You have put in so much time and effort on your blog. Now, that it’s up and running, it’s time to move on to the next phase – increasing its traffic.
Generating blog traffic is a challenging task and when you are new to blogging, you might not know how to begin the process or where to start. Even if you’re a seasoned blogger, you might also need some pieces of advice in driving quality traffic to your blog.
To help you get started and take your blogging efforts to a whole new level, we’ve put together three effective techniques that will bring your blog loads of traffic, improve its readership, and ultimately take it to greater heights. And the beautiful thing is that they are all free!
Three Key Strategies for Improving Blog Traffic
Strategy #1: Strategize Your Content
Ever wondered why “Content is King”? Because content is your voice. It’s your story – the very thing that speaks about your brand. It delivers your message to the world.
When done effectively, content brings in new sales and customers, increases brand awareness, boosts engagement, and drive quality traffic.
“Content is the backbone of any drive to interact with your readers or customers. It is the most important opportunity you have to impress the reader with your knowledge, expertise or ethos. The quicker publishers realize this, the quicker their websites take the place they expect in the industry of their choice.” – Shai Aharony, CEO at Reboot Online
This is exactly why strategizing your content from the get go is essential.
Increasing blog traffic all begins by creating fresh, original and high-quality content. While there are a myriad of ways you can develop content, only when a content appeals to your target audience will make it effective.
Remember, no matter how beautifully-written your content is, if your readers don’t find it interesting, your efforts will just go down the drain.
That said, be more strategic with your content marketing efforts. Consider what your readers and visitors love. Take time to analyze your previous posts and find out what generated the most traction.
Learn from what your competitors are doing
You might also want to look at your competitors’ blogs and see which of their content received the highest engagement. You can even ask your friends what they think about your content.
Again, you have a ton of strategies to choose from that could set you off to a great start. Whatever approach you take, always remember that content could only turn out great when you put your audience in mind.
Now that you understand the importance of strategizing your content, let’s find out how you can make it engaging.
Tips for creating an engaging content
Crafting engaging content that converts takes up a huge part of your content marketing efforts. Sure, content comes in different shapes, sizes and forms. But only the impressive ones can inspire, educate and compel your readers to take action.
Tip 1: Use appealing visuals
The common expression “don’t settle for anything less than you deserve” extends true when producing graphics for your content. Incorporating eye-catching images is a surefire way to catch your customer’s attention and make their stay longer.
In fact, when your images are interesting, your visitors spend more time looking at them that they do reading the copy on your webpage.
Tip 2: Display your victories
Everyone loves a good story, especially one that touches our hearts. Let the world know about your success stories by posting testimonials, reviews, and feedback from your customers.
Rather than hide these glowing statements of adoration, put them up on your blog. This way, you can positively impact your customers’ buying decisions and increase word-of-mouth referrals.
Tip 3: Reward your loyal followers
Who doesn’t love freebies and giveaways? Engage your followers by offering some kind of content takeaway for free on your blog. These might take the form of white papers, insightful guides, industry cheat sheets or how-to videos.
Giving away valuable information that are less likely to be found somewhere else makes your audience more responsive to your messages. Also, you might want to ensure that these content are downloadable so you can capture the details of anyone who gets them.
Tip 4: Follow the trend
It is a natural human behavior to follow a trend. People love to be on top of all things trendy. Using Google Trends, you can easily find trending terms online. It can even help you look for popular keywords around your niche.
With this tool, developing content that will keep your readers informed and ahead of the game comes easy. Trending topics is also a great way to captivate your readers’ attention and give your post a huge traffic boost so never miss out on this strategy.
Tip 5: Keep it conversational
Write as if you are talking to your best friend so your writing will flow naturally and be more compelling. When it comes to less entertaining topics like big data and algorithms, you will want to keep your tone conversational to keep your readers interested.
A good way to do this is by starting with a story. Blend a conversational tone with hard facts. Talk about key points but skip out on overly technical details. Lastly, pick an angle that everyone can relate to.
Tip 6: Urge your readers to make a move
At the end of the day, you will want your content to reach your desired results. So how do you make it possible? Ask your readers to take action. Be blunt what you want them to do.
There are literally hundreds of CTAs you can use. You can ask your readers to subscribe to your newsletters, claim a free trial, download a free eBook, or join a webinar. With CTAs, you give anyone who visits your blog a clear sign of where to go next.
Strategy #2: Promote Your Blog
A huge chunk of your content strategy should go to promotion. You have tirelessly devoted your time and effort on your blog, it is only necessary that you promote it. We round up the best tactics for promoting your blog effectively.
Tip 1: Create eNewsletters
Crafting email newsletters is a wise move to encourage your subscribers to visit your blog. It is also a good way to bring old visitors to your blog. Feature your best posts in your weekly or monthly newsletters. Just make sure to include a button that leads readers to your blog.
So, how do you create eNewsletter your customers will want to read and share?
Step into the shoes of your customers
Find out what problems are they facing. Then, provide resources and information to resolve these problems effectively. You can share expert tips, how-to guides, tutorials and other articles in the newsletter.
