HowToMakeMyBlog reader Daan had the following comment to my recent post about how I built my blog traffic.
50 visitors from a trackback is a great number, in most cases it is higher than what you would get from blog commenting, so I asked Daan if he could write a guest post about his experience with building traffic via trackbacks. If you want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog, please check out more info here.
How to boost your blog traffic using trackbacks
By Daan
A blog without readers (and comments) is a dead blog. One (quite easy, but lucrative) way to promote your blog is using trackbacks. Trackback is Wordpress-lingo meaning:
Trackback: helps you notify another author that you wrote something related to what he had written on his blog, even if you don’t have an explicit link to his article.
Before you begin
- Make sure the blog (and your new audience) you’re writing for is related to your niche.
- Make sure the article is recent, otherwise nobody will notice your link. Besides that, tracking back to a recent post raises the chance of your article being listed first below the ‘Trackbacks’-heading.
- Make sure the blog you’re tracking back to shows trackbacks in their articles.
How it works
- Notice your “Yeah, but…”-moment: the best follow up articles – trackbacks – are written when the reader has a what I call “Yeah! But…”-moment: you agree with what you just read, but you’re missing something. That is your signal. Now write your article.
Make sure you give your article a catchy headline. Because the title of your trackback link can’t be changed later, you’ll only have one shot here.- Insert a link to the original article in your post, if the other blog runs on Wordpress. Your trackback will then automatically be placed. If you don’t have a place for a link to the other article, then here is an alternate way to send trackbacks.
- After you have written your article and come up with a brilliant headline: Retweet, Digg!, Stumble, etc. the article that inspired you to write your post. Not only for saying ‘thank you!’, but to indirectly draw lots of traffic to your blog. ‘Help me help you’, get it?
Writing a catchy headline
The headline is the only tool you have, in order to make the readers of the trackback, want to read your article. So it has to be catchy, it should be inviting and it should make the reader understand that when they click this link, they’ll gain more insight to the article they’ve just been reading.
The first trackbacks I ever made were in an article full of linklove called: ‘7 Helpful Articles for Beginning Bloggers‘. Two very successful trackbacks were those directing to articles at HowToMakeMyBlog.com and Copyblogger.com.
Because the readers of these blogs are mostly beginning bloggers or eager to learn, the headline immediately caught their eye. As you can see in the statistics the results are astounding – for a blog that’s barely a month old, that is.
Get your readers to stick around
Don’t forget that if you want your new audience to stick around, besides the headline, the content of your article should be of quality too. What we can learn from the statistics of the HowToMakeMyBlog-trackback is that these readers appreciated reading the article and went on reading up to an average of three pages per visit.
For the referred readers of CopyBlogger counts the same. Although they didn’t stay as long as the other readers, they still managed to read a little less than three pages per visit.
Both referred visitors have one thing in common; they are very valuable readers. They both stayed longer and visited more pages than the average reader that visits my blog. This illustrates that even though i.e. Digg and Twitter are great promotional tools, the visitors you attract through trackbacks (and comments) are much more valuable.
Keep your value
Although writing ‘linklove’-articles is widely appreciated by most bloggers, flooding your blogposts with trackbacks probably isn’t the greatest idea. You should keep it in proportions. Nobody likes a spammer, and nobody likes to read articles that are spoiled with links. Keep your articles valuable and only use a trackback when you really have something to add or want to say “thank you!”.
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{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
Whenever I write about Wordpress related things [which isn't very often], I try and include trackbacks to boost traffic. It does definitely work.
I’ve only discovered the value of trackbacks only recently. I did anarticle in which I mentioned and included a link to someone else’s articles. Later on that blogger came and left a comment thanking me of the link love. I wondered how he knew about the article that quickly. Turns out, a trackback link automatically appears on his blog too.
Thanks Daan for tip # 4. It’s a clever tip.
Great Post Marko.
Certainly food for thought. I like linking to other blogs in link-love style posts.
Maybe more careful in future. Thanks.
Headlines are such an important part of getting people’s attention.
It isn’t always easy to come up with something good to start with.
But as with everything in life it gets easier with practice.
The other great point you brought up is content.
