I for one get sick of people saying “just create good content” in fact it is a running joke between myself and another local seo guy. I am thinking of getting a Tshirt made with it on!

The thing is that good content alone is not enough to bring you traffic, someone has to see it and share it. If you have followers who are well known and have a large following of their own then it is a lot easier. Let me share a case in point..

That traffic spike on this very blog came after I made a post about Guest Posting for links . I will be totally honest here, my blog seems to get around 10 unique visitors a day up to that point in July.

That spike took it to 211 people at the high point. So dramatically more and I can also see a slight increase in the daily visits after that. The continued visitors may be due to my new podcasts (a regular Friday event!) or just because I am posting more often. But why the spike

Good Content 
I like to think that once in a while I write good posts, epic posts even, but they don’t see the huge spikes that I saw with this post. Why..Well because unless someone shares them I don’t reach a new audience.

That Someone Shared
Enter Michelle Macpherson  - her blog is http://www.fromideatoempire.com/ and her new membership site is http://therenegadestartup.com/ - She has been in IM for a good few years and has a good following (quite rightly) and she mentioned my post on Facebook and Boom..

The funny thing is she only had 4 comments on the Facebook post. Now there were other places that sent some traffic – The forum for the http://adsense100kblueprint.com/ sent me some traffic, sorry guys I have no idea who is behind the forum but thanks for sharing.

Be Ready
You never know when someone is going to share your stuff, so be ready. I was not and I am sure it cost me money. I have been meaning to look at a new theme and to place greater prominence on getting people to sign up for my lists for months. I also had a new report out there but did not have any links to it in the sidebar.

I am certain I left money on the table, don’t do the same thing. Yes create interesting content for your market, yes network and get your name out there. But don’t forget to fix your site up so you are ready when the traffic comes.

Would a better site layout of got me more signups, if I had the new report image in the sidebar (as I do now) would I have made more sales..Maybe.

The only way to know is to keep adding awesome content and hope someone with a load of followers shares it and see what happens then..