Getting visitors to your site is only half of the equation. It serves no purpose if visitors come to your site, wait until it loads and then instantly browse on to the next thing because your site simply doesn’t interest them. You have to get the right type of traffic to your site.
A while ago I did a post on great photo manipulation pieces that was madly popular for a while. It got some great traffic from a few sources (Smashing Magazine amongst others) but also from some less great ones. The visitors that came from sources that had little to do with creativity would come see the post, check the showcase and simply leave without checking out the rest of the blog. Some even closed the site in a matter of seconds. This did nothing for my blog and used up a lot of traffic for no good reason.
Since then I’ve learned that while traffic is always great (depending on your hosting plan!), getting the right traffic from people who actually care is not only much more satisfying, it’s also the way to ensure you accomplish the goals of your site.
How do you get the right traffic? I’ll tell you exactly what technique I use for the blog in a second, first I’m going to put down two points that are key to making this work.
1. Get good traffic
This means traffic from your niche - people who have an interest in what you do. Don’t try to plug your graphic designs on a fashion forum full of giggly schoolgirls. Even if they go to your site they’ll be gone as soon as the find out you’re not hosting leaked screen shots to the new Gucci sunglasses. Find places where creatives from your field come together.
2. Use as many different sources as possible
Unless you have friends with high traffic sites or have such a site yourself you’re usually stuck with small/medium traffic sites. Sure, it’s very possible that you have something great and Smashing Magazine or A list apart will do a post on it. But let’s be realistic, you’re not the only one who wants on there. So small and medium traffic sites will be your main focus. This means that if you get your link up there you’ll get good quality traffic, but not a huge amount. You can solve this by hitting up multiple sources at once.
The first way I always get some easy traffic is through social bookmarking. Social bookmarking sites are in essence communities where users can cast their vote on how useful submitted links are. The more votes something gets the more exposure it receives - meaning more people come and see it. The majority of the general social bookmarking sites will get you the wrong traffic, traffic from outside of your niche. Just like the example I gave above with the photo manipulation showcase, this means that the traffic you get will often be rather meaningless.
Fortunately social bookmarking for creatives is really taking off. Below are four sites that are tailored especially to creatives that I you can use, ordered in the largest populated site to the lowest. There all nearly identical in use. Just make an account, submit a link and hope it gets the designated number of votes to reach the main page. The good thing is that posting a piece of news can be done in a matter of minutes!
I’ve added estimated visitor counts. These are guidelines, you might receive more or less since a lot of factors play into this.
Designfloat is the biggest of the three design related social bookmarking sites, if you only submit to one make it Designfloat.
Estimated visitors: 350
The visitor count of Designbump isn’t very high yet but it’s definitely gaining ground.
Estimated visitors: 40
I’ve only tried Drawar once and didn’t get my post submitted. The page rank 3 however tells me you shouldn’t expect stellar results from Drawar. Only submit to Drawar if you’ve been at the above two sites first.
If you’re still hungry for more traffic the next way to easily gain more without breaking a sweat is to hit a few sites and blogs up that have side blogs and community news. This basically means that on their site they have a section where they link to news submitted by readers of the site.
Submitting to sites like this is as simple as filling in some form fields and pressing “send”. Once you know where to look you can easily hit a few up in 15 minutes or less.
Noupe is a blog that has a nice little news side blog that users can submit news to. All you have to do is submit your news, and as long as it is relevant to the site it usually gets featured.
Estimated visitors: 40
Haven’t had a go at Designmag yet but I’m going to give it a run soon. I’ll update when I know more.
If your project is really great you might be able to squeeze in some exposure on Smashing Magazine’s sideblog - this equals lots of traffic.
Estimated visitors: 10.000 to 15.000!
Design you trust is an open blog platform where anyone can post inspirational things. That’s right all you need to do is make an account and you’re set. With great power comes great responsibility though. Don’t spam Design you trust and don’t over use it is my advice.
Estimated visitors: 300
If you remember only one thing than make it this. Whatever you do, don’t come across as a too eager spammer. This will only hurt your name or brand instead of strengthen it. Other than that I’d encourage you to experiment, monitor the traffic and see what works for you and what doesn’t. Good luck!
