Before I get into my effective strategies I wanted to give you a quick background and tell you about my blogging experience so you can understand how I built profitable websites. I started blogging in 2015 as an entertainment. I wanted to learn how to start a website and share some of my thoughts.
I didn’t have any idea about blogging. I wasn’t even aware that you can make money from your blog, but I started digging and I figured it out. My first year was a bit about learning, I didn’t really have an action plan, I just wrote posts without any criteria.
Last year I decided it was time to make some changes. I was determined to commit my time to learn more about blogging. I became obsessed and I realised that I was truly loving it. It was passion! Then I started making some changes, and soon I started getting results.
Within 2 months I went from 2,000 page views to 12,000 page views. Then, I realised that it was much easier than I though.
Blogging is how I make extra income to support my family and just a couple of years ago I never thought it would be possible. I made over $6,000 last year by blogging and I’m hoping to double that in 2017. You can create your own blog here with my step-by-step tutorial. You can start your own blog for as little as $3.95/month and you will get a free domain if you use my tutorial to sign-up.
I have learned a lot through my own successes and failures the last two years, and today I want to share it with you. Below you will find some of my proven methods to help you increase your blog traffic.
Read: How To Start A Blog Step By Step
Smart Strategies to Increase Your Blog Traffic:
#1) Create Valuable Content
Your content is the soul of your blog so you need to make it great. Make sure you provide useful content for your readers. Providing value to your audience will help you building your traffic.
There is nothing worse than readers landing on your blog and finding out that the information provided is not relevant and that it can be found anywhere on the internet. These people most likely will never come back to your blog. What you want is to keep them engaged and intrigued so that they not only read your post, but they will also visit relevant posts and share with their friends.
Keep in mind that in order to provide valuable content, you should focus on quality over quality. We’ve heard many times that “content is king”, which is true, but also “length is strength”. A high-quality post should address a topic directly from beginning to end.
With this simple change, I’ve seen significant changes in my blog traffic. One year ago I started writing longer posts that provided more value. Instead of publishing just for the sake of having something new, I started writing posts from 1,000 to 2,500 words (sometimes even more). This post, for example, has more than 2,300 words.
But not only that, I wanted to make sure that every simple paragraph had a purpose on the post. Throwing just words to have a long post doesn’t work, you will lose your reader’s interest.
To keep your readers interest you can provide valuable content. Here are some tips to create high-quality content:
Provide content upgrades. A free template, worksheet or a printable are some examples of valuable content that your readers will love. Everybody likes free stuff, and if you do, your readers will remember and will come back.
Answer your reader’s comments. Every time your readers write comments, they are using some of their valuable time on you and your blog. If you answer them, you are paying them back and they will feel part of your blog. It’s a good feeling, who doesn’t like an answer to a comment?
Solve your audience problems. This may seem so obvious, but it’s very effective. What are the questions that your audience frequently asks you? By solving your reader’s problems, you are helping into their needs and providing meaningful content that they will enjoy. Plus, you’ll get post ideas by listening to your reader’s problems.
Readers are always your top priority. Always think about your reader. You may think that your blog is about you, but in fact, it isn’t. It is about your readers. ~When you write new posts, you need to contribute to their needs. You put your own personality into the words but your top priority should be your reader.
#2) Update Old Posts
If you have been blogging for a while, you probably have many posts in your archives that you can bring back to life.
Updating old post will increase your blog traffic. Every time you update a post you are telling Google that you’ve improved the quality of the article by adding updated content and Google likes it.
Also, you will add more value to your existing content and will increase your audience engagement.
Here is a list of things you should consider every time you update a new post:
Rewrite old titles to be more SEO friendly.
Update the information and increase the post length.
Delete spam comments.
Proofread.
Add Pinterest-friendly images.
Check that all the links are working and update the ones which don’t work.
Add keywords.
Most of these tips will help increase your blog traffic. Imagine if you get 20 page views per day for each of your old posts, it can be a lot!
#3) Publish a Guest Post
Guest posting is a good way to increase your blog traffic if you do it right. It can help you access to a new audience who may become returning visitors of your blog.
In order to publish a guest post, you need to identify blogs within your niche that accept blog posts. High traffic blogs will bring more visitors to your site, but it’s a mistake to publish on a high traffic blog with no relevant content to your niche. You want to write for an audience which is ready to read articles related to your blog niche.
You need to provide your best content in order to make guest posting effective. Long high-quality guest posts will lead to a lot of visit, subscribers and email conversions. Check out the candidate blog you want to write on and find something that has not been covered yet. Write a killing post focusing on providing value so the reader will click over to your blog.
Make sure that the link pointing back to your blog has any kind of content upgrade, downloadable or email address signup form.
If you want to write a guest post for my blog, check out my guest post page.
#4) Pinterest
My blog went from 2K to 12K page views in 2 months. This was thanks to Pinterest. Pinterest has opened my eyes and has been a game-changer in terms of blog traffic.
When used properly, Pinterest is a ridiculously powerful tool. Here are some things you can do to increase your traffic using Pinterest.
