If you are running your own business online, getting more traffic to your blog can be quite challenging at times. And if you noticed that your blog traffic is getting a bit low…
Don’t worry – this happens to everyone. Instead of spending enough time attracting the right kind of visitors, we’re just a little too obsessed by the idea of focusing solely on selling the product itself or creating other deals in order to bring in those sales revenue we have always wanted. But that is so wrong.
You see, getting massive traffic to arrive at your blog is not the real big challenge which I’m talking about here. But what I’m referring to is getting the right kind of traffic that will eventually sign up as your subscribers and that kind of traffic that is so willing and has the highest potential of buying your product in future, hence turning them into your real customers. This is exactly the sort of real challenge that I’m talking about.
Which is why in today’s article, I’m going to show you the 32 ways you can use to increase the right kind of traffic to your blog.
32 Simple Ways To Increase More Traffic & Visitor To Your Blog #SEO #Bloggingtips
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Complete Checklist:
32 Simple Ways To Increase More Traffic & Visitors To Your Blog
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Absolute checklist for all beginners!
Below are some of the simple ways to increase more traffic and visitor to your blog.
1) Create Catchy Headlines
Nothing gets attention faster than a headline that tells people exactly what they want to know and how it will help – and here you are, reading this list. See? It works!
For example, if someone were to look up for some healthy diet articles online, most likely they will stumble upon some of these titles below:
Write catchy headlines.
You see, your headline needs to be clear and specific at all times. It should tell your visitors what can they really expect if they were to click on your headline. Just make sure that your headline is catchy enough to catch their attention in the first place and it must deliver value to them. Or else, you can just expect them to leave your blog immediately and never going to return to your blog if they found out that your headlines are click-baity kind of headlines.
So, what are click-baity headlines, you might ask?
For example:
Avoid writing click-baity headlines.
Well, they are the types of headlines that are aimed to exploit our curiosity gap in everyone of us into clicking on the headlines and hoping to get a higher click-through rate, without delivering any value or benefits to us. Isn’t that frustrating enough for us to swear to ourselves that we are never going to fall for that kind of trap anymore? Am I right?
Just always be sure not to manipulate or mislead our visitors with such headlines that don’t adequately represent the content. If your subject is worth reading about, visitors will definitely come back for more. And if your subject is not worth reading about, you might want to change your focus to something else!
2) Write Better Post & Post It Frequently
Write better blog posts that can increase blog traffic.
The more high-quality blog posts you have, the more opportunities people have to reach you. Don’t blog every few months – in fact you should blog every single day or at least every few days, and make sure your posts are good. And when I mean good posts you basically have to come up with two types of content.
The evergreen ones and the trending ones.
According to Wordstream, “evergreen content is the kind that will live on your blog forever and it will never go outdated.” This same rule applies to how music are produced.
Top trending music tend to drive higher popularity and engagement in a very short period of time but it won’t last long. On the other hand, evergreen music will tend to drive longer popularity and engagement for a longer period of time.
Well such music would be something like “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion and “ When You Believe” by Whitney and Mariah. Both of these songs are just classic! Don’t you agree with me?
Anyway like I was saying, the more you write the better it is because for every new page you write, it allows you to cover a new keyword. So the logic here is the more frequent you write and post, the more chances of your expanding your keyword coverage.
3) Be A Good Storyteller
Remember to tell a good story of your own brand. As mentioned by Copyblogger, if your content sucks badly, no ones will ever tune or listen to your story and worse still, they will never return to your blog again.
Which is why a good storytelling is still one of the most effective ways of building a relationship with your audience. Also bear in mind that good marketers tell good stories.
So what does it really mean by good story?
Well, good story is something that is original, truthful and inspiring to your audience. Tell something from your own perspectives and if your story is persuasive enough, you will turn the audience into some of your hardcore fans instantly. Eventually they will look up to you as an expert within your own niche.
A very good example would be, say if you wanted to write something about your product or services, try not to focus too much on the features itself, as the audience may know where to search for it on your website if they are interested to buy. But if you are trying to reach out to a larger group of new audiences, you need to tell a story on how you help your customer to solve their problems. This is the most important part. Inspired them with your own written story or you can actually create a memorable story using video.
Let’s check out this interesting infographic below.
Source: JLB Media
4) Target Your Content to an Audience Likely to Share
Most people focus all of their efforts on finding (and selling to) an audience – but not all customers are the same, and some customers are far more likely to share your posts or recommend you to their friends. This is the audience you should be trying to capture – for the cost of turning one person into a customer, you could acquire another five or six customers for free over a period of time, drastically multiplying the value of your marketing efforts.
