How To Get Long Lasting Traffic From Wikipedia
I know right now everyone is crazy about Twitter including my self but on my music site Music Video Cast , Twitter doesn't drive any traffic to that site at all. This might be due to the fact that I haven't incorporated Twitter into the marketing efforts for Music Video Cast. None the less one of the largest traffic sources to that site is Wikipedia. I've been experimenting with Wikipedia for over a year now and I've pretty much figured out what works and what doesn't.
The key to getting traffic from Wikipedia is to simply post external and reference links. I've spent quite some time posting up many different types of links to see which ones would get removed and which ones would remain. In general as long as the content is related to the topic the links will usually remain on the Wiki page. Now of course there are some exceptions to the rule for instance if your linking to copyrighted content the link will quickly be removed by a moderator, try to keep post rejected links to a minimum because eventually those links will automatically get removed and if they think you’re a spammer they will ban you by your IP address so you can’t edit any Wikipedia articles anymore. Judging by how quickly I've seen links removed from Wikipedia I figure there has to be at least a thousand moderators at any given time of the day to handle the millions of submission they receive daily.
Since my site is music related I was mostly on the artists' song pages. Once I started getting traffic I needed somewhere to send that traffic which is when I decided to start promoting music affiliate programs specifically ringtone affiliate programs. I've had some success with driving traffic to ringtone affiliate programs but it's a bit tricky, for instance I send traffic to ringtone affiliate programs for Fontonia, Thumplay and SendMeMobile. I split test to see which one converted the best and to also see what links would get removed. Fontonia turned out to be the preferred choice because they had the highest payout.
The moderators removed all the links that pointed directly to ringtone sites, so that was out of the question. I found a way around this by adding a song section to Music Video Cast, whenever a new song was released I would write a small review about it then add affiliate links to purchase the song, album or ringtone. I would then go to Wikipedia place the link in the “Reference” or “External Links” section with the title “Artist X new Single Review” or something to that effect. These links were never removed and over time generated referrals through affiliate programs as well as more visitors to my site and more click through on ads.
So just like Pay Per Click or anything else you have to have a landing page of some sorts to send the the visitors to , the sites that usually get the most traffic from Wikipedia are usually blogs and news sites, whenever I would make a blog post about a artist, I would list it on Wikipedia and those link never got removed. They are rules for blogs as well though for instance your site has to be a top level domain (i.e. yourwebsite.com) and not yourwebsite.blogspot.com, yourwebsite.typepad.com or yourwebsite.wordpress.com. I use to do this with my old blogspot blog and those links always got removed, in some rare cases they remain due to moderator oversight.
One of my colleagues drives a large amount of traffic to his video game blog using the same technique I use by posting video game reviews then submitting it to Wikipedia. The advantage of using Wikipedia as a traffic source is that it's instant, there is no need for you to rank in the search engines for any keywords since Wikipedia has done all the hard work for you.
Music Video Cast is currently averaging 1500 referrals monthly for iTunes now, of course those referrals are usually only 20 to 70 cents each but it adds up. I also average about 150 referrals for Amazon MP3 monthly. The cool thing about Amazon is if that if you send visitors to purchase a product and they don’t buy it but end up purchasing later on you still receive a commission and commissions on other purchases they make as well. I'm not sure but I think the cookie last for 90 days so if they buy a book next week and then a DVD 3 weeks after that you still get credit even though you originally sent them there to go purchase a MP3.
The amount of traffic you can receive from Wikipedia is not to be taken lightly and even though Twitter is the new marketing craze don't forget include what still works into your website promotion efforts.
ermm.. nice idea … this is great.. thank you..
Thank you for reading, this is a new blog so expect much more helpful tips to come, be sure to subscribe.
Nice, a long time I want intro in wiki, this blog more worth for me
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Thanks very much for taking your time to create this very useful infos .
Thanks for the tips.I knew Wikipedia existed but never thought of it as a way of getting traffic to your site.
Hello, I found this site when i was searching for sites related to ringtones. I wanted to tell you, your site is good. I like the theme too, its nice. I don't have much time at the moment to slowly read your web site but I have noted it and I also signed up for your RSS feed. I will return in a night or two. Thanks for an informative blog.
Insightful tips about getting traffic from wikipedia. thanks! might try it out and let you know my results!
This is a very intresting article will do some more research on this thanks if you ever need to post free ads online please use or site
Very nice post.
i would prefer Infolinks over Kontera because they pay much better.-:"
Wikipedia is many times disconsidered as a traffic directing site, but as I can see from your post, and as I can tell from my own experience, it has a huge potential over long periods of time. Wikipedia is a growing thing, now with the Wikileaks issue, even though they are only connected by the name and general idea.
Thanks for reviewing another great traffic source.
-Beware don't Spam.
-Before you place link make sure you contribute genuinely first then your link wont be removed
In my website http://www.universityinus.com that talks about list of all colleges and universities in U.S. has gain permanent link in wikki and drives over 20,000 traffic on daily bases.
Be a genuine contributor to wikki…………
Thanks for this man, I ended up here after I noticed I was getting 10 uniques from Wiki per day from one link! Seems like it could be a decent traffic source.
That floating bar with the like button and +1 etc is really annoying, it's floating on top of the page content making it difficult to read. I'm using Chrome, Win 7 with res of 1080p.
This is all great but what should you do if you post only images on your website? :/
nice tips. very detail. but i think referal from wikipedia not much..