High-Quality Pins. It seems obvious but high-quality pins make a difference. Vertical pins with catchy images and some text are shared twice as much as pins without text. A good pin is not enough, you want a shareable pin. The image needs to engage people to repin and the description needs to be clear enough. Create more than 1 pin per post and do some testing, which one performs better? Use that every time you need to pin/repin.
Keywords in Pin description. Pinterest has its own SEO. Add relevant keywords to your pins, after all, Pinterest works as a search engine too. Avoid keywords stuffing, otherwise, Pinterest will penalise your pin and also your readers will find difficult to understand the message of your pin.
Join Group Boards. Find and join as many group boards relevant to your niche. Boards with many followers and a low number of contributors are the best (but also the most difficult to join). However, the most important part is that the board must be relevant to your topic. Share your pins in group boards but don’t spam them, always check the group boards and daily pin limits. Pinning something like 3-5 times per day is normally all right. Aim for at least 20 group boards when you start.
Schedule your pins. When you have more than 20 group boards you will find difficult to pin/repin on them every day. You can use a tool to schedule your pins. I use Tailwind to schedule my pins. I pin around 50-60 pins per day over my 50 boards and I only spend 30 minutes per week. This brings me nearly 10K traffic per month. If you want to join Tailwind, use my link and you will get a $15 discount (one month for free).
Create viral boards. Create your own personal boards and make them viral. Only pin viral pins and every now and then share one of your pins. This will also help you getting more followers.
#5) Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Ranking in search engines, such as Google, will help increase your traffic without needing the use of any social media. Organic traffic is without any doubt the best traffic source you can have. Every day many people search daily for blog topics and your blog could be there too.
In order to get traffic from search engines, you need to work on your blog SEO. There are two types of SEO, on-site SEO (you can do it directly on your blog) and off-site SEO (involves other blogs).
To improve your on-site SEO, you want to make your blog posts SEO-friendly. Here are some tips you can apply:
Choose a keyword before writing the blog post (for example: save money shopping).
Include your keyword in the post title and URL (for example: How to save money shopping every month).
Include your keyword in the meta description. The meta description is the text that appears in search results below the title.
Include your keyword in at least one H2 and H3 tags (the post article is considered H1 so you don’t need to include any H1). Also use naturally your keyword through your content.
Link your articles between themselves to guide/help your readers to find relevant content.
Include your keyword in your image’s alternative text “alt-text”.
In order to find profitable keywords, I use Long Tail Pro which is a software to do keyword research. To optimise your on-site SEO, I recommend using Yoast SEO — WordPress Plugin which is free.
To improve your off-site SEO, you can check out my post about how to do backlinking.
Read: The Ultimate Guide to Smart Link Building After Penguin 4.0
Traffic from search engines is more specific than any other traffic source. It tends to convert better because it’s targetted. SEO is something you should work since the beginning and in the long term, you will get amazing results.
#6) Google Analytics
Google Analytics will not increase your traffic by itself but it’s a powerful tool which will help you find what’s working and what’s not.
There are hundreds of reports that will give you an insight of what your audience likes and not like on your site.
Some useful report you can use are:
Real Time > Overview. You can see in real time who is on your website. This is great to see if any of your posts went viral.
Audience > Demographics > Overview. You can see the profile of your ideal reader. Then, you can write posts for that kind of audience. In the image below the ideal reader would be a woman between 25-34 years.
Acquisition > Overview. You can see where all your traffic comes from. Social, Direct, Organic, Referral and Email.
Acquisition > Social > Overview > Pinterest. You can see all your traffic from Pinterest and which Pins are the most popular ones. You can get an idea of what your audience likes and start writing more about it.
You can identify trends and pin more of that same kind of content. I recommend you to check out your most popular posts and make sure the content is valuable and of course, it’s monetised.
Other Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic.
Create evergreen content.
Write/Rewrite catching headlines.
Send newsletters with roundups of your best posts.
Use long tail keywords.
Use high-quality images and get traffic from Google images.
Research other bloggers in your blog niche.
Create more and more content.
Optimize for speed and mobile friendly.
Comment other blogs and make friends.
Participate in social sharing communities like Reddit.
Accept guest posts from other bloggers.
Share your content more than once in social media (but don’t spam!)
Improve your blog design and user navigation.
Participate in Q&A sites like Quora.
Attend blogging conferences and introduce yourself.
Send a survey to your readers to learn what they want.
Create roundups.
Tell your friends you have a blog.
And perhaps the most important and that I should mention at the beginning of the post:
Be consistent and never give up!
If you want to find more ways to increase your blog traffic, you can subscribe to my email list and I’ll send you the 3 steps guide to get 300K page views.
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If you don’t have a blog yet and you are thinking about starting your own blog, I created a tutorial-guide that will help you start your own blog for cheap, You need very little investment, starting at only $3.95 per month (this deal is only through my link) for blog hosting. Additionally, you will get a free blog domain (valued at $12-15) through my Bluehost link, only if your purchase is for at least 12 months of blog hosting. My recommendation is for you to be self-hosted. This is important if you want to monetize your blog because your website will look more professional.
What do you do to increase your blog traffic? Tell me in the comments and I’ll add it to the list.
The post 25 Smart Strategies To Increase Your Blog Traffic appeared first on Passive Income Wise.