Do You Need A Gigantic Blog To Drive Traffic And Results?

Do you need a gigantic blog to drive traffic and results? At the start of a new quarter,  I like to look back on the past quarter and year. I delve into what worked and what didn’t work so well here on Inspire to Thrive. 

Often, I try new things here and like to share them with you. You can learn from my mistakes and grow with my successes. In the past, we always talked about driving traffic to our blogs. But traffic alone is no longer what is needed to grow your blog or your small business.

After all, you spend so much time working on your blog or small business that you no longer want to waste any time. You will want to see results and not just traffic coming to your site.

You want people to click on your calls to action and make a purchase or sign up for an event, etc.

What Do I Mean By Blogging Results?

Results are when people perform an action you want on your website or blog. They purchase a product, they download a pdf or they sign up for email.

I also looked at the bounce rate for various sources of traffic – most from the entire year of 2017 and again in 2023. A high bounce rate shows me people do not stay here long enough to read something nor do they perform any type of action.

I wrote about bounce rates 3 years ago, read more on bounce rates

Now that we are in 2023 Google tells us with GA4 bounce rates will be going away in July.

High Bounce Rate Sites

The websites that produce a high bounce rate for the blogs included: Stumble Upon, Flipboard, Dlvr.it (social automation tool) content studio i.o (another automation tool),  and Facebook referrals, – yes, that’s a surprise. (the mobile Facebook was slightly better but not good at 92%)

What Are Facebook referrals?

gigantic blogs have FB referrals

**A Side Note – Business Facebook – From the Facebook page the bounce rate is much lower at just 38% – so sharing from the Inspire To Thrive Facebook page vs. my personal or your personal may be the way to go.

(Although you must stay on top of Facebook and the algorithm that changes constantly!)

I have known for years Stumble Upon had a very high bounce rate, 99-100%! It’s not a website I use but my readers did share there.

On the other hand, I loved using Flipboard over the years. It generated lots of traffic but the bounce rate was fairly high for the past years overall at 90%.

5 Surefire Ways to Drive Results To Your Blog

1. Commenting On Other Blogs Drives Referrals

One of the highest referrals comes from other blogs or websites. These happen when you comment on other niche blogs or do guest posts on other blogs. The bounce rate from these other gigantic blogs was extremely low.

What do I consider a gigantic blog? A gigantic blog is one that lasts for years and has over 500 blog posts.

2. Participating in Forums and Online Communities

Biz Sugar – This online community drove a lot of traffic for me back in 2017. The bounce rate was a little high over 70%. Biz Sugar came in #10 of all my top traffic drivers. It continues to do so in 2023.

More Places to Participate

Triberr – Not bad at a 61% bounce rate and #27 for my overall traffic source. I have been using the Triberr lite for years now and still recommend this tool to every blogger as they grow their blog into a gigantic one.

Quora – I loved being part of the Quora community in 2017. This one started to drive traffic after 6 months of answering questions there daily. (I had almost given up!) The bounce rate was a little high at 75%. But the traffic has really started to ramp up.

Quora Sidenote: Do not put links in all your answers. You can get banned from Quora. I saw Neil Patel once got banned there so beware! He since has been reinstated.

3. Using Social Automation Tools

Not only do these social automation tools save you time sharing content on the big social networks but some can produce some results for you. You must choose the right ones though!

You may remember what happened to users of CoPromote last year. It is very important to see what is happening to your content once you use these types of tools.

There is no sense in using these tools if they produce a 100% bounce rate. That will only hurt your blog or website. The folks over at The Buffer just did a post if these 3rd party tools hurt engagement or reach.

Their results showed it really depended on the content itself more than where the shares were coming from. Love to know what you find in your Google stats  – please let me know in the comments below!

Missing Lettr

The Two Easy Ones For Re-Sharing

Viral Content Bee – This is another site similar to the old JustRetweet where you share others’ content and they share yours. You can search by category and more. The bounce rate I had was 78 % in the past year.

I have found it improved over the past few months with more users on board. It appears they recently eliminated Twitter which was a big draw and source of traffic for the blog.

