Robert E. Gastelum emailed me a great question.
He has an online store and blog set up (visit
here
) and he wants to know how to get more traffic to his blog.
So far it looks like he has the makings of a good online business. He has a variety of products on his online store and how he can use his blog to attract readers and link them back to his products. (You're linking to your products, right Robert?)
So how can he get more traffic?
No matter what kind of blog you have, before you try to get traffic, ask yourself what kind of traffic do you want. Who is your ideal reader? Since Robert has a lot of brand new trumpets, mutes, and other pieces of equipment he might want to focus on professional players, college students and people who are ready to buy. He might ask himself WHEN people are most likely to buy a new trumpet. What stage are they in their career will they treat themselves?
Other people might take a different approach with their blogs. You may be trying to sell lessons and want parents to read it, or you may have a band that plays a lot of wedding gigs and you might be trying to reach brides. Troy Dowding would love to play for Justin Timberlake or Bruno Mars, so he creates videos of himself playing their music.
Your choice of blog posts topics will change dramatically depending on who your customer is.
Once you know who your ideal person is, find out where they hang out online. Go there, and listen to their questions and comments and find out what their concerns and problems are.
Your blog posts should revolve around those questions and problems and concerns.
Have you ever noticed that on online trumpet forums, people are constantly asking the same questions about mouthpieces and equipment, etc? Don't bother lecturing them and trying to get them to use the search function (as if!).
Just take those questions and write a blog post. And you can then go back to those posts and start to answer the question ... but leave some information out so that they are still curious to know more... and link to your blog and say, "If you want to know more I cover it in detail on my blog."
Speaking of curiosity, write headlines that make people curious. Give a little bit of the information but make it so they have to read the blog to get the whole story.
You can also get more people to read your blog posts by using headlines that trigger some controversy (again, if you're participating in groups, pay attention to what people are debating about and use that in your blog). You can also connect your products to something that is happening in the news or an issue that people are currently talking about.
When you're on Social Media, don't just putz around waste time. Use the platforms to drive people to your blog and use your blog to lead people to your sales page.
Most important, don't be boring.
We'll be talking a lot about blogging. It's a great way to keep yourself on people's minds and get more gigs more consistently.
James is offering a course that shows you how to get a blog up and running. The course is only $1 and is lays out a lot of information so that you can start a blog that will actually help you build a career and make money with your music.
