5 Mistakes to Avoid When Publishing on Medium

If you’re looking to publish your work on Medium, or on any other blogging platform for that matter, you can’t expect to immediately work out the winning formula for attracting your target audience. However, you can become aware of things to avoid if you want to improve your chances of success. 

Medium is unlike many other blogging platforms out there. Advertising is not allowed, and there is an emphasis on a story’s readability rather than the author’s popularity. Although anyone can share any knowledge or idea that doesn’t violate any of Medium’s rules, a piece has to be compelling enough to get featured around the site. If you're already using Medium, but it hasn't been as helpful in driving traffic as you hoped it would be, then perhaps it’s time to check if you have been making the following mistakes.

5 Mistakes That Could Hinder Your Success on Medium

Mistake #1. Not Adding Value to Readers

Medium doesn’t exactly focus on views or visits. It rewards content for its quality and on whether people have actually read the piece. No matter how many followers you have, your audience won’t stick around if you can’t offer something of value. When people read blog posts on Medium, they expect to learn something, discover an entertaining story, or know about an experience they could identify with. Readers don’t really pay much attention to your background as a writer, your endorsements, nor your fame. 

Becoming successful on Medium requires effort and commitment because you need to think of ways to deliver value constantly. Some of the most practical posts you can share include guides, how-tos, and checklists. Of course, you can publish pretty much anything that you believe is quality content and would benefit your blog post or business. As long as you write your pieces well and make it a point to offer value to your readers each time, then it’s almost impossible to go wrong. 

Mistake #2. Not Posting Often Enough

Although publishing consistently does not guarantee you’ll get the results you want, it certainly helps. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the frequency of posts, but you should base the schedule on your ability to deliver and what your audience wants. 

Ultimately, readers should come first, and it may take a bit of research and assistance from data analysis tools to determine how users respond to the interval of time between posts. While some look forward to daily updates, others may prefer weekly posts. Generally, the kind of content you publish affects how often readers might wish to see your work. Try your best to post a minimum of once every week to ensure your audience won’t give up on you and go to other publications.      

Keep in mind that you will likely need to adjust the schedule later on to accommodate your needs and those of your audience. Observe how changes in the frequency impact your stats. Don’t forget that regular posting may not be worthwhile if you can’t create good content consistently. Quality pieces will keep working for you and continue to drive traffic even if they are already in your archive. At the end of the day, aim to be realistic and find a balance between publishing often and bringing engaging information. 

"Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others."  — Brandon Mull, Author.                                  

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Mistake #3. Not Attracting Attention to Your Profile

Posting stories is not the be-all and end-all in Medium. You may earn views and followers after you publish, but there is little chance you’ll go far if you are not proactive in making people notice you. Additionally, if you submit to publications, make sure you choose one that caters to your audience. This way, you could gain the exposure your blog or business needs.

An essential part of getting attention and building an audience on Medium is to engage with your readers. A few ways to do this is to leave insightful comments on good stories, respond to readers’ responses, and follow people you like. If readers comment or recommend your story, do the courtesy of following them back to pique their curiosity and perhaps check out your profile. Keeping them engaged while they are still interested in your content is one of the surest ways to connect with your audience.

Mistake #4. Focusing on Followers 

Unlike other social platforms, Medium doesn’t stress on a writer’s follower base. A large following doesn’t necessarily translate to a wide readership. The great thing about Medium is that you can have a few followers and still be compensated adequately. You can reap the benefits if you build loyalty and a strong relationship with followers who read only your work. 

Nevertheless, a huge following can be an advantage if it helps your story become viral. There’s nothing wrong with coming up with ways to gain followers. However, you shouldn’t lose sight of your goal of creating unique, relatable content that makes readers keep coming back for more and encourages them to spread the word about you. Again, everything comes down to delivering value and earning your readers' trust.