Blog Engage – This blogging network is a great place to share your content and others. You can also pay to have them share it on their social networks. A great way to extend your reach.

ShareBizSugar – One of my favorite networking sites with other small businesses. A place to comment and share content.

4. Social Media Sites That Drive Results To Your Blog

X/Twitter – My favorite social network X/Twitter drew my 3rd largest source of traffic to the blog here. It followed direct and organic traffic. The bounce rate was just over 70%.

Facebook – This one followed after Twitter and Flipboard but at a 92% bounce rate. If you saw my notes above, the rate was lower from the Business Facebook vs personal. Interesting that we can now see that in our google analytics.

The other stat I saw was the regular Facebook from desktop had a lower bounce rate for the business page –  Inspire to Thrive at 66%. Does this mean Facebook doesn’t like us using our personal pages to promote our blogs or businesses?

Pinterest – I didn’t start out strong with this platform in the past but now using the right vertical images it has increased a lot. You can see how many views I’ve been averaging a month on that social platform below. Not only that but it brings targeted traffic to the site.

Pinterest business profile
This is an example of my business Pinterest account.

The Instagram Surprise That Drives Traffic

Instagram – This social site came in at a lower bounce rate – at 50%. This one was a surprise to me since I didn’t promote the blog on Instagram. That changed when stories came about and I was able to add links to them.

If you missed Dexter’s post on getting started with Instagram here do read it. He has it filled with some great Instagram tips to get you started if you haven’t jumped on.

One more new note: You can add link stickers to your Instagram stories!   That has been a game-changer along with reels.

instagram drives traffic
Instagram can draw traffic to your blog by sharing posts, using stories and reels.

Other Surprises in Driving Traffic to Your Blog or Website

LinkedIn – My #14 source of traffic with an over 80% bounce rate. I did not post too many articles via LinkedIn Pulse as time was of the essence for me. But if you have time I would recommend it. It did help draw some decent traffic back to the blog.

This is a great way to drive results to your blog if your post there regularly as I’ve seen Ravi Chahar and Anthony Gaenzle do.

5. Other Digital Sources

These sources don’t drive a lot of traffic but some do generate results for the blog here. Furthermore, most of these don’t require any work after you have them set up, others do.

Feedly –  50% bounce rate. Another surprise for me to see the results from this one.

Alltop – This is an old one I’ve had since the beginning of Inspire to Thrive. It’s a website with topics that one can search for and various blogs show up in the search. It has a fairly low 50% bounce rate. If you are not in this Alltop directory I would recommend it. They are known for “All the top headlines from popular topics around the web”.

Medium – 66% bounce rate, a few from the traffic. It’s a great way to network with others that have gigantic blogs on Medium. Recently I published about my decade of blogging.

Medium has changed their membership to a paid one now but you can still use the FREE one. I’d love to know in the comments if anyone is using that new paid subscription there. I have gone with premium for 2 years so I can read and comment more on Medium.

And More Places To Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Listly – I used to like this site but it didn’t generate much traffic but when it does it’s a nice 33% bounce rate. List.ly could be another one to reconsider in the coming year. In 2023 I’ve used it more and it’s been generating a little more traffic with a paid subscription.

listly to drive traffic

Bonus Tips To See Results  – Gigantic Blog Or Not

Guest posting on other blogs – This is one of the ways I found that did not directly drive much traffic for me. But it did help to drive results to my blog. It did this by helping me reach more people than if I had only blogged here.

It also helped me to grow my presence on many social networks. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor contact me today.

Use a child theme for Your WordPress Site – Enstine explains here why this is important for your blog.

Do you still think web traffic slows down in the summer? You may be surprised to learn summer does not affect blog traffic as it used to.

Here are 7 weird and wonderful ways to get your business noticed today in the competitive landscape.

Small Blogs Can Drive Traffic Just As Much As Gigantic Blogs

Your blog doesn’t need to be gigantic to drive traffic. You can have a smaller, newer blog and still drive traffic especially if you SEO the right way. Recently I purchased SEMrush and it’s made a big difference in the traffic to my blog here and my newer small blog as well.

It’s never too late to get started.

Your Turn

Finally, I’d love to know in the comments below how you drive results to your blog or small business website. Do you believe you need a gigantic blog to drive more blog traffic?

