So you have started a blog and you’re ready to start taking things seriously. Well, I think it’s safe to say that pretty much all bloggers would be happy with more eyes on our blog. Even if you’re just starting out, 100 page views gives you that awesome, accomplished feeling! For me, I am hoping to scale my blog to 25,000 views in the next three months, and these are the exact tools I am using to be well on my way there.
Each step will offer you an action point so that you can work toward exploding your blog content and ultimately growing your blog! Make sure you take your time to work through these, and write as many notes as you feel necessary!
1. Publish, publish, publish!
One of the most effective, but often ignored, ways to get traffic to your blog is by publishing more articles. As the saying goes: consistency is key! If you are struggling to bring traffic to your blog, perhaps it is to do with the unreliability of your published content. Is it every second week you are posting? Do you post randomly throughout the week?
No matter your niche, research has shown that publishing more content on a consistent basis will always lead to an increase in traffic for you.
Action: Increase your content frequency to 2 or more articles a week, and you’ll notice a significant increase in traffic to your blog. If the number is hard to do (and trust me, I know the struggle) then set yourself a goal to publish your post/s on the same day every single week. Your blog will thank you for it!
2. Post larger content
Research has shown that Google and other search engines prefer longer, more comprehensive articles. Google ranks content that has more than 2,000 words better than content with fewer words. Aim to write longer, more detailed articles and you will find an increase in your blog traffic!
Action: Aim to make the next blog post you write 2,000 words long.
3. Start an email list with Mailerlite
Email is such a powerful medium for generating traffic. The reason? Your email list will only keep growing and rarely decrease. Even more, unlike your blog traffic that can fluctuate, you have access to a database of the people on your email list and can always email them. When social media fades and blogging is the main medium for online entrepreneurship, your email list will be the most important thing you have.
Action: If you haven’t started building an email list, start now. Create a FREE profile with Mailerlite and use their email list building options including the ScrollBar, Popup and automated emails.
4. Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines:
Many bloggers ignore basic SEO, and they eventually suffer from it. Most successful bloggers get as much as 50% or more of their traffic from search engines; taking the right measures when it comes to SEO can double your blog traffic within a short period of time
Search engines are the #1 source of traffic for most established blogs. When you optimize your web pages you’re making your website more visible to people who are entering keywords associated with your product or service. If you are looking for an awesome place to learn about SEO marketing, you can join Skillshare for the first two months FREE and take the amazing SEO course.
Action: Join Skillshare or any other free SEO course and start learning about how to optimize your blog for search engines!
5. Comment on Other Blogs:
The right comment on a highly authoritative blog can send you lots of traffic. Identify the top blogs in your niche and start interacting and commenting on blogs on a regular basis. This will get the blogger and members of their community to notice you and visit your blog, leading to more traffic for you. You might even get an or invitation to guest blog out of it.
Action: Set yourself a weekly goal of commenting on ten blog posts from some of the top bloggers in your niche! Just make sure they are thought out, interactive comments.
6. Include Social Share Buttons on Your Blog:
Many bloggers fail to include social sharing buttons on their blogs and this is costing these bloggers social shares, exposure and traffic. Adding social share buttons to your page will lead to more shares of your content and as a result, increased traffic.
Action: Look at three of the top bloggers in your niche and find where they have their share buttons. Set yourself a plan to integrate these share buttons on your blog and do so by the end of the week!
7. Facebook Groups:
Facebook groups can also be a good source of traffic and exposure for your blog, but, unfortunately, many people fail to get results because they approach these groups in a wrong way and can barely be differentiated from spammers.
When using Facebook groups, it is important to reciprocate the love you are receiving and to follow all the rules. Each sharing post will set out your rules, and it is important to go above and beyond these in order to be authentic and not spammy at all. They will have specific days for promoting specific blogging things, so make sure you wait for the posts before trying to promote yourself.
Action: Ask to join ten of the below facebook groups and utilise them for your blog! They are what I use on a daily basis and I love them!
8. LinkedIn Groups:
Similar to Facebook Groups, LinkedIn groups are a good source of traffic. Sharing your content with just your LinkedIn connections won’t send you traffic; instead, look for the top LinkedIn groups in your niche, join them and occasionally submit your best articles to them.
Action: Create your LinkedIn profile today and connect with me HERE.