Mistake #5. Not Using the Right Tags

Adding tags is a vital part of optimizing your Medium story and improving visibility. If you want to make it easier for readers to discover your work, use tags relevant to your content. Consider going for high-volume tags because readers on Medium tend to follow bigger topics they are interested in, rather than targeted ones. Moreover, popular tags can boost your search engine ranking because a search engine crawl recognizes tags when visiting your post. There’s a whole new audience base waiting for you if you add high-volume tags in your story.

By maximizing the five tags that Medium allows you to use, you can attract different audiences and bring your content in front of more people who might want to respond to your piece. Again, remember not to sacrifice relevance for popularity. Don’t betray your readers’ trust by using a tag that doesn’t describe your story accurately. Take note that you can achieve a top writer status if you post often and have good traffic to your tag story that uses the same tag. 

Publishing your content and building an audience on Medium may not be as simple as you think. Regardless, your hard work can pay off if you share great stories and connect with people you might not reach on other platforms otherwise.  

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How to Promote Affiliate Links on Quora (the Right Way)

Quora is a well-known Q&A site that many digital marketers have included it as part of their marketing strategy. However, the platform bans outright promotion—when you include affiliate links in answers, Quora tags these as spam and shuts down your account after repeated warnings.

Nonetheless, some remain undeterred in promoting their affiliate offers through Quora. After all, it's the best platforms for affiliate marketing because it allows you to demonstrate your expertise and authority on specific topics. Your target market is more likely to click on your affiliate link if they trust your opinion.

So, if Quora strongly prohibits affiliate links on its site, how do you do it without getting banned? Below are a few tips to promote covertly.

1. Build a strong profile.

If you think putting the affiliate link on your Quora profile will pass, it won’t. Even when you try to mask or cloak it, the platform will still identify it as a no-go and tag it as an offense. 

What you can do instead is to set up a bio highlighting your expertise and proof validating your authority, such as published works and collaborations. List credentials relevant to your affiliate business; it shows your knowledge and interest in the product. 

In the Quora profile, you can include your website URL. If you want to promote the affiliate link, use interesting content from your site to weave it through rather than blatantly placing it on your bio, which can be off-putting.

2. Focus on niche-related questions and topics.

You can find millions of questions covering a range of topics on Quora. Even if you put in a lot of effort going through each one and answering them, it won’t amount to much without the right strategy. Instead, follow the advice of top writers—work smart, not hard.

Start by looking for questions related to your niche, as it can be an area of expertise or interest. Choose topics relevant to your affiliate links. It’s challenging to promote something you have no interest in or knowledge of, so focus your keyword search on these first. While it’s helpful to follow popular topics and thought leaders, you don’t have to limit yourself to them and expand your scope.

Once you found the right questions, compile them in a spreadsheet for better tracking. Input the question, link, topic, number of followers, and answers. Determine the ratio of followers to responses. Most top Quora writers mind the 7:1 rule in vetting questions, but not always. If it’s higher, it means that many people remain interested in the question, allowing for potential traction. 

Sometimes, it isn’t easy to discover questions with the 7:1 follower-to-answer ratio. You can still post your reply, especially if you find most of the responses lacking in content or substance. Moreover, you don’t have to shy away from new or fresh questions. Answering them can give you a slight advantage over others in terms of views and upvotes. 

Whenever you scour Quora for possible questions, remember to limit your choices to ones where you can backlink your site content with the affiliate link.

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3. Write great answers.

When you’re on Quora, remember that its currency is an excellent answer—ask any leading marketer, and they’ll tell you this. Most people forget this fact, missing out on the numerous upsides the platform has to offer.

So, what makes an answer worthy of view and upvotes? A lot goes into crafting a great Quora response, but the most important is that it should be useful. Many users post complex, difficult, or thought-provoking questions to trigger lots of quick responses. If you want yours to stand out and avoid getting buried into invisibility, contribute something valuable to the discussion. It can be additional information, different insight, or personal experience relatable to the readers.    

Whenever you answer, write with style. Use bold and italicized fonts to emphasize key points and takeaways. If possible, make your post more mobile-friendly by limiting paragraphs up to two sentences. Bullet points and numbering keep your reply concise but informative. 