It’s no good writing great headlines, if the content is garbage when the reader gets there.
Readers will soon stop clicking on your headlines, if you aren’t providing them with some value when they arrive on your site.
Cheers Adam Bean
Finally trackbacks explained in depth and in a way I can understand.
Thank you.
I’m happy you enjoyed reading my guestpost!
Thanks for your comment!
Oh thank you. This is one of those things I knew I should know but didn’t quiet get so I appreciate your explanation! Now can I trackback to this article!? LOL
Karen
Great info; makes a lot of sense; thanks. But tell me: how exactly can this be done on a Blogger/Blogspot format?
I’m not a blogger/blogspot user. So I’m sorry to say I don’t have a clue. Since it’s a greatly established blog-platform I’m sure they use something Wordpress-like. Don’t they have a FAQ-database where such things are explained?
never try the trackback stuff before, i just comment and comment, but to get 50 visitor just by trackback that really good number.. one think should be consider is, the best trackback link is when the trackback at the top of the comment and not below or in another page.
This definitely sounds like a good idea. Never tried it though, but will give it a chance sometime. By the way I think wordpress sends trackbacks to all the links you have in your blog post. And it also have a separate field where you can specify the url to send trackbacks too. Will surely add it to my startegies of getting more traffic.
By the way, looks like you have disabled trackbacks on your blog
Yes, Blogs that run on Wordpress automatically place the trackbacks.
On WhenIgetrich.com I surely don’t have trackbacks disabled.
I haven’t seen your trackback come by yet. Maybe it got caught up in my spamfolder. I’ll be sure to check it out.
Thanks for your comment!
Awesome article. Thank you for explaining trackbacks and how to use them in simple terms.
Thank you for simply liking my article!
Okay this is definitely a different take on linking then I have been hearing as far as the linking in post. I try to link to at least two site per cost, one at the very least. I didn’t realize that was looked upon as spamming. Yikes.
Thank you for clearing up the use of Track-backs. Now I really understand their purpose and will use them rather than just linking to blogs all willy nilly like.
If you take the right steps theirs a lot more to gain from trackbacks than most people think. Good luck!
great guest post, and again solid content! No wonder you came so highly in my top 20 keep the content coming. Its post like this that make this site such a great resource.
Excellent post Daan, and about something people would prefer dished simply. That visitors attracted through trackbacks and comments are more valuable than those through Social Media promotional tools is new to me; I’ll definitely be paying more attention to trackbacks from now on and hope for those fifty visitors, or more.
Well, as you can see from the statistics they tend to stick around longer and are more likely to return to your website.
Statistics from my blog show that visitors from Digg.com visit my page around a minute on average. While the visitors I’ve gained thru trackbacks are returning visitors AND RSS-subscribers. So, very valuable indeed.
Trackbacks can bring some good traffic. The good thing is that Wordpress automates the process and automatically adds trackbacks.
Headlines also play a massive part. If it is catchy people will click, if not then no one will click.
Great post. But Can we use this trackback feature in typepad? Tell me…
Would love to see you explain the difference between a trackback vs. a pingback and which one to use (when and why). Thanks.
excellent post.my blogging world seems to of come a whole lot clearer
Yeah, this trick works very well when you link back to popular blog.
One of my recent post got 800+ visitors from trackback. New bloggers should use this trick on regular basis instead of using false SEO techniques to drive more traffic.
Great post. I try this and i get a lot of visitors on my blog. I think that all blogger should use this trick coz they will win a lot of visitors.
That was nicely written. As someone who loves giving links back to articles I’ve read when I remember them, I’d never thought about it as a strategy, just as something courteous to do. I’ll have to think about it as a strategy just a bit more often.
Great hints about trackbacks. You have explained deeply how to track traffic using trackbacks.
Thanks for the lesson about trackbacks. To tell you the truth, I’m ignorant bout this.
Hi Marco.
I have been looking at your Blog for a couple of weeks now and I enjoy returning as I know that your content is superb. Please keep us informed about details about the next London Bloggers meet up after the10th march.
Regards Gerald
Thanks Gerald. The next one will be on 7th April. Please see the London Blog Club page for details.