9. Promote your blog on Instagram
It is no secret that Instagram is one of the worlds leading social media platforms. Over 800 million+ people use this platform every year, and it is a great place to show off your awesome blog posts and find readers. You can utilise Instagram stories, IGTV, and posts to share your blog. I tend to write a relevant caption in relation to my blogs each week to encourage readers to visit my page and read my blog. I also link it in my bio and create an IG story with a swipe-up link to the post.
Action: Plan how you are going to share your blog posts on Instagram every week. Don’t be afraid to show yourself off to the world.
10. Promote your blog on Google +
I’ll admit Google+ is definitely something new for me. It is a platform that was meant to be huge across social media but fell flat over the last year. BUT, Google+ does still have a large and loyal following, and I think it is worth a try if you are looking for further streams of traffic to your blog.
I have been using Google+ for three weeks and had several views from people. You can share your blog posts to ‘communities’ which are similar to the Pinterest ‘group boards’ feature, and people can click the link to your website.
Action: Check out my Google+ profile and see for yourself if you want to create your own account.
11. Promote your blog on twitter
This goes without saying that twitter is one of the most popular social media accounts out there. With millions and millions of users each day, it is the perfect place to put your blogs in front of the world.
The key to success on twitter is posting regularly, and interacting with lots of other twitter users on a daily basis.
Action: Create a twitter account and connect with me here. Once you follow me, message me and I will follow you back 🙂
12. Promote Your Blog on Pinterest:
Pinterest can be a great source of traffic to your blog and many bloggers have leveraged it as one of the best sources to massively boost their blog traffic. I won’t go into detail about the why and how of Pinterest because I will save that for another post, but if you are looking to scale your online business and explode your blog traffic then you MUST be on Pinterest right now. Business accounts, rich pins, group boards and
Action: Sign up for Pinterest now and don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter!
13. Guest blog on others blogs
One of the best ways to gain exposure from other bloggers is by utilising their audiences. Guest blogging is an amazing way to connect with other bloggers in your niche and write content that will bring you traffic. The way it usually works is by being accepted by another blogger to post a blog on their website. Often they will allow you a link back to your site and a profile image with a small description. Some of these bloggers that accept guest bloggers will have thousands of viewers monthly (if not daily) that will be given access to your content! It’s amazing, and totally free!
Action: Reach out to three people looking for guest bloggers and submit an article/ pitch to them. Make sure they are in your niche so you can write relevant articles to your own blog.
14. Invite Others to Guest Post on Your Blog:
Guest blogging on other blogs is indeed a powerful way to get traffic and gain exposure to your blog, but inviting others to guest post for your own blog can be equally powerful. Often you can find these pages on facebook groups or from simply doing a google search.
Action: Start writing posts on Facebook pages or your Instagram looking for guest bloggers. Make sure you have a specific idea in mind for what you want and who you want, and then start chatting to people about it!
15. Use Bloglovin’
Bloglovin is an awesome blogging tool that allows your followers to stay up to date on your latest posts. Every time you write a new post, Bloglovin’ posts a preview in your followers’ feed and they can click on the post to read it, like it, or save it for a later time.
It’s basically a free marketing tool that will attract new followers to your blog as well as keeping your audience updated on when a new post is live!
Action: Follow Nicole’s awesome guide on how to set up and start using Bloglovin’ today!
16. Use Images in ALL Your Blog Posts:
Research shows that articles with images get 94% more views compared to articles without images. I mean think about it, would you really want to look at a travel or beauty blog and only see words? Hell no!
Action: Make sure every article on your blog includes one or more relevant and appealing images, and this will significantly boost traffic to your blog.
17. Retweet Old Articles:
Research shows that only 1.4% (and I suspect that the actual number is much lower) of your Twitter followers will engage with your Tweet. The question is, what happens to the remaining 98.6% of your followers who will not see your Tweet? How do you get their attention? The answer to this is to constantly retweet old blog posts. And do this a lot!
Action: Download buffer (a free app that allows you to schedule social media posts ahead of time and schedule your last blog post to post five times in the next week. Just remember to mix it up a little with other posts in between so your account isn’t bombarded with the same tweet!
18. Master the Best Time to Post:
Research shows that the success of a viral campaign can be influenced by the time that post is posted. You don’t want to be posting all of your articles at midnight on a Monday if no one is going to be awake to look at them and will be off to work first thing on Tuesday.
Action: Link up Google Analytics to your blog and check which time your viewers are more likely to read your posts.