Another effective strategy to grab attention is adding imagery in your post. Granted that Quora is not a visual platform, breaking up your answer with relevant images and photos makes it easier to read and understand. It also lessens the monotony of your content.  

Sometimes, appealing to the readers emotions works, but only on specific topics and up to a certain point. If humor doesn’t fit the situation, take on a more personal approach to answering, such as giving advice or sharing your real-life experience.

4. Create the right content.

Affiliate marketing isn’t allowed on Quora, but there’s a creative workaround—putting the affiliate links indirectly in your answers.

The platform considers it an offense to insert affiliate links in your answer, no matter how well you disguise them. Instead, tie them into the site posts that you can use as a reference or source material when answering related questions.

Build relevant quality content on your website first. The more articles you have, the higher your chances of directing traffic because of increased visibility. By extension, more site visitors will click on your affiliate links.

If you find it challenging to produce content, look at your bookmarked questions, and use these as topic ideas. Here’s another thing to remember—refrain from copying your blog contents and pasting these as answers on Quora. Instead, craft an entirely new post to avoid getting banned.   

5. Monitor your metrics.

Every affiliate marketer’s dream is to earn enough passive income; however, it only becomes possible if you put in the work and keep track of your progress.

Every Quora user has a dashboard containing their stats—which answers had the most views, upvotes, and shares. Try to answer similar questions in the future and create site content around such topics.

Take on the same approach when assessing your affiliate marketing business relative to your site—what contents drove most of your passive income.

Bear in mind that affiliate marketing through Quora will not yield significant results overnight, so if you want to make a quick buck, then you’re at the wrong place. Quora frowns upon overt promotion, but it doesn’t discourage marketers from using the platform for such purposes. When done right by following site policies and regulations, it provides long-term benefits through high-quality site traffic and passive income from affiliate links.

How to Get More Traffic with Guest Blogging

Guest blogging or posting is the practice of writing content for someone else's more popular blog. It's a tactic that can help you drive more traffic to your website since you can reach a larger audience that might not know you yet. Today, about 60 percent of blogs worldwide make between one to five guest blog posts every month to reap such benefits. Here are some ways that your guest posting can generate traffic to your site.

7 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website with Guest Posting

1. Choose the Blog Carefully

Firstly, you'll want to submit your guest posts to blogs that share the same industry or niches. It would also be preferable they're active online and have engaged followers. An active blog will promote your posts for you, and their readers will likely show more interest in your brand and visit your website because you're in the same niche. 

For instance, high-profile architecture firms can have their projects featured in architecture and interior design sites like Dezeen. The magazine has a worldwide social media following and shares guest posts on their channels, making it ideal if the architect or designer wants to generate global reach and traffic. 

Guest blog sites have different rules on submitting content. Some may only need you to give an idea and outline, while others require you to write everything yourself. In Dezeen, for example, you only need to submit high-quality images, text descriptions, and any relevant links -- such as your company website. If they like your project, they will write an article based on the given details.  

2. Learn from Existing Guest Posts 

Before submitting anything, you could first study the kind of content that works best with the blog's readership. What topics or formatting styles get the most clicks, likes, or shares? Do the posts use plenty of images? Are the bloggers writing for B2B or B2C audiences? Knowing these can give you ideas on what and how to write your guest posts to make the readers interested in what you've got to offer. 

3. Focus on Content, Not Self-Promotion

Driving website traffic may be your goal, but be careful with overpromoting your brand. It would be better to prioritize providing valuable content with your guest posts. A Moz study reveals that data-driven content is one of the two types that perform the best when considering backlinks and shares generated. It makes you more trustworthy to the blog's followers and gives you a reputation for giving useful advice or information. Eventually, the readers will also start going to your website for more blog posts and learn more about your products or services. 

But you can still place a call-to-action directing the reader to your site. For example, if you are promoting an ebook or case study related to your guest post topic, you could write something such as, "For more data on XX, you can check out my research on XX here." 