Lisa Sicard

78 thoughts on “Do You Need A Gigantic Blog To Drive Traffic And Results?”

  1. Hi Lisa! Nice and detailed.

    The next thing for my blog, I am going to try Viral Content Bee.

    I am looking for multiple sources to drive traffic to my blog.

    What has been your experience with guest blogging? How did you start? I really wanna know.

    Because building backlinks through outreach seems like an impossible task, whereas building them through guest posts kinda makes sense and your chances of getting quality backlinks are also high.

    Thanks for the post! Have a great day.

    Ali from Infoverses

    1. Hi Ali, thank you. Yes, you will love Viral Content Bee. I just went Pro with them for $19.95 a month. Nice perks! I met bloggers on Twitter and that’s how I got started. I don’t guest blog as often as I should but am looking for high DA ranking sites to do it from to time. It does take time to build them. It’s all about networking with other bloggers Ali. I hope that helps you. Enjoy the rest of your day!

    1. Hi Janice, thank you. Oh yes, I’m always trying something new and then writing about it. Zest was the most interesting. Sometimes it will take weeks to find out if your content was accepted there. They will send an email and explain why rejected or if it was accepted. Thanks for coming by and have a great new day!

  2. Its Great Article and yes these are some main factor for getting traffic, Can You tell us which Social media Platform is best for getting traffic to Product review Website?

    1. Hi Sophie, thanks for coming by and welcome to Inspire to Thrive. I’d recommend Product Hunt and Pinterest for that. Of course Twitter and Facebook are part of that needed mix too. I’d love to know if you are using all of them yet or not.

  3. Commenting on other blogs has always been the best way based on my testing here and there. The comments have to be quality to get people to want to come see what else you have to offer though. I’ve found that it drives even more traffic than posting on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn combined; that’s powerful stuff!

    1. Hi Mitch, Comments do really help drive some traffic here too. (Not as much as Twitter for me though). I think it is really about where you spend your time. I’m finding a lot of traffic now from Quora where I try to answer questions daily. How many comments do you make per day Mitch? Did you also receive more snow yesterday? I think ours will be melting today as it gets warm this week here. Thanks for coming by and have a great new week!

      1. Some years ago it was my goal to make at least 10 comments a day. These days people have so many different blog commenting systems and pop-ups that I probably make only a couple of comments every couple of days. You know how I feel about pop ups.

        As for the weather, we woke up to a couple of inches yesterday but it totally thawed out on the driveway, and with the temperatures what they’re supposed to be this week it will probably melt almost all the snow by the end of the week.

        1. Hi Mitch, that’s a generous amount daily! Oh yes, pop ups really annoy me on mobile.
          I think ours will melt by tomorrow. I have the a/c on driving today – between the sun and warm temps it’s warm! Go figure. Thanks for coming back to answer that one Mitch. Enjoy your melting!

  4. This is really very important to know some great Ways to drive restults on Blog. “Participating in Forums and Online Communities” really helps a lot to gain traffic. I use Quora & Scoop it & Triberr !

    These are the best Online Communities that really helps a lot to get traffic.

    1. Hi Emma, Welcome to Inspire to Thrive. You are on it using those 3 Emma. Do you have any others to recommend here? Thanks for coming by and commenting. Have a wonderful day!

  5. Hey Lisa,

    Thanks for the wonderful post. A nice collection of traffic sources and worth putting effort into.

    I always go for blog commenting and guest blogging – as they are wonderful ways not just to generate traffic but also to build valuable connections.

    Quora is a great platform that I used – but recently I am backing off due to lack of time (managing a 7 yr old and a 1 yr old). But I look forward to engaging in Quora once again.

    I will check on your other suggestions 🙂 Thanks again!

    Cheers,
    Jane.

    1. Hi Jane, you are most welcome. Yes, building connections is key too. I know Ryan Biddulph talks about that ALL the time and does a great job of it. Oh my goodness a 7 and 1 year old? That surely keeps you busy! I try to do at least once answer a day there over on Quora, sometimes it’s a long thought out answer and sometimes it is a more simple one. Thanks for coming by Jane and a have a wonderful day and weekend ahead!