19. Take Advantage of Local Media:
The online and blogging craze is so high that many people now fail to realize the power of offline media. Seek out radio presenters, TV presenters, local magazines and newspapers in your country and ask them if they want an expert in your capacity. Due to the blogging craze, fewer people are disturbing them than used to be; this increases your chances of actually getting coverage, resulting in a boost in your brand image and blog traffic.
Action: Find three local offline media sources and reach out to them. There is no harm in pitching them your awesome ideas and you might just find they bring you heaps of authentic traffic!
20. Develop and Execute a Social Media Strategy:
Simply creating social media profiles and sharing your latest articles won’t cut it. Develop a social media strategy by focusing only on key social networks, engaging with influencers and top pages, and, interacting in groups to grow your social media reach. Also, make sure you constantly post updates and regularly recycle old articles on social media. Simply sharing your article once, or once in a while, won’t cut it. Most popular bloggers share links to old articles on their blog for years. Posting frequency should vary depending on the social media site. Research shows that it is optimal to post twice daily on Facebook, thrice daily on Twitter and Google+ and 5 times daily on Pinterest.
Action: Put aside a few hours this week to really plan out your social media strategy. How many time a day or week are you going to share content? How many times a week are you going to write blog posts? As mentioned at the top, the key to blogging traffic is consistency, and in order to execute that, you need to have a detailed plan!
As always, if you need any advice or have any questions, feel free to email me at gatherumabbie@gmail.com and I would be more than happy to help you!
Don’t forget to connect with me on social media and say hi!
What other techniques do you have for promoting a blog/generating traffic? I’d love to hear in the comments! 🙂
Love this post, especially the ‘action’ at the end of each tip – extremely helpful and straight forward!
Thank you so much 🙂 This means the world to me! I am really glad it helped!
Hello.This post was extremely interesting, particularly because I was looking for thoughts on this topic last Thursday.
Thank you, I’m really glad you found it useful 🙂
Such a lovely and helpful post.
I am so glad you think so!
Such a helpful post! Thank you! I look forward to implementing some of these tips now (and saving the rest for later, when my brain isn’t about to explode! Lol!). I think my next step is to get more active in Facebook Groups. Thanks again!
No problem at all! I am glad this article was helpful to you. Facebook groups are definitely an amazing source of traffic!
This was an incredibly detailed article! I used a lot of the tips and loved the actionable tip you included!
Following you on every social media platform you listed here!
Great post!!!!
Thank you Kevin! I am really glad you found the actionable tips helpful. I will be making a FREE checklist soon that will be downloadable to help keep yourself accountable. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your tips. I need to get better about retweeting old tweets.
Don’t we all 😉
Such a comprehensive list of tips. Social
Media has to be the toughest. I mean without staying glued to your phone. I don’t use a scheduling tool but I’ll defin look into a free one. Thanks
I personally hate being glued to my phone. I ensure I spend one solid amount of time a day trying to do pinterest and IG and I try and do this while on the treadmill at the gym… two birds with one stone! This way I can spend the rest of the day focusing on my life and not my screen life.
Fantastic and in-depth post. It’s definitely worth sharing!
Thank you so much Mary!
These are very interesting tips. Thanks!
Thank you! I hope you found them very helpful.
Great post. Very thorough and easy to follow steps that many bloggers will be able to follow. Building traffic is a constant effort.
Thank you, Nina. Building traffic is definitely hard. Hopefully these tips can help you and many others find their way with it.
I think using LinkedIn is a great tool! I agree with you 🙂 I enjoyed reading your post and I will start incorporating the tips you mentioned!
Thank you! I hope they can help you in your business 🙂
I never even thought to use LinkedIn, I’m going to try that. Also a guest poster. That would be a cool thing to do too!
These are two of my January goals to work on more!
Thank you for sharing. This is very helpful information. I will begin using these tips!
Thank you!
Thank you SO much for sharing these tips! I’m definitely going to start trying out the Facebook groups!
Thanks again,
Ashleigh x
http://www.thestoryofashleighdavis.com
I am so glad this was helpful! The Facebook groups always help me with growing my audience and finding a network that supports and encourages me 🙂
These are great tips! Traffic to my blog ebbs and flows. And it continues to be a struggle.
I know the struggle. It is a hard game to play but the key is consistency and ensuring you never give up. It takes time but you will get there 🙂