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4. Write Longer Posts if You Can

Generally speaking, longer articles get 77 percent more backlinks than short posts. Content that has over 2,000 words tends to rank higher in Google searches too. These all suggest that writing longer guest posts will help it perform better, thus driving more traffic to your website. But don't force yourself to increase the word count by adding too much unrelated content. Instead, stick to the given topic and only go into detail when needed. 

However, you still might want to check if the guest blog owner has any word count rules. While they probably won't accept articles that don't meet the limit, they might not like posts that are too long for their tastes. 

5. Start Commenting 

Although blog commenting isn't considered an effective link building strategy anymore, it can still help generate website traffic in other ways. Interesting guest posts are bound to get comments from readers and other guest bloggers. You can keep people engaged with your post by taking their feedback seriously and responding. It leaves a good impression on readers. They'll recommend you to others, which can bring more people to your site. 

You can also participate in other guest posts by answering polls or surveys and giving your insights on the topic. The guest blogger and their audience will grow more aware of you since you've become a regular in the comments section. If you plan on building relationships with other bloggers, initially interacting with them this way can help warm the ice. 

6. Invite Influencers to Collaborate with You

You can also invite known niche experts or other guest bloggers to work with you. For instance, they could write a guest post on your website blog, or you could write an article together. Doing so improves your website's credibility and lets you reach out to that expert's audience. The expert's influence can also increase your post views since many readers might come because they know the other writer. Now that they've discovered you, they'll want to know more and thus visit your website. 

7. Promote on Your Social Media Channels

With half the world using social media today, your audience likely follows you on these platforms too. Some might have never even been to your website before. Promoting your guest posts on your Facebook, LinkedIn, or other pages lets even more followers read your articles and get directed to your site. Of course, it's also important that you're already regularly engaging with them on social media. You'll garner more attention from them whenever you post. You may also share your guest posts on industry or niche social media groups to increase your reach and engagements. 

Writing guest posts can be challenging, especially since guest blogs can have strict quality standards regarding content. But if you play by their rules, provide engaging content, and build relationships with other bloggers, you can help grow your website's traffic. If you're struggling to create guest posts or even picking a guest blog, you can consult with a content marketing professional anytime. They can help plan, write, and approach the appropriate guest blog for your brand's needs.

How to Ramp Up Your Website Traffic with Reddit

If you are not familiar with Reddit, you might find it overwhelming and confusing at first glance. The truth is, you are not alone in thinking that it is one of the most perplexing and intimidating social networks you will come across on the Web today. Anyone new to Reddit might find it difficult initially to make sense of anything, much less post marketing content that won’t be met with disapproval. However, this social sharing website can open a whole new world of opportunities for your business or website, as long as you are prepared to understand how you can provide value to the community.

Reddit is a big online community where you can post pictures, text, and links, as well as find almost any information you need. Everyone can vote on posted content, and the best ones rise to the top. The more downvotes a content receives, the more it becomes less visible. While these may seem sufficient reasons for you to steer clear of Reddit, there is much to gain once you get the hang of it. 

An important fact you should be aware of is Reddit users around the world number by the millions. The official figures on the company’s website reveal that they have more than 430 million users worldwide and over 30 million views monthly. If these facts are not impressive enough, you might be interested to know that Reddit is one of the US's top visited sites today, with more than 2.5 million exiting subreddits. What this means for you is that there is so much potential for your site to get traffic once you learn the right way to build your presence. To get started, you first need to get a sense of what this online community is all about and understand how you can provide users with value.

What Exactly Is Reddit?

In 2005, Reddit founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian began working on the social news platform's idea and initial development. Over the years, the website has gained many exceptionally loyal Redditors—or registered users—who are brought together by similar interests and the enthusiasm to curate and discuss popular content on the Web. Links from other sites that users submit are always relevant to each particular community. When you post your own quality content, it has the potential to drive traffic to your site.

However, karma is something you should pay special attention to on Reddit. Take note that Redditors have the choice to upvote or downvote your submission, and keeping your downvotes to a minimum will earn you a high karma score. This can boost your Reddit credibility and make it easier to build trust within the communities. Submitting valuable content is one of the best ways to receive upvotes and increase your karma.

