept of  being  called a model, or  the perception  that models get freebies and fame.

This mindset tends to lure models into series of sexual melo dramas.

What do “models” prostitute for?

In no particular order of importance, an average model will likely flirt or prostitute for the following under listed reasons:

1.     Money: Money truly makes the world go round, and as they  say ‘’Cash rules  everything around  me’’, this is one major reason models Can go all out to give out their body.

With  the  right pay sum, a model fetches money to pay her unending, ostentatious personal bills e.g  make up kits, shoes,  bags, jewelries, clothing, e.t.c. some go ‘’charitable’’ by taking friends to club and  buying  the  most  exotic of drinks as to gain the attention of newer potentials clients in the club who will likely replenish their expenses at the end of that  night, when they go private.

This category of models usually hide under  the auspices of  ushering, social escort, hostesses , pageant beauty Queens. e.t.c.

2.     Opportunities –  Though  opportunities  may have  financial rewards at  the end  of the day, but  most  models will give  out their body when presented with  sultry opportunities e.g  a trip to Dubai, Paris Joburg  e.t.c., some will do same, for a night out with  celebrities, government officials, oil industry moguls.etc.

Opportunities also come in form of model job slots for ushering, runway, vixens e.t.c., models become vulnerable when there are strict audition /casting procedures. And will rather want to circumvent by using their bodies to give such opportunities or position when presented.

This is prevalent in most beauty pageants especially, where tickets need to be sold out to meet the requirement of the organizers or to gain a crown.

 

3.     Self-Pleasure-This may sound ridiculous with the level of self-deceit that exist in the industry, but most models in addition to the reasons listed earlier, indulge in sex gratifying acts for the soul purpose of  self pleasure.

True Story: I have a female model friend who left Benin to meet a Music video director in Lagos, who had earlier contacted her on Facebook for a portfolio build up photo session, to cut the long story short, she slept with the music Video director after a long day actual photo shoots, when I ask her why? She simply said “He was cute jor!”  And that alone was the basis for sex? Correct me if I am wrong, not all models are victims of harassment, coerciveness, or black mail to sex, some simply have that nostalgia to flirt.

Every top model I have encountered (Oh yes, I have met a lot of them) and I have graciously conversed with on very friendly notes, have confessed to me one sexual escapade or another as models, little no wonder people see models as prostitutes no matter the aspect of modeling being undertaken.

WHAT DO I THINK OF MODELS?

-In my candid opinion, I honestly do not think an average model is a prostitute, if they truly define what they are modeling for.

The aspect of modeling one decide to join also those not literally mean, such a person must prostitute, it is a mind factor, the discipline of self in the presence of temptation and luring conditions makes a whole difference.

– I do know a beauty Queen who is a virgin, we also have seen girls who back out of pageants when the ‘assignment’ became demeaning, or out of their moral status.

-I know its rare, but I do believe some social escorts/Atmosphere models have boundaries to what service they can render at any given job offer.

-Fashion Runway Models Are Not Left Out; as I have come to know that they are so prone to flirting for opportunities the most. Oh yes!

– Commercial Editorial Models– this model category usually should have little or nothing to do in the sexual arena, but it is a man’s world and beauty is catalyst to sexual tendencies, so they also affected unfortunately.

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game”, it is a thing of choice and it differs from person to person, Modeling is like every other noble career, the players make the difference.

–“Models Are Not Prostitutes, Human beings Are” Khris ( 2017)

(I can give a lot of true life stories of models and their shared encounters. May be in subsequent articles) On this  blog.