A former client asked me last week what my advice would be with regard to driving traffic to an article on a website. Articles are a great business development tool because you can write (without being edited) about things you know a lot about, show off your insights and try to prove that you are skilled at what you do.
This is a situation I frequently encounter – companies and individuals write great stuff that shows off their expertise and knowledge but nobody seems to want to read it!
Now, until you have a regular blog readership (if your blog is your main publicity vehicle, as it is mine), there are some strategies that you can follow to try and get a wider audience and broader reach for your work.
Before you start
1 – MOST IMPORTANT: You have to write good material. No arguments. Write trash and you'll never win an audience.
2 – Don't do all the things listed below at once – try a couple out and find which are the most effective. Build up your audience and linked sites gradually.
Now get going
1 – Link to the article from every website that you have control over with the same link text. Use words that are strongly SEO oriented and will show up in any search for your type of expertise
2 – Using those same search terms, see what websites come up in a search. Check out each one looking for
- a) Aggregation sites
- b) Competitor sites
- c) Industry experts’ sites
For the Aggregation sites, join as a member and post up a comment about the article and link to it. [NB It's more subtle if you get someone other than you to do this, although it is acceptable for an author to link to his own work, but it looks less spontaneous].
For the competitor and industry experts websites – write privately to them asking their ‘advice’ on one aspect of your article. Include a couple of paragraphs extracted from the article. When they write back [because all experts love to have their advice sought], reply with profuse thanks and get permission to quote them in your work.
3 – Then go and write a comment on the original article as yourself, and include the comment from the named expert, linking back to their site (returning the favour). OR, write a second article with all the comments you get from the experts and link back to the original article from that one. This is what I did with my recent series on how to Twitter for Business Development, Part 4 has all the links and extra material that I found during the writing / researching process.
4 – If you keep a blog or a Twitter or Jaiku account, link to the article from the blog/tweet. [if you haven’t got a Twitter account, read my recent posts on how to use Twitter to find more customers and biz dev]
5 – Go through your professional networking sites (Linked In, Plaxo, Ecademy) and send the link to your contacts (or ask them a question). Find groups or forums within those sites for industry professionals and approach them as in 2/3 above or just send them the link.
6 – Using your customers and prospects database, send direct mail (email or written) telling them about the article. For those you know well, ask them directly to help you by linking to the article in public from their website / blog / Twitter or Jaiku. Many will re-Tweet or link from a blog post if you ask. I use this tool sparingly and only for my most brilliant and insightful articles. I try not to exhaust their goodwill. Remember, you will probably be asked to return the favour by linking back for them as well in the future. Don't neglect to do this in a timely fashion when they ask.
And lastly, here is more from ProBlogger about driving search engine traffic to your blog – many of the themes Darren Rowse pulls out are similar to those I have written.
P.S. By frequenly linking to Darren's work, I am building up goodwill that I may be able to call on in future for my "big moment" 
Tags: , articles biz dev, business development, promote your business, win more customers