  6. Hi, Lisa!
    Thanks for a great article 🙂
    I’ve been using many of these sources, but with not much success…
    What would you suggest for a niche that does not have many blogs for commenting or posts for sharing in ViralContentBee or Just Retweet?

    Thanks!

    Marios

    1. Hi Marios, you are welcome. I would recommend Biz Sugar. It does take time. It will not happen overnight and keep on publishing too. I think if you can get to once a week with a new post that would also help with your traffic. Are you on Triberr? You can do the free version there too. With eBooks I think you could connect with a lot of authors and many have blogs too. Thanks for coming by and let me know how it goes Marios.

  7. Hey Lisa,

    Such a fabulous article with such insightful material! I’m really surprised about your DLVR.it and Flipboard bounce rate. Maybe those are niche driven? Thank you for the shout out. Glad I’m not driving up your bounce rate. 😉 Twitter and Facebook still remain my biggest traffic generators and with the low bounce rate. After reading your post, I’m going to dig more into the other networks sending me traffic and see how that bounce rate is.

    Many thanks, gf!

    1. Good morning Bren, for some reason your comment ended up in my spam folder 🙁
      Thank you. Yes, I was a bit surprised but then I think Flipboard is like StumbleUpon in a way. I just love their format and content there that I’m not giving it up. They could be more niche driven too.
      I’d love to know what you find once you dig in a little deeper Bren. Thanks for coming by and have a great day ahead. We are almost at Friday 🙂

  8. I found this post on Viral Content Bee! I thought the title was interesting and wanted to take a deeper look and I am glad I did.
    After reading this post and understanding how important (and what exactly) bounce rate was for my site, I went on a mission to fix whatever the problem was. Then, I was shocked. My overall sites bounce rate was an amazingly low 6%.
    At first, I couldn’t believe it. Then, I began to consider who my “visitors”. The low bounce rate could only be attributed to them. I began to understand the bounce rate was low because they are a RESPONSIVE following.
    The key the first key was HOW I acquired them. As you (Lisa) will know, you and I are in several platforms together: Quora, Viral Content Bee, Triberr, Twitter. Your content is great. I LOVE sharing it to my followers. And, they love it too.
    After considering my audience and were I met them, I could only come to one conclusion. The reason for such a low bounce from my site could only be attributed to the nurturing of my following. This “nurturing” took the form of liking their post, sharing their content and commenting on their articles (all of these you discussed in this post). This respect doesn’t last for one post. But, it is a continual cycle my followers can expect. Then, the next logical step is reciprocity.

    It was great to spend the morning over a cup of coffee and your post. Visiting is always a pleasure and a learning experience.
    -Bubbie

    1. Hi Bubbie, thanks for taking a deeper look into this post. That is extremely low Bubbie. That is a very interesting analysis. Let’s see if you can keep it like that as you grow your following Bubbie. Sometimes a high bounce rate is not a bad thing if people are clicking to do an action you want them to do – go to make a purchase or land on another landing page. But for most of us blogging a lower rate is great because people are spending enough time reading a post or watching a video, etc.
      Thanks for your insights on this one Bubbie and have a terrific Tuesday ahead there.

  9. Hi Lisa,

    Wow, great insights and you’re right, Pinterest does have a high bounce rate.

    Like you, it has taken me a while to figure out how to use it. But I am finally starting to see my Pinterest traffic grow. Yay 🙂

    The one thing that I have noticed with Pinterest traffic is that even though the bounce rate is on the high end, I seem to get good conversions with my email subscribers.

    Of course, I am still testing things out, but that’s what I have noticed from my personal experience.

    It’s nice to know that you find commenting worth your time as well. I do too, that’s why I try to spend time every day commenting.

    Although that doesn’t always happen. Life tends to get in the way sometimes.

    Hope everything is good with you on your end. Thanks for taking the time to put this together for us.