Subreddits

Collectively, subreddits are the niche communities that make up Reddit. A subreddit is focused on a specific topic and has its own rules, moderators, and coding systems. They are much like topic categories that always begin with /r/. Entering a subreddit out of nowhere can be tricky because moderators can ban you if you don’t follow the rules. That being said, it is imperative that you take the time to go through the guidelines and submissions before posting. You can also create your own subreddit if you meet specific criteria, but make sure your category is aligned with your business, and you can contribute something insightful and valuable.

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Reddit as Part of Your Marketing Strategy 

Using Reddit to increase traffic to your site may be more simple than you think. As long as people are interested enough in your content to click your links, then there really isn’t much more you need to do. Of course, if driving traffic were that easy, then everyone would have been doing it already. Incorporating Reddit into your marketing plan is only as effective as the effort you put into sharing quality content with the community.

Read the Guidelines

As previously mentioned, subreddits that you join should have something to do with your niche to make it easier to post authentic content. Reading the rules is a must before any post, regardless of your niche. Every subreddit has different rules, and violating them can result in the removal of your post or worse, your permanent ban. 

It can be a while before you can post anything, and it’s crucial to first get a sense of a particular subreddit’s content. For the most part, new accounts are generally distrusted, and posting in your chosen subreddit is the usual way to gain the trust of the users. Be very careful with jumping in and marketing your site because you will likely get downvotes almost immediately. Wait until you’ve earned some positive karma before mentioning your site. It would be a good idea to observe how others in the subreddit are posting links to their site successfully.      

Submit Value

After you have participated a bit and let Redditors become acquainted with your presence, you may want to show more of what you have to offer. You can submit content that you believe subreddits would find valuable, insightful, interesting, or amusing. Your submissions and link does not need to be your own because your ultimate goal should be content that people actually want to read. Besides, you run the risk of being banned if your posts qualify as spamming. In other words, don’t submit anything just for the sake of submitting—people easily get turned off by excessive self-promotion. 

Be Authentic

If you create subreddits, make them engaging, and post content that is distinctive and actionable. Make it a point to be active on your subreddits and offer comprehensive replies to comments. If you have a high user engagement, it’s easier to achieve a large following and turn them into brand advocates.

You might want to consider hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) where you start a post telling something about who you are and what you do. Redditors can then ask you related questions, much like in an interview. This can become the ideal opportunity for you to mention your site naturally and drive traffic. Redditors enjoy AMAs that provide interesting and detailed information, and you should take advantage of this chance to get a lot of buzz. 


Conclusion

While many website owners don’t see Reddit as a major driver of traffic, it may be worth your while to explore this source. Passionate Redditors who love your content on the community will likely love your content on your site. As long as you provide plenty of value, then it’s almost impossible to go wrong. 

5 Fast & Free Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website

Creating more website traffic is a goal shared by many online marketers. It helps spread their brand to more people and bring in more customers. And if you're on a tight marketing budget, you might want to try a few cost-saving tactics to bring more visitors to your website. Take a look at a few free methods you can use to generate meaningful site traffic. 

5 Ways to Generate More Website Traffic for Free

1. Create Valuable Content

Content creation is a leading priority in digital marketing today, as the quality of your website's content affects how people view your brand. If you want to be known as an industry leader, you can make relevant and timely content for your market. People will more likely share them with others, further bringing more visitors to your site. 

As much as possible, try not to rehash topics and information that your audience probably already knows about. Instead, you can narrow your focus on areas in your field that you can provide deeper insights on. It helps your content stand out and be more memorable to people who haven't encountered anything like it yet. For instance, a mountain bike shop marketing their tires could give tips on rare tire combinations that mountain bikers haven't used before. 

Moreover, be sure to share your site content and a link to your website on other online platforms. Doing so lets you reach people that follow you on these places but haven't visited your website yet. But you ought to study which channels your audience uses more to tweak your content strategy. For instance, say that your target audience spends more time on social media instead of checking emails. You can focus more on creating and sharing content on the former instead of putting all your efforts into sending newsletters. 