It is very crucial for us to know as to why people love to share and what are some of the motivational forces that make them do so. Knowing this will help us, as marketers to plan and write better content to target our own targeted audience.
Below are some of the data collected by The New York Times Customer Insight Group.
68% share to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about.
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73% will share information because it helps them connect with others who share their interests.
78% will share information online because it lets them stay connected with people they may not stay in touch with.
49% say sharing allows them to inform others of products they care about and potentially change opinions or encourage action.
69% share information because it allows them to feel more involved in the world.
84% share because it is a way to support causes or issues they care about.
Source: CoSchedule
5) Go To The Communities Where Your Audience Gathers
Join in the discussions and start building relationship with your audience.
Don’t just wait for people to come to you – join discussions and post links to your blog. In most cases, those links will remain visible and public, serving as a way of advertising to anyone else who comes in and reads the conversation.
6) Make Sure Your Blog Is SEO-Friendly
Make sure your blog is SEO-friendly.
In their rush to create content, companies sometimes overlook the importance of ensuring that all of their content is SEO friendly. This isn’t limited to the text itself, or the keywords used to help search engines identify the page – it also covers pictures, infographics, videos, and everything else that can be used to improve the SEO friendliness of a given page.
Remember, friendly pages are actively rewarded by search engines, and following all guidelines is a key part of reaching the highest ranks.
Related links:
User Experience and SEO, Here’s What You Need To Know
7) Promote Your Posts On Social Media & Create New Connections
How following a scheduled social sharing timeline can double your traffic.
Social media has become an outstanding way of reminding people to visit your blog again – and it’s easy for people to share links back to it, too. Don’t settle for just one network, either – posting to multiple networks helps you reach more of your audience.
Besides, according to Kissmetrics, it is advisable to promote your blog posts multiple times on social media because it helps to trigger a stronger engagement with the audience and will eventually double those traffic if you follow a scheduled social sharing timeline.
8) Add Tag To Your Blog Posts
Tags make it easy for readers to find similar content on your blog – and, if they’re truly interested in what you say, adding tags makes it far more likely they’ll eventually convert into being a customer. Plus, it only takes a few seconds to add them!
Just like how Moz did it!
9) Leverage On Your Email Marketing
Some interesting facts about email marketing.
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways of reaching out to your customers. As you can see from the data above, by the end of 2016 there will be 4.3 billion of email accounts in total. So, what does this stats tells you?
People loved email and we just couldn’t denied it anymore. The world of marketing has changed tremendously in the past decade and if you aren’t taking advantage of using email marketing as part of your strategic marketing plan, then you are probably losing out a lot especially to your competitors who know the importance of it.
So, start by building up your email list today. At the end of the day, most business owners will have the same ultimate goal, which is to monetize and to achieve profits out of their email lists.
10) Make Good Use of Google Analytics (or similar software)
Make sure you use Google Analytics to keep track of your blog traffic.
When used properly, analytics software is easily one of the best ways of figuring out how each part of your website is performing. Don’t just install it and forget about it – become a master at interpreting it.
11) Use High Quality Graphics And Images
Use high resolution graphics or Images to drive more blog traffic.
Images help to break up content and refocus your reader’s attention on what you have to say by guiding them further down the page. Remember, the average reader has a very short attention span until they’re hooked – anything that keeps their attention is inherently desirable.
12) Perform Keyword Research Before Writing Your Blog Posts
Perform your keyword research before writing your blog post.
Every blog post you write should have a focus on a specific subject – and these days, we define subjects by their keywords. Do some research to be sure that people actually care about your subject – otherwise, nobody will be reading your post!
13) Frequently Reference Your Own Posts and Those of Others
It is always advisable to frequently reference your own posts and those of others.
Blog posts should not exist as standalone content that you never reference again. Just like the reference above, which I’ve included the reference in one of my previous post.
Besides, if you create a great post on a given topic, you can have future posts link it as a reference explaining something in more detail. Likewise, you can connect to the posts others have made (and get links from them in return) -aside from establishing credibility, this actually gets your site some of the value of the site you’re sharing links with, ultimately helping to improve your SERP ranking.
14) Spend More Time Participating in Social Sharing Communities
Speak to these audience and improve your brand recognition.
Social sharing communities are a place where people go to find things – and as a business, you want to be found. It’s not very difficult to see the value here, but it’s important to share the kind of information that other people want to see.
Don’t forget to post things besides advertisements, though – most communities will treat you as a spammer if you’re only there for business, and participating in the rest of the site’s activities is a good way of improving your brand recognition.
15) Guest Blog (and Accept the Guest Posts of Others)
Well, guest blogging is definitely one of the most effective and practical way to increase more traffic to your blog and website.
