Mary Carty

So you have a new blog or website. After the initial excitement has worn off, the next question becomes all too clear. How do I get people to look at it?

The number one tip to drive traffic to your website is great content. Time and again great content wins out. How do you find great, original content for your site? Firstly, think about all the skills and knowledge you possess. Can you help your user learn something new, solve a problem or save them time? All these strategies make a great content policy.

If you don’t like writing, you can always aggregate content from other sources. Find industry reports and give your users short snappy summaries. Give a roundup of recent conferences or highlights from recent industry events.

There are so many ways to find and write great content. For visual and creative people there are even more. Think about sharing your photo of the day; a page from your sketch book or a doodle you just completed. Give your users something to look forward to. Don’t be afraid to share early sketches, prototypes, first versions of your work. Think of it as a window into your practice and a better way of getting to know you.

I love this quirky manual photography cheat sheet by Scott Beale. With one beautiful infographic, Scott shows newbie photographers the basics of manual photography. Genius. I wonder just how may people have downloaded and use this sheet regularly?

Do you have something unique to share with your audience? If you do, and you do it regularly, you will drive lots of traffic to your site. Great content, posted regularly, is the key to success of bringing traffic to your site.

Great Content Policy Guide:

1. Write great content
2. Know your user
3. Post regularly
4. Share your knowledge and skills
5. It’s a conversation
6. Involve your community

Getting started

Set aside a day each week to write and research articles. Have a schedule of posts ready to put online. Monitor activity on your blog. Respond to comments and make sure to share your post on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to encourage more users along.