    Have a great day 🙂

    Susan

    1. Hi Susan, thank you for that. I agree that Pinterest may have a high bounce rate but some purchase right from a pin today so it’s still very important. Good conversions with email is nice!
      I love commenting and wish I had more time to do more of it. It helps to get know your readers more too and learn so much from them.
      Life surely gets in the way but blogging is just a part of our lives and we must remember that too Susan 🙂
      So far so good starting 2018 Susan. Thank you and have a great new week!
      You are most welcome too 🙂

  10. Hi Lisa. I am following most of the tips that you mentioned in this article. But, still, I am not getting big traffic to my website. I am able to make just 3000 pageviews per month.

    1. Hi Nirmal, how old is your blog? It also can depend on the content itself. Is it useful? Is your content easy to read and share? I will take a look at your website and get back to you Nirmal. Thanks for coming by here and have a great day.

    2. Hi Nirmal, the only thing I found is that you had quite a few ads. I would use less of them on your blog. (I’m still not sure on using mine here for Kingged. I’m still pondering that one for another short while.)
      Your posts on homepage are small, maybe if those squares were bigger it would stand out more. I found it hard to focus when I first went on. But when I went back I felt better about the experience.
      Your content is very good and you write quite lengthy posts.

      1. Thanks Lisa, for taking a look at my website. Right now, I am using Google Auto ads. It will take care of the number of ads depending upon the visitor. A bigger featured image of posts on the home page could have been better. But, thought these cards will give numerous posts to choose from for the visitors at the first sight.

        1. You are most welcome Nirmal. How does it score the visitor for number of ads? Very interesting. Thank you for coming back to explain 🙂

          1. There are some users, who would keep on clicking close button on ads. I guess Google will try keep the number of ads low for these kind of users. Also, the number of ads is depending upon the length of the post. The longer post will have more ads than the shorter one.

          2. Hi Nirmal, oh yes, true about the # of ads depend on how long the post or page is. Thanks for your input on this one and have a wonderful day ahead.

  11. Hello, Lisa!

    Oh wow!

    You did the great analysis of the working (or of not the working) tools!

    I am known to many but had never done a review as to how they are working for me.

    But you eased that job for us, right?:)

    I am going to try some tools that I did not know I am sure that I would be having a good success. 🙂

    Thank you, again! 🙂

    ~ Adeel

    1. Hi Adeel, thank you. I’d love to know what you may find in your google analytics Adeel. It doesn’t take too long to see the referrals and the bounce rate for each. I analyzed the top 250 for a year time period to get better insights. I try not to look at the too often as Ryan from Blogging from Paradise says, they don’t always tell everything and we need to focus more on helping others.
      Thanks for coming by Adeel and have a wonderful day and week ahead.

  12. Thank you for these very useful tips, Lisa! I recently started a new blog and am in the process of getting it out there, so these tips will prove really helpful for me.

    1. Hi Eugenie, good for you! Good luck with the new blog. May I ask what it is about? Do try out several of these tips to help get you going there Eugenie. Thanks for coming by and have a great rest of the day there.

  13. Lisa,

    Thanks for including BizSugar in your post, and thanks for submitting great entries to the site (as this one!).

    I want to talk with you regarding this topic for my new blog and site on tea and my self-publishing journey.

    All the Best,

    Martin
    P.S. I like the new style and layout of your site!

    1. Hi Martin, I love Biz Sugar – a great community there! Sure, feel free to email me at lisa@inspiretothrive.com Love to see the new site too 🙂 Thank you for that, I redid it a while back and trying to keep it simple here. Thanks for coming by and have a great rest of the weekend.

      1. Hi Lisa,

        Commenting, guest posting and forum networking – these are 3 great ways to build audience even if someone’s new to online marketing.

        Just make sure to leave thoughtful comments whenever you’re trying to leave a comment a post (to get attention from blog owners) also try to contribute to other sites with informative guest posts as it’s still one of the evergreen ways to build relationships with other bloggers.

        Apart from that, I recently started using Quora for answering questions related to marketing, blogging and SEO.

        Great share!

        1. Hi Anil, yes those 3 ways are really good today. I agree using great comments not just any comment is really key to blog commenting. Otherwise you may end up in spam and the time you put into it is wasted. Meaningful comments are the way to go. I love Quora! It’s a great place too and takes a long time to build up. So stay with it Anil. Thanks for coming by and have a great week ahead.