Just like the recent guest blogging we did for Coschedule:
Guest blogging is one of the most effective way to increase more traffic to your blog.
21 Social Media Engagement Tactics That Will Grow Your Audience
Not only will guest blogging brings your more new traffic but it will also bring you more qualified traffic. Besides, the more you do guest blogging in different authoritative websites, somehow you’ll be seen as an expert within your niche. The more you do, the better exposure you’ll get. Imagine, if new readers love what you wrote, most likely they will start sharing your post with their peers and friends and soon enough you’ll gain more popularity. Eventually who knows, you might be on your way of getting some real hardcore fans or some die-hard followers.
So if you haven’t started doing any guest blogging yet, I strongly suggest that you better start looking into it as part of your most strategic marketing plan to build your traffic and to expand your reach. Try to get at least one good guest blog (on or off your site) each week. If you’re not doing so, most likely your closest competitors will.
Complete Checklist:
32 Simple Ways To Increase More Traffic & Visitors To Your Blog
An awesome checklist to refer to at all times!
Discover all these best practices.
Start driving more traffic to your own blog.
Absolute checklist for all beginners!
16) Incorporate Great Design Into Your Site
Nobody likes a boring website. A killer design will get the reader’s attention and encourage them to stick around. Perhaps even more importantly, great design makes you look like a modern company that’s worth doing business with – not an out-of-touch relic.
Anyway, previously I’ve written an article on “How psychology of color affects your marketing and branding.”
You may want to find out how certain colors can affect people’s emotions and thoughts and by understanding some of those knowledge may give you a better idea on how to design a nice website that appeals to your readers.
17) Interact With Readers on Other Blogs’ Comments
Make time answering to all your blog comment.
Interacting on the comments of other blogs is another great way to build links, join a conversation, and attract readers who are interested in the subject. Trust me, it will help.
But one thing for sure, you need to bear this in mind that you always have to ask an open-ended questions rather than a close-ended questions.
So what’s the difference between open-ended questions and the close-ended questions?
According to Media College, open-ended questions tend to drive higher engagement because it allows better opportunity for recipients to express themselves rather than close-ended questions which normally require a shorter phrase or one word answers like “yes” or “no”.
Examples of the open-ended questions and the close-ended questions.
18) Boost Your Traffic With Q&A Forums
Quora is one of the most popular Q&A sites.
Question and Answer sites are one of the secret conversion sources that most companies don’t know how to make use of. What happens is that users post up a specific question… that anyone who has the same question might come across when they’re looking for an answer. If you’re able to provide a high-quality, easy-to-understand answer and link it back to your homepage, you could get a lot of inbound leads that are already interested in your products.
19) Provide Email Subscription
Provide Email Subscription
There’s no real point in running a blog if you only want people to visit you once. Instead, consider adding both RSS Feed and Email Subscription features to your website, allowing readers the opportunity to get notifications whenever you post up new content. This is especially valuable if you tend to create a series of blog posts that are all relevant to a central theme.
The easier it is for them to know when you have new content, the more likely it is they’ll come back and ultimately convert.
20) Attend and Host Events
Limited-time events are a great way of getting people involved and encouraging them to visit your website.
Online, events can include webinars, Q&A sessions, or even round-table discussions with other customers that are interested in providing feedback on the product. However, they’re not the only kind of event you can run.
Offline events largely depend on the scale of your business. It might be a local meetup and dinner invitation, or it could be as large as a national event where people fly in from all over the country (or world!). Either way, the real goal is to empower your customers and help turn them into promoters.
21) Promote your blog posts to your email lists
This is how our newsletters look like.
This is similar to sending out newsletters, but a “best of” collection isn’t the only thing you can do. You can also create email lists and promote each post to the people most likely to be interested in the content.
22) Survey Your Readers
Find out how your readers feel by doing survey.
Do you know what your readers are actually feeling? This is something you can’t rely on analytics for – if you truly want a customer’s views, you have to ask about them, and surveys are a popular, effective way of doing so.
Don’t think of surveys as just another way of getting customers’ personal information – think of them as your best opportunity to find out what the problems with your products and services are, then fix those.
23) Add Value to a Popular Conversation
Nobody wants to read a blog that adds nothing of value to a given conversation. This is about more than taking a stand and pointing out what your views are – you should add real depth to a conversation by adding your expertise and explaining why you believe things should be a certain way.
When customers think of you as a reasonable authority, you’ll be able to benefit from a level of trust your competitors are lacking.
24) Aggregate the Best of Your Niche
Build your niche by focusing on a single subject.