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2.Use Quora

Another way to grow site traffic is to get on Quora, which gets over 500 million visitors monthly. There's a very good chance your target audience is here too. You don't have to spend money on making ads, though you have the option to. Instead, you could answer questions on the topics related to your brand. For example, a travel agency marketer can work on questions regarding tourist spots in cities they advertise. They can link back to a blog post related to the topic they're in. Someone browsing in that topic shows interest in traveling and is more likely to click on the link. 

Quora doesn't have business pages that sites like Facebook do, but your brand can be registered as a topic. You can filter questions that talk specifically or mention your business.  

The catch here is that you should give helpful and relevant answers while still linking back to your website instead of directly advertising your product or service. It helps you build your industry expert reputation without showing that you're just a business that wants to sell. 

Furthermore, make sure that your user profile includes your position and other credentials. It will make your profile look more trustworthy than just showing a name. 

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3. Blog on Medium

Medium is a popular blogging platform that lets you publish posts for free. Like on Quora, there's a very good chance that your target audience goes here too. The site had about 100 million visitors each month in 2019 alone. 

However, Medium takes quality assurance seriously, so you have to ensure your content's up to par with their standards. You could highlight your site's best content here and check the traffic and visitor statistics for those that perform well with Medium's readers. This lets you optimize your blog content to attract more visitors. But don't forget to provide a link in your posts to drive traffic back to your website. 

Besides posting, you can also engage with other Medium bloggers to generate more attention on your blog. For starters, you can comment on other relevant blogs. But do take care to provide real insights to show that you did read the article. Readers are more likely to notice it than a "Good post!," increasing the likelihood that they'll check your site out. 

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4. Create Social News on Reddit

Reddit is a hugely popular social platform that looks like a message board. Here, niches have communities called subreddits, with around 52 million users or Redditors active every day. There's plenty of potential here for generating site traffic since your niche probably already has subreddits. 

You may share website posts and other brand-related news at no cost, but be careful with your self-promotion. Redditors generally don't like blatant marketing. If you do nothing but post links about your business, they can downvote your posts, decreasing your credibility. Worse, they can report you as a spammer to get you banned. They will take you more seriously if you show you're an active contributor with actions like:

  • Talking with other people
  • Joining other subreddits
  • Commenting and upvoting on other posts
  • Posting other valuable content besides your brand's

You could also start a subreddit as long as you don't use it only to promote your links. You can use the subreddit to interact with interested people and build relationships by letting them start discussions or submit other content. 

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5. Dominate Long-Tail Keywords

In SEO, long-tail keywords refer to longer and more detailed keywords that people use when searching for something specific. They have fewer search results than generic keywords, but this also means that fewer web pages are using that keyword. If there's too much competition with the shorter keywords in your niche, you can use relevant long-tail keywords to help users find your pages more easily. 

Let's say you run a site for a Los Angeles musical instrument repair shop. Broad keywords like "LA musical instrument repair" will be hard to rank high in. However, if you specialize in woodwind instruments, you could use long-tail keywords such as "Los Angeles woodwind mouthpiece repair" to narrow the search down. Since the site visitor was specifically looking for your service, the site traffic will also likely lead to the results you want, such as a sale.

You can use long-tail keyword finders to help search for keywords, rankings, and the terms your competition is using. If you're targeting locally, you can also search keyword usages based on location. 

Generating meaningful website traffic doesn't have to be expensive. With these free methods, you can drive more visitors and reach your marketing goals without breaking the bank. Don't hesitate to consult with a digital marketing expert about implementing these cost-friendly strategies. 

How to Steadily Increase Your Traffic with an Email List

Today more than ever, website traffic has become an invaluable business driver. Email marketing has been particularly indispensable when it comes to reaching customers, increasing revenue, and improving customer engagement. In fact, you can expect 42 dollars in return for every dollar you invest in email marketing. This is not to say that other digital marketing options are not great sources of traffic--it’s just that email marketing has the potential to give you a higher ROI in a shorter amount of time compared to other methods.  

