[Discussion] What are Real Traffic Methods for an Entertainment/Pic/Video/Blog/General Site - Only Experts Please

[WarriorInfinity]

First of all, please note that this thread is NOT intended for those who'd like to share some basic stuff like on page SEO, names of software, or generic statements such as "facebook" or "social media" etc - so if you are looking to increase your post count, please look elsewhere. Let's make this thread something advanced and worthwhile for everyone's benefit. Blackhat methods, gimmicks, sneaky tricks are welcome!

So guys I have an entertainment blog - which is similar to 9GAG, and I was wondering if you guys can share some really good, real traffic methods to grow this site's reach. I've tried out many out there, but interestingly, apart from occasional SE pickups and social media pickups bursting to around 5000 visitors a day, the site remains at ~200 users a day on average all the time. Obviously there's an increase as in January 2014 I got around ~100 only but given that 6 months have been passed and I've been consistent I'm actually thinking this should be more.

Now I'm not a total newbie. I have tools, the site has a dedicated VA I pay every month, and I've used/tried out paid methods as well. Let me share what I've been trying out - these are good stuff, but perhaps I could use some "better" stuff.

- Around 3-4 posts a day, keyword targeted (mostly common sense but I've recently started doing KWs first and then posting accordingly + inspiring from google trends. But since the site is like 9GAG, I'd say both methods are sensible given the content is for viral purposes), nice headline, tagged images, keyword stuffed description etc. Basically posts with good onsite SEO.

- Posting manually to social media channels - FB, Twitter, Pinterest

- Additional social media love - Posting to reddit with provoking titles (worked well with ~100 traffic bursts, until accounts get banned for excessive content from a single site), pinterest (worked well with ~100 traffic bursts etc. But same results - 3+ accounts great accounts with 2k + fans each got banned, mainly for posting on about 10+ boards a day), twitter (didn't do much - account is still active, updated everyday 5k followers, very low traffic to the site), facebook ads (got about 1k fans by ads 100% paid - not worth it as they are hardly active)

- Video - creating videos and posting on YT. Low traffic.

- Backlinks - Got DFL to blast cheap links at every post on a daily basis (about 4k a day) - almost no result.

- Traffic - tried Adfly about 5k users, nothing much. Also this ain't safe for adsense which is the main method of revenue as of now.

Overall website status: alexa 1.3 mil rank, 200 average visitors a day, 80% bounce rate, Adsense average 25 USD a month, very fast loading custom theme and nice design, over 500 manually done posts.

Basically what I need are general users. Can be from any country, any age etc. As long as they are real (non-incenticied like a d f .l y links were NOT allowed here!!!) that's all I probably need.

Let's share some thoughts, and methods including paid ones. I appreciate your feedback, in advance - not judgements. If I remember some other stuff I've done I'll post again. :)

[abens24]

very interesting , i too am in ur situation , but i'm just starting out so i am not an expert, but i have lots of ideas which i'm going to apply with my website :
1 - contacting youtube channel owners and facebook page owners ( the one that don't already have a website ), and offer a partnership with them, giving them a private section of your website just for them where they can publish their cotent on your website and share a link on their pages\channels , the catch is either money ( fixed amount or splitting revenue as a starter) or offering them more likes\followers to their pages if your website can manage that, and the big win for you is content + visitors + $$ of course.... i dont know if i might catch one or two of these pages but definitely gnna try
2 - sponsoring the fun page in my hometown newspaper, the number of visitors won't be big , but its a great way for branding your website, everyone will remember your website whenever they feel the need for something fun :P
3 - sharing android apps sponsored by your website, these should be fun games or quizes or anything.. it will get you alot of fans for your games , and with your website in the splash screen, u sure got urself a brand, not to mention the $$ u make from ur apps, nw every person who likes ur apps will definitely follow ur website , that combined with great funny content, and BOOM , you win ( apps can be found for as cheap as 10$ on codecanyon.net and reskinning isnt that hard, at least for me :p )

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just so you know my website is not done yet and these ideas are not iplemented so i cannot provide a proof of their efficiency, but i definitely will try them ...
also my website will be targeted only to my home country where competition is not big if not null so i guess i have bigger chances :p

[IMAddicted]

I like the partnership idea. Thank @abens24 for your decent comment. This really helps me brainstorm my traffic tactic. Hope you two succeed with 9gag clone :)
PS: What if I buy some tweet and share on seoclerks and Fiverr? Are they good or not? My niche is general so I don't care about content but I'm not sure tweet and share service can get me some good traffic

[abens24]

(07-25-2014 09:12 PM)hieu230592 Wrote:  I like the partnership idea. Thank @abens24 for your decent comment. This really helps me brainstorm my traffic tactic. Hope you two succeed with 9gag clone :)
PS: What if I buy some tweet and share on seoclerks and Fiverr? Are they good or not? My niche is general so I don't care about content but I'm not sure tweet and share service can get me some good traffic

glad i helped ^^ i will edit my comment each time i get smthng going on on my mind ...
about tweets and shares, as the OP said, it will only get you some traffic bumps momentarely , what you and all of us want is loyal visitors who look at your website as the authority website of its niche whatever that is ...

[abens24]

first comment edited ^^

[IMAddicted]

You have a lot of ideas @abens24. Thanks for sharing I will take action and see how we can generate some money :)

[pahsurf]

Sites like these need lots(20 to 40 posts daily) of updated content

[abens24]

my pleasure guys , it would be great if others post some ideas about the content too ; some creative thoughts we can implement that could set us apart from the norm

[CyberPunk]

Buy about 5-10 domains that still have traffic going to them. The domains must obviously match your niche. With 5-10 of them you should be able to get 500+ visitors/day just with the domain traffic. The conversions will be a little lower but will still work so long as the domains are related to your niche. If you hit the right domains, you could get thousands/day..

Buy media buys on media buy networks, like DirectCPV. Test out campaign types like RoN, Keyword, Category based targeting.

[jake99]

i integrated my gags/fails site with tumblr. slowly the tumblr account built up followers and now the site gets a steady stream of traffic from tumblr. since you're already doing facebook/twitter/pinterest cross-posting, try to add tumblr, too.