When people have asked me how I was able to increase my reader numbers from 100 to 500 in just a few months, my replies have ranged from heavy marketing to quality content. The truth is that any success in business stems from the ability to create demand for your product. In blogging terms, this means that you need to create a demand for content… you need people wanting to read your stuff!

This may seem a bit obvious at first, right?
Supply… demand…. okay, I get it!

No, what I am talking about today is a different kind of demand. Artificial demand. I call artificial demand the kind of traffic and readers that come to your website solely because you are offering them something or just urging them to visit. We see this everyday, and it will generate some of the best traffic to your blog. The flip side of artificial demand would be a more organic demand that is coming from daily viewers, traffic off of referred websites and hits coming from search engines. Clearly, artificial demand is something you do directly, making it a bit easier. So let’s discuss my top three methods in creating a more artificial demand for your blog.

1. Offer a Free eBook (or download) for RSS Subscriptions
One of the best ways to ensure that you will get RSS subscribers is to offer something free and display it prominently on your homepage. About 60% of the business/money blogs that I come across have a separate area on their homepage offering something free for a subscription. I feel like this is a brilliant strategy for getting readers to sign up right off the bat. Basically, what you need to do is designate an area on your blog where you have two things: a subscription form (e.g. “enter email here”), an eye-catching photo and description of your product to get some attention.

Take a look at some of the more popular blogs in your niche, a lot of these guys have to attribute some popularity to the fact that one of the first things a visitor sees on their blog is “get this free, just enter your email.” This kind of allure is oftentimes irresistible, and I myself typically sign up to random blogs just to take a look at their free eBook (or other download). The thing about these sign-ups is that they are entirely artificial. 90% of the time, people will be signing up just to grab a copy of your free bonus… they might not care less what your daily content looks like. It’s this type of artificial demand, where you can increase your readers and traffic without “actual” interest, that can really boost your figures.

2. Spread Unnecessary Links To Your Blog
Other than increasing demand in the form of readers, you can pull artificial demand in the form of website popularity and traffic by spreading links to your blog across the web. There are many different places you can do this, and I wanted to avoid the “s” word (spam), but this is essentially what you will be doing. Let’s hunt around for some popular forums and message boards where you can creatively slide your link into discussion so as to score artificial traffic from people looking for answers.

This isn’t spam, because we aren’t mercilessly posting our link wherever we please. Instead, we want to pinpoint discussions that are relevant to your niche, and simply refer people to articles that you happen to have written on the subject. As long as the subject fits the theme to some degree, you won’t be labeled a spammer and may actually be thanked… even though you just want their traffic.

Great Websites to Refer Visitors to Your Blog:

The websites that I have listed above are mostly forums or portal-based communities that work through discussion groups. Again, this list is just a general template, and you should be using the websites that are best suited for what you are offering on your blog. We don’t want to just spam our link in unrelated posts, we need a focus on tennis, or popsicles or muffins… whatever your niche happens to be.

People that are active on communities like Yahoo Answers and Digital Point will be more than willing to visit your website if you simply write something like “this blogger actually wrote about X awhile ago. Check out the article: LINK.” I suppose this would technically be spam, but it’s going to help your rankings and your popularity if you get a lot of interested traffic out of it. This becomes artificial demand because in reality, these people don’t know what they are signing up for when they click your link!

3. Run a Contest That Encourages Feed Subscription and Linking
You can really never have enough links or readers, so the number one way to ensure that you get the results you are aiming for is by running a contest on your blog. I’ve been running monthly contests at The Net Fool for quite some time, and promoting them as well. Don’t forget that if you are a new blogger, you need to get out and active (as prescribed in point #2) in order to let others know what you are offering.

I want to address one issue, and that is competitions that really have no base. If you are running a contest full of sponsors that provide individual prizes, don’t be surprised if people are turned off. The reason that a lot of people don’t respond well to these competitions is that sponsors often don’t provide the promised donations and the true worth of a contest’s offerings is a bit distorted as people typically list inflated “monetary value” numbers. I want you to ignore the naysayers! Contests that offer a lot of sponsors and ask that participants subscribe to your feed and post about the contest in their blog are great for your rankings. You’ll get a boost in numbers from those that register to your RSS feed, and you’ll get referred traffic and some excellent backlinks from those that decide to make posts.

Contests have probably been my biggest driver of success by a long shot. If sponsors don’t come to you, go to the sponsors! I had a tough time in my first few months of active blogging because I had to go around collecting emails and contacting/talking with everyone in my niche. You need to do this eventually, so why not now? There are plenty of “nice” ways to casually ask for a prize donation, but remember to NEVER send a message without the name of the person you are emailing and some small personal touches. You’ll get your sponsors, even if you have a big fat 0 on your RSS, because bloggers feed off exposure like sharks.

Bottom Line: There are plenty of ways to create a more artificial demand for your blog and your content if organic growth isn’t working out fast enough for you. I have personally done all of the above, and recommend that any aspiring niche authority do the same. Being casual and helpful with your “creative spamming” is a must… so be sure to spend a good amount of time gathering some research so that you know where posting links to your articles or promotions is going to hit pay dirt.

-The Net Fool

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