  14. Hi there Lisa,

    You shared some great techniques here that everyone that wants to have a successful blogger should know. I am currently focusing on the 2nd technique you mentioned (Participating in Forums and Online Communities to Drive Results To Your Blog). Nowadays, there are lots of Facebook groups that are super active, where you can go there and network with as many people you can. I also think that sharing your blogs on other blogging platforms such as Medium and List.ly can be benefitial for us because they have already an established audience from where you can convert to your blog.

    Thanks again Lisa

    Cheers,

    Darleen.

    1. Hi Darlene, welcome to Inspire to Thrive.Thank you. May I ask why forums you use? I’ve dabbled in Facebook groups but not steady at them which one would need to be successful there. I wonder how they will do with the latest changes at Facebook that were announced yesterday. It sure will be interesting to see!
      Thanks for coming by Darleen and enjoy your weekend!

  15. Hi Lisa…nice article! I appreciate your take on bounce rate, and how comments on blogs have a good tendency to be very low. Hence, why I am commenting now…haha! I appreciate you mentioning Alltop, Medium and some of the other sites to get involved with. I am more or less new to the blogging world, and getting more into outreach and guest blogging. The quality of my articles of ‘all things digital marketing ‘ is getting there – in the sense of being helpful and informational.

    Just wanting to form more relationships and work with helping each other out! I will stay in touch…thanks for sharing!

    1. Hi Brad, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Thank you. Yes, commenting is good for so many reasons not just traffic – I learn a lot about others from them and many inspire me to write more posts too.
      How long have you been blogging for? I was surprised to learn in the research here I’ve been at it for 7 years, just updated my profile with that. Time flies when you are having fun!
      You are welcome and have a nice weekend Brad.

      1. Thanks Lisa…yes the time does fly when you are having fun. Appreciate the point about learning from others and being inspired. It is neat to see a community with the same interests bounce ideas off each other.

        I just recently started writing my own articles. I do mostly Web Design stuff – but have gotten more into SEO and marketing, as this has always been an important element to me. Focusing a lot more on content marketing, SMM, and blogging. I hope to contribute to your great blog someday, and vice versa:) I will stay in tune and in touch with your and your blog.

        Enjoy your weekend as well!

        1. Hi Brad, you are welcome. Oh yes, one cannot do this alone anymore online. We need to help other each along the way.
          Oh yes SEO is huge and so is marketing. You can create stuff but without promoting it – it will not be seen by others. That’s the hardest part – promoting your own stuff. I’ll have check out your site. Thanks for coming back to answer and enjoy the rest of your day!

          1. Hey Lisa,

            I agree, it’s ll about establishing healthy relationships! I will certainly keep in touch with you via here. My site is still a bit of a work in progress, but please, stop on in sometime!

            Cheers!

  16. Hello Lisa,

    Good shout over here 🙂

    Every one wants to drive a decent amount of traffic to their blogs, thats why we all are here. They want that their blog should
    be visit regularly by large number of people and the name of their blogs should cover the world.

    When people do not get the satisfied result over their blogs, they tend to shut in down and move away from this, but they
    need to understand that, things do not go in our favor in a single day. Dragging traffic to their blogs, need to huge amount
    of work and dedication, as we all know that there are millions and billions of article floating in the market, having the
    same headline, thus they need to work and make their blogs special so that people are driven to them.

    Blog commenting is something, that has helped me a lot. It helps to establish the bond between the pro bloggers and also get
    people eyes upon us. Sharing theri stuff over social media platform and regularly commenting on their blogs do help us to
    get a desired amount of traffic over our blogs.

    ALso social media sites are very effective when it comes to drive traffic to our blogs. Twitter has help me a lot when it comes
    to drive traffic to my blog. Get connected to the like minded people over there who can get some benefits through our blogs
    and products and when we hit up with some new tweets they can reach us on our web site.

    Thanks for the share.

    Shantanu.