In most industries, business growth remains a top priority. Email traffic resulting from email marketing campaigns can be an affordable yet effective way to sell your products or services. In 2020, more than half of the world’s population is already using email, with over 300 billion sending and receiving emails each day. Imagine the number of subscribers you can reach in a day as they check their emails at least once every 24 hours. However, making your marketing strategies work still greatly depends on how well you utilize your tactics.

How Does an Email List Generate More Traffic?

The email list is one of your most powerful marketing channels because it enables you to reach out to your followers, customers, and prospective clients with a mere click on the screen. While you likely have an existing email list already, it can always grow with the right methods and tools. The bigger your audience, the easier it would be to drive traffic. Ultimately, getting more people to join your mailing list means there’s a higher chance that they will follow the email to your website. Once they get there, you can rack up your pages views and boost your search engine rankings. 

You might think that email lags behind social media in terms of the speed at which you can connect with customers. According to a report, however, more than 20 percent of subscribers open their emails within the first hour of delivery, and over 50 percent have already done so by the end of six hours. Needless to say, email is still a fast and reliable way to reach audiences. 

Those on smartphones are the ones who mostly have no trouble accessing their emails anytime and anywhere, and you can take advantage of this fact to capture the mobile user community. It would help if you kept them in mind as you create emails, making sure your email platform scales your messages to any device. Try to test for yourself if the images, buttons, and other elements of your email are functional and displayed properly on different devices. Above all, don’t forget that driving traffic hinges on whether or not recipients actually open email messages and click the links inside. 

To improve your open rates, include a subject line that will compel people to read the email. Some ideas you could try are personalizing the subject line, keeping the language simple and concise, asking a question, or using emojis. Remember that you want your customer to read something that makes sense and is relevant. Otherwise, they might think twice about visiting your site since they believe they won’t be getting any value. More eyes on your site translate to brand awareness and more sales.

If you spend the time and effort optimizing your email and incorporating a motivating call to action, you will steadily establish links and attract returning visitors before you know it. In turn, your traffic increases overall. Going forward, a larger audience will be able to enjoy your blog post or online store. 

How to Grow Your Email List

Beyond building your email list, you should grow one that is engaged. Having a long list may not benefit you much in the long run if it is full of inactive subscribers. It’s a good idea to review your list and identify inactive email addresses prior to increasing your traffic. Make sure you consider giving inactive subscribers a chance to become re-engaged by launching a re-engagement campaign. You can go ahead and permanently take off those who don’t respond and proceed to the next step.  

Building an organic contact list can’t be done overnight. If you want the best results, take the time to ensure that you focus on your list's quality, relevance, and volume. Verify that your emails are delivered to real people who check their messages regularly. Sending emails to fake addresses or those not in use anymore can affect your click-through rate and open rate, or the number of people who viewed your message. 

Additionally, an accurate measurement of your ROI is possible only if your subscribers are part of your target audience and are those who signed up for your subscriber list.

If you are fairly new to digital marketing, you may wish to turn to an email marketing product that is particularly suited for your situation. An email marketing app such as GetResponse is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to avail of a versatile, affordable, and all-in-one e-commerce marketing solution. The features and services they offer include making a mailing list, sending emails to subscribers on the list, automating your emails, and viewing and analyzing statistics pertinent to your email campaigns. 

Availing even just the basic plan allows you to access core features that cover email marketing basics. If you sign up for higher plans, you can receive added features such as the automation builder, webinars, and more user accounts. One of the key selling points of GetResponse is the autoresponder functionality, which lets you send action or time-based messages to subscribers. The reporting features are also important to note because aside from receiving all the basics like unsubscribe rates, click-through, and open rate, you can find out your metrics over time, the effectiveness of our campaigns, the names of subscribers who didn’t engage with your email, and more. You can discover sales opportunities you never thought existed.

All in all, it may be worth your time and investment to try out an email marketing solution that would cover most of your needs and leave you with more time to focus on other areas of your business.