How to Grow Your Blog: Two Strategies That Work [2.2] | Summary and Q&A

TL;DR

This content discusses the challenges associated with growing a blog through viral traffic and SEO traffic and argues in favor of SEO as a more effective strategy.

Key Insights

• 🚀 Viral traffic and SEO traffic are two major strategies for growing a blog, but they are not mutually exclusive - both are necessary for success.
• 📝 The main challenges of growing a blog with viral traffic include creating content that resonates with the target audience, getting support from influential people in the industry, and consistently reaching new people.
• 💡 The challenges of growing a blog with SEO traffic include creating awesome and useful content, building backlinks to improve search rankings, and staying competitive against other websites. ⏳ SEO traffic has an advantage over viral traffic in that it doesn't fade over time, but maintaining a high ranking requires ongoing effort to outrank competitors.
• 💪 The author personally favors SEO traffic over viral traffic due to their success in ranking on the front page of Google, but acknowledges that viral traffic can still be a valuable strategy.
• 💭 Many newbie bloggers have a misconception about viral traffic, thinking it spreads like a snowball effect. However, Pulsar's study shows that viral content actually spreads in a decay.
• 🔑 The key challenges of viral content are creating highly shareable content and successfully pitching big influencers in the industry.
• 📚 Further resources on the science, psychology, and mechanics of virality can be found in the Further Reading section for those interested in exploring the topic in depth.

Transcript

Part 2. Two major strategies of growing a blog So on one hand we have "viral traffic," the one that comes as a result of generating buzz on relevant communities and reaching out to influencers asking for support. And on the other hand we have the "SEO traffic", the one that comes as a result of putting effort into making your content rank high in G... Read More

Questions & Answers

Q: Is it easier to grow a blog with viral traffic or SEO traffic?

Growing a blog with viral traffic has its challenges, including creating highly shareable content, obtaining support from influential individuals, and consistently producing viral content. However, growing a blog with SEO traffic requires creating valuable content and obtaining backlinks, which can be a struggle for many. While viral traffic can be effective, the content argues that SEO traffic is a more sustainable and worthwhile strategy in the long run.

Q: How does viral content actually spread?

Viral content doesn't spread in a "snowball effect" as commonly believed. Instead, it requires exposure to a super-huge audience, typically through a tweet from an influencer with a large following. The initial exposure brings the most traffic and visibility, followed by a quick decay in retweets and traffic. Not all followers of the influencer will retweet the content, making it challenging to achieve virality.

Q: What are the challenges of growing a blog with viral traffic?

The main challenges of growing a blog with viral traffic include creating highly shareable content that resonates with the target audience, obtaining support from influential individuals to kick-start the viral effect, and consistently producing sticky viral content to maintain traffic. Viral traffic requires regular publishing and support from industry influencers, as stopping publishing can cause the traffic to fade.

Q: What are the challenges of growing a blog with SEO traffic?

Growing a blog with SEO traffic still requires creating valuable content, although it doesn't necessarily need to resonate as strongly with the audience. The real challenge lies in obtaining backlinks, which is crucial for ranking high in Google search results. Building backlinks can be a struggle for many bloggers. However, a positive aspect of SEO traffic is that regular publishing is not necessary to maintain the traffic, unless competitors outrank the content.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Viral traffic requires creating highly shareable content, obtaining support from influential individuals, and consistently producing viral content to maintain traffic.

• SEO traffic relies on creating valuable content and obtaining backlinks, and it doesn't require regular publishing to maintain traffic.

• The content favors SEO traffic over viral traffic due to the challenges and limitations of relying on virality.