August 11th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Nice list of design related social networks. I haven’t tried Graphic Design Links or Drawar - I’ll have to give those to a closer look :)
When I was recently featured over at Smashing Magazine, I saw a nice flux in traffic - probably an additional 5,000ish visitors. It’s very nice when large sites of a niche effectively trust others with their audience. It’s a wonderful way to connect with others, and every now and then you’ll find a gem worth adding to the feed reader.
Thanks Youri :)
August 12th, 2008 at 1:19 am
Great list. I am glad to see DesignBump on there. I started the site just over 2 months ago and I have been pretty pleased with the fast growth. I am still working hard to bring in even more visitors.
Much more to come.
Best,
John
http://www.designbump.com
August 12th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Great post and useful information. I found it through Design Float, so you’re methods are working :) Thanks for sharing.
August 12th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Thanks Youri, I hadn’t heard of Drawar before but I have used many of the others you mentioned, to good effect.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Definitely a decent article and it has some good advice - but you did forget to mention SEO as a way of getting _good_ traffic. If you optimize your website so that visitors will find you for the appropriate keywords, the traffic will equal long-term users.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Thank you for this extensive post! I don’t believe you can ‘add’ user content to smashingmagazine but I’ve been featured at a post and the traffic is huge :)
August 12th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I go to sleep one night and wake up with six responses! Thanks guys (and gal^^).
@David: You’re totally right. On the other hand you could argue that a big site like Smashing also needs us to provide them with content and news items. Here’s to hoping we both get linked up again soon;)
@John: Thanks. I believe there’s a lot of room for Designbump to grow. So I’ll be keeping an eye on it for sure (and keep posting my links!).
@Wes: Glad you liked the article, and funny you found me through Designfloat which proves the point of this article:-)
@Tracey: Thanks. If you use Drawar let me know how it works out for you, quite curious.
@Eli: Seo is definitely an important point, so true, but I feel that’s a whole different article. The point of this article was to present resources that bring you traffic from the get go.
@Sander: You’re most welcome. And you indeed can’t post your own content on Smashing, but you can tip them. Chances to get on through this route are slim, but if you do you’d it’s major traffic, so I thought it was worth the mention.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Well done Youri on one of best and most useful articles I’ve read in a long time.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Very well put together article, very easy to read through and it looks great. And brilliant Links of course.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
@Scotty: Thanks Scott! Hope it’s of use^^
@Liam: Thank you, I’m trying to make the new articles on Designfeedr easier to scan and read, so I’m glad you noticed an improvement.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Yeah, I think it’s a bit different for everyone. The best way is to try different things and then check your results.
Good post. Thanks!
August 19th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
http://www.cssglobe.com is another good side blog that you can submit news to. You have to be accepted as a contributor, but its brought me a good amount of traffic.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Thanks Peter, I’ll be sure to give them a try one of these days.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
You are absolutely right for putting designfloat as one of the better ones. I’ve had great luck with traffic after posting on design float. I’ve bookmarked the other sites to see how well they work for me. Thanks for the great list.
Calvin
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:48 am
Write good content, get good traffic. From my own experience, giving out freebies can really attract good amount of visitors. But for a starter, perhaps you can add a link/RSS animator at the signature at your participated forum.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:15 am
These are some nice tips Youri. I’ll digest them and see what I can make happen on the GoMediaZine.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:41 am
they were creative but I think they miss one thing and that is to express with big heart
August 25th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Thanks, I’ve got a new blog and I really needed some info like this. I’ll give them a try. I’m also trying http://alltop.com/ they haven’t added my feed yet but they have accepted it.
thanks again
Tim
September 14th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Great list. Thanks you very much !
October 1st, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Thanks for posting this post. I used the sites you offered and my views so far have tripled today for my 24 web design blogs post!!!!
So thanks again for the awesome list.
~Jeremy Newton
October 4th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I haven’t heard of some of these sites so I’ll check ‘em out now. Social networking is pretty much a no-brainer as far as [free!] advertising goes.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I wonder if hits or traffic is the thing to think about - at least at the beginning. I think it’s more important to write about stuff that interests you. Not to get traffic - but rather to think things through - things that are floating around in your head. Things you’re passionate about. Not focusing on things that you think other people might be interested in. I just started blogging again (after blogging, then podcasting then videoblogging). I’m really enjoying it. Engaging in conversations on things that interest me. And I’m not going to check the analytics even though it’s all hooked up. At least for a month. Maybe longer.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Cool, that you also listed the low-level traffic sites like designbump & co.!