    1. Hi Shantanu, that is for sure! We do so much work on our blogs we want to be sure they are being read and used. This was really informative for me to pour over my results, I did the top 250 site referrals from my Google analytics. So much information. I hope it helps many people to check there’s out too.
      You know Twitter is my all time favorite place and I’m excited it is about to take off in 2018 especially with the news from Facebook yesterday. It will get harder to use Facebook for business unless you spend a lot of money there on that network.
      Thanks for coming by Shantanu and have yourself a great weekend!

  17. Hi Lisa,
    What an organized and details based approach that really defines “results”. You mention so many resources here that I have not tried yet. Bookmarking! Thanks so much.

    1. Hi Neena, thank you. I did spend quite a bit of time on this one – first in my head then in writing. I learned a few things too like about Flipboard – though I still love the site and the stories I find on there 🙂
      Which are you going to try first Neena? Thanks for coming by and have a great weekend.

  18. Hi Lisa,

    Thanks for that really well-researched post. Absolutely fascinating information about bounce rates.

    You have mentioned some sites I have never heard of – which is great, it’s good to learn what to avoid and new sites to use.

    Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark

    1. Hi Joy, you are welcome. Are there any sites here that work really well for you Joy? Do you check your bounce rate at all? Thank you for coming by and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

  19. Hello Lisa,

    I havent tried zest, so I think i will head over right now. In your list of social media platforms, you havent mentioned reddit, is there a reason? Are you not on reddit? I feel there are some sub-reddits which give me good traffic and I see that as a good avenue for getting new users to notice your blog.

    Thanks for this wonderful article.

    1. Hi Praveen, great to hear you will try out Zest. Love to know your thoughts on it later.
      I am on Reddit but never got into it. It is a little clunky but I will go back and check it out. I did get back on there this year and answered some questions. I was afraid to leave any links for fear of getting thrown off – LOL.
      Thanks for mentioning that.
      You are welcome and have a great weekend Praveen.

  20. Hey Lisa, just came to read this and I’m glad I did.

    You’ve done a wonderful job with this post, and I have to admit, I’ve been slacking a little bit when it comes to blog commenting and even doing guest blogging, which I know are important things to do to drive results hehe.

    Thankfully, though, I do a lot of the other things outlined in this post, and at the moment, I’m loving using Instagram to promote my website, it really is working a treat for me.

    I want to also add that using Push notifications setup is a great way to drive traffic and results to content and offers on your blog.

    Have a great weekend ahead Lisa

    ~ Fabrizio

    1. Hi Fabrizio, thank you. I was like that back in 2016 and I really increased the guest blogging in 2017. The same for blog commenting. You can learn a lot by blog comments too – I really find them invaluable.
      I do love push notifications – I may add that one in here or do a separate post on that and email marketing.
      See Fabrizio, your comment gave me some ideas and inspiration! Thank you for that and for coming by here. Enjoy your weekend too.

  21. My dearest Lisa <3

    Putting aside your great writing style, superb articles' structure, and great personality, It is extremely important for me to thank you from the bottom of our Zesty heart for mentioning us here.

    You are just too kind and we love you for that. really!

    Yam Regev
    Co-Founder, CEO and CMO
    Zest.is

  22. Excellent post, Lisa. I got to know about few new resources like zest, listly. But, I find stumbleupon quite disturbing. It just increases the bounce rate to somewhere 97% and i even dont find my audience there. All of your tips are so helpful. I’m going to test and try new ways this time 😉

    Arfa

    1. Hi Arfa, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Thank you. Yes, I haven’t been on Stumble Upon in 5 or more years for that reason. I don’t understand why others love it so. I hope you like Zest and let me know how you make out with it. Thanks for coming by and have a great day and weekend!

  23. Hello Lisa,

    Wonderful post. Driving traffic to the blog is a big challenge for newbie bloggers. I have also faced this type of issue when I have started my blogging journey. However the resources you have mentioned here are very helpful to drive traffic to your blog. I am recently start using medium and found it very reliable to drive traffic and get good results.

    Have a Great Day 🙂
    Vishwajeet

    1. Hi Vishwajeet, thank you. You do seem to be rocking it over there at your place with frequent informative posts 🙂 Are you using the paid Medium? Do you write different content there? Thanks for coming by and have a great weekend ahead.