A general blog is a bad blog – readers should know exactly what your blog is about and what kind of information they’re likely to find on it. The best way to build a niche is by focusing on a single subject (such as everything related to solar energy for a company selling solar panels) or a single industry (insurance, healthcare, etc.).
Once you’ve established your niche, work to aggregate all of your posts together. The end result should be a collection of high-quality articles that your customers have easy access to – after all, it’s hard for them to get more information on a topic if they don’t know you wrote about it.
25) Connect Your Web Profiles and Content to Your Blog
Google cares about who writes a given article – that’s why they have the Author Rank system and are continually exploring ways of giving more value to content created by high-quality sources. Let’s not be mistaken it with Google Authorship. They are not the same.
In a nutshell, Google authorship was a way Google displayed the author names and images next to the stories so that the authorship can draw more clicks. However, Google authorship was dropped last June and no longer used by Google.
As for the Author Rank, it is a search algorithm where Google will give scoring to the authors based on a few contributing factors such as:
Social sharing activity; the more you get the more authority you will become
Engagement on Google+ and other external engagement
Numbers of quality backlinks pointing to your post
Connections with other authors
PageRank of individual articles
Source: Internet Marketing Inc.
Fundamentally, all you need to do is for the search engines to know who you are and why your opinion is worth listening to. Over time, establishing this could very well boost the ranking of newer posts and make it easier to get your marketing efforts where they need to be.
26) Uncover the Links of Your Fellow Bloggers
Companies have been known to read their competitors’ blogs, and that’s good – but have you actually studied the websites they’re linking to, and why they’re doing so? If they have a resource that’s worth linking to, you can reference that resource as well – and if other sites are linking to your competitors, you can ask them to link to you instead (especially if your content is more timely and relevant).
Remember, the fact that your competitors are doing something does not make it a good idea. All content should be judged on its own merits and value to your site, not by any other method.
27) Have a Mobile Responsive Website
Have a mobile responsive design.
In today’s society, blogs are increasingly accessed from mobile devices – so it’s critical that your website load quickly and display things in a mobile-friendly format. In fact, you may want to build for mobile viewers first, and desktop viewers second. It really is that important.
Related links:
10 Simple Ways To Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
28) Get on Youtube
Source: AlphaGraphics Bountiful.
Video marketing is one of the single most effective marketing techniques of bringing people into your blog – and more importantly, they also help to appeal to an entirely different segment of your audience.
As you can see from these statistics, it clearly shows that majority of people would prefer to respond to pictures and sound much better than text.
Besides, here is some fun fact about Youtube that’s worth your knowing.
Youtube Videos Influence The Purchasing Decisions of 53% Of All Consumers In The U.S.
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29) Focus on long-tail keywords
Chances are you will never rank for the short or popular keywords… but you can rank highly for various long-tail keywords that elaborate on what a searcher is trying to find. Remember, people don’t come up with search terms out of nowhere – there’s a purpose and intent behind every search, and you can capitalize on that to improve your site’s traffic.
See how using long tail-keyword can help to improve organic traffic.
According to some content marketing experts like Rand Fishkin and Marcus Sheridan, both mentioned that they have seen great result by integrating long-tail search phrases into their content marketing can help them to improve their organic traffic by 80%.
30) Use LSIGraph to look for LSI keyword
LSI Keyword Generator Tool
Keyword stuffing is bad – search engines want natural articles, not simply pages that have been endlessly stuffed with garbage content. Latent Semantic Indexing keywords – LSI, for short – are keywords related to the main keyword of your page. Think of this as defining a topic – there are certain things that are naturally associated with that topic, and having LSI keywords on your page does affect your score. You can learn more about this subject by visiting here.
31) Decrease Your Bounce Rate
Reduce your bounce rate by producing valuable content.
Decreasing your bounce rate is a natural side-effect of targeting your audience more effectively. Of course, there will always be bounces – you can’t stop that – but deliberately working to decrease the rate suggests that your content is valuable and worth displaying.
32) Write more list posts and how-to posts
People like lists – and for proof, consider that you’ve now read through 32 different ways to help your website. The truth is that lists simply tend to convert people more effectively. For added value, though, try to add in data that can be found online – supporting evidence, as we provided in #30, helps to establish your case and link readers to content they want to know more about.
Related links:
5 Most Popular Blog Posts That Will Get More Social Shares
Well, above are some of the suggested ways you can use to implement together with your own strategy in order to increase more blog traffic. Let me know what do you think and feel free to leave any feedback in the comment section.
Complete Checklist:
32 Simple Ways To Increase More Traffic & Visitors To Your Blog
An awesome checklist to refer to at all times!
Discover all these best practices.
Start driving more traffic to your own blog.
Absolute checklist for all beginners!