Craft an attention-grabbing subject line
Focus on creating short, punchy subject lines that compel quickly. Use the subject line to inform readers what’s the content about and how it can benefit them. Shy away from words like “free” or “limited time” – to avoid leaving a spammy impression on your email.
Offer snackable bites of content
Keep your content easy-to-digest by using bold headlines, bullet points, charts, and a combination of texts and images. Instead of putting the entire blog post in the newsletter, take only snippets and link it back to the complete content on your website.
Use visually appealing graphics
Design eye-catching images that convey your brand and build an emotional connection between you and your readers. Additionally, use lots of white spaces and keep text to a minimum to make it easy for your readers to scan your email.
Ensure a consistent format
Use a design that speaks to your customers. Your content should be relevant to your target audience and should be formatted to accommodate their needs. You can do this by making sure that you have a clear understanding of what your customers and your prospects expect to see in your newsletters and how they prefer the content to be presented to them.
Maintain a balance between information and promotion
Don’t use your newsletters to promote your products or services all the time. You need to strike a balance between informative and promotional content. A good rule of thumb? Go for 10% promotional content and 90% informative, helpful content. Newsletters are not meant to make a sale but to nurture a meaningful relationship with your customers.
Don’t skip A/B testing and make small tweaks when needed
Run frequent A/B tests and track your analytics. Observe what works and what doesn’t work. Do more of those that work and eliminate or do less of what doesn’t work. So what can you test? Subject lines, images, CTAs, and design. Remember to do one small tweak at a time instead of doing several changes. That way, it will be easy for you to see what exactly your audience wants.
Getting these things right will not only make your newsletters helpful but will also help you gain an engaged audience who are willing to share your content with their network.
Tip 2: Make sharing easy by placing social media buttons on your blog
Place visually attractive social sharing buttons on your blog — this is a quick and easy way to increase blog traffic that most people overlook. You don’t need to include all your social accounts; add only those that would make sense to your blog.
For instance, highlight a quote within your article, then use a ‘click to tweet’ box to encourage sharing. The easier you make sharing for your audience, the more likely they would share your content.
Tip 3: Share your content with online communities
To increase traffic to your blog, look for relevant groups and forums where you can share your insights and participate in discussions. Once you’ve built a presence in those online communities, you can begin sharing your content, especially if you know that your content can help the group or forum members.
Of course, don’t forget to leverage your own social media accounts to increase visibility and drive traffic to your blog. Try a short paid campaign to boost the post and expand your reach outside of your immediate network.
Strategy #3: Apply White Hat SEO
If you’re serious about increasing your blog traffic, you might have to invest in Search Engine Optimization or SEO. To drive immense traffic to your website, make white hat SEO tactics a part of your strategy. What does this mean? Implement SEO practices that are in line with the terms and conditions of major search engines like Google.
Think of white hat as placing your focus on a human audience, not on search engines. Don’t create content for the search engines. Create content that your target audience will love. Develop high-performing websites your customers would enjoy.
Here are some examples of white hat SEO:
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Researching relevant keywords
- Proper keyword placement
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Image and video optimization
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Using descriptive, keyword-rich meta tags
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writing quality content your consumers will find interesting
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fast site loading times and mobile friendliness
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making your site easy to navigate
What is link building?
An integral part of any digital marketing efforts, especially in SEO, link building is a smart and proven way to promote your website. Your goal here is to obtain quality links, i.e., those from relevant and authoritative websites.
You can use several link building strategies, including these common ones:
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Writing testimonials and reviews
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Directory submissions
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Press release submissions
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High-quality videos and images
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Joining contests and giveaways
Take note that gaining quality links isn’t easy. The truth is, it takes a lot of time and consistent effort. Link building isn’t a one-shot activity. It requires consistency as it has to be done for as long as your business is running. But is it worth the consistent efforts? Yes, obtaining quality links improve your search rankings and help you get found.
The benefits of link building
1. Watch your SEO ranking increase. Did you know that a single backlink serves as a vote for your website? Yes, and search engines view this “vote” as a positive behavior — even more so if the link comes from a relevant website.
2. Reap the rewards of building quality web traffic. The more links you receive from credible sources, the more visible your content becomes, and more people can consume your content. Ultimately, this builds quality traffic.
3. Reach new and diverse audience. Building links to relevant sites will not only give you better chances at gaining more exposure for your brand, products or services but also allow you to reach new and diverse audiences.
4. Get a chance to build relationships that lead to partnerships and collaborations. When building links, reaching out to other businesses and blog owners will be necessary. In doing so, you get to build relationships with them. Although your main goal is to build quality links, you also get an opportunity to build quality professional relationships with those you’ve reached out to in the long run. This could lead to partnerships or collaborations that will benefit your brand.
Bottom Line
You can use several other strategies to drive traffic to your blog, but this 2019, getting started with these essential strategies could take your blogging to a whole new level.
Finally, remember that increasing blog traffic requires a consistent effort. Don’t expect success to happen overnight. Don’t look for quick fixes or magic tricks — they don’t exist! The way to increase blog traffic is to put in the work, have patience and be consistent.