      1. No, Lisa,

        I am Currently using Medium free and just playing it with it and have written few content there. I will let you know when I do it regularly.
        You do have a great weekend. 🙂
        Vishwajeet

  24. A great read. Lot of tips, strategies and tools to use for our blogging journey. This post is reflective of how we can learn from what is working and not working for others. Thanks for sharing.

    1. Hi Disa, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Which of these tools are you using currently or have tried in the past? Thanks for coming by and have a wonderful rest of the day!

      1. Hi Lisa,

        Sorry for the late reply. I have started focusing on Twitter and see great potential there. A lot of support for bloggers on Twitter. Also have joined some forums recently – Quora, Warrior. Have used Facebook and Linkedin but not seen great results from that. Many tools listed here, still to use.

        Thanks,
        Disa

        1. Oh yes Twitter is my favorite place online Disa.
          You can use Triberr too for your blog to integrate with Twitter.
          I also love Quora. I haven’t done much in Warrior but have heard good things about that forum. Thanks for coming back and explaining Disa. Have a great rest of the week.

  25. Hi Lisa,

    It is a great idea for bloggers and content marketers to leverage the many tools listed in this article for maximum exposure, reach, engagement, and ROI.

    I have been considering Alltop for a couple day now, but honestly, with your insight I definitely will add it to my campaign.

    I found Zest earlier today while on LinkedIn, where they talk about publishing their fist article. While on Zest I saw experts in the game who recommended the platform as a content marketing go-to platform.

    As you already know, my blog is relatively new, so this article is exactly what I need to figure out the best tools to drive more traffic.

    Thanks a lot Lisa for sharing!

    Bytheway, let me know how Zest work. Like I said, I just found the platform today and didn’t have the time to figure how it works.

    Thanks once again!

    1. Hi Moss, oh yes I do recommend you add it (AllTop) After that you don’t have to do anything 🙂
      Zest seems pretty cool. I love the email they send about the links you try to share. I was happy that my last post about Facebook made it on to their platform. Several others I tried to get which were not mine did not make it.
      Zest is simple, you download the extension in your browser and when you open the browser it appears. (Can be a little annoying at first) but then you look to the upper right hand corner and there is a box where you can submit links.
      I love the content there, it’s great info on marketing and such.
      You are welcome Moss. I appreciate your coming by and taking the time to comment today on this piece. I hope you’ll be good with Alltop too!

        1. You are welcome Yam. The content at your place is really excellent. Thank you for coming by here! Have a wonderful weekend.

    2. How’s it going, Moss? 🙂

      Loved to hear your thoughts about Zest on this thread.

      As most of our 13.5k WAU members are senior marketers, most of them already know most of the main blogs and publications in the marketing-sphere.

      We want to break this echo-chamber by helping new blogs/ers to spread their (marketing) professional knowledge.

      Feel free to suggest your content on Zest and email me after that so i’ll try to rush up the multi-level, human-based content distillation process for you.

      (me: yam@zest.is)

      Good vibes,
      Yam Regev
      Co-Founder, CEO and CMO
      Zest.is

  26. [ Smiles ] I absolutely agree that the social media, Twitter and commenting on other blogs helps greatly in the area of attracting traffic to one’s blog.

    Facebook only produces the results that you want when you are a member of blogging groups or if you are willing to pay the cash to boost your post!

    1. Hi Renaud. Yes, Facebook has really become the pay-to-play place. It still has the largest amount of people so we can’t completely ignore it. But with Twitter growing this year I’m getting excited about that. Thanks for coming by with your input and have a great rest of the week Renard!

  27. Hi Liza,

    I must say that a blogger should always focus on the performance of his blog and try to improve in every possible way. Driving best results and more traffic is what every blogger looking for.

    Improving social engagement with influencers in blogging industry helps a blogger to grow quickly. A blogger should also use every effective tool available online to spread the word about his blog.

    Thanks for all the points and sites you have shared here.

    1. Hi Gaurav, yes, that’s for sure! I’ve also been working on the performance of the blog and keeping the speed high. It is something you really have to monitor weekly or monthly at the least. Have you found which way works best for you to drive results? Thanks for coming by, and have a great day.

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