Starting a blog is easy, but increasing your traffic can be a real nightmare if you are inexperienced. Nothing of great value can be achieved overnight and the same thing goes for blogging. Posting high quality content regularly isn't the only thing you should do if you want to own a successful blog. Sometimes, experienced bloggers can help you get a feel for how things should be done to achieve the best results, so don't be afraid to reach out. Try to build a relationship with other bloggers through guest blogging. But even then, there is no certainty or guarantees that your blog will be a popular one.
A successful blog is one that is fully optimized, with quality SEO friendly content, and is easy to find. Bear in mind that a social media marketing is a great and simple way of promoting your blog, so make sure that you have active and complete social media profiles. Now, let's take a look at a few important tried-and-true tips for increasing blog traffic.
1. Always tell a better story - strong and powerful content
Regardless of the reason why you've started writing a blog-either writing business content for promotion or making money through blogging-you need to be unique and to post engaging, evergreen content. Don't be afraid to tell your story or give your two cents on important news related to your niche, helping explain things for those that are new to the topic. You need a strong inquiring title with high quality and original content if you want people to read your blog. Try to make a difference with your content, and be ready to tell a more interesting story and provide more quality information than 90% of the blogs and magazines out there.
2. Reach out to influencers and create a strong bond with them
The problem with novice bloggers is that they often fear to reach out to experienced and successful bloggers in their field. First of all, remember that they have a large number of followers and that you can significantly increase your traffic with a little help from them. However, this doesn't mean you should go and ask for help straight away. Most likely they won't even reject you, but simply ignore you. The first thing you need to do is to click on that follow button. Once you do that, you can start creating a relationship by sharing and commenting the content.
If you consistently put out good content on your own blog, share content from the influencers, leave insightful comments on popular blogs and forums and spark interesting discussions, you will get noticed by the big dogs. A single shoutout from a big name blogger can easily double your traffic in the early stages. There is no need to be afraid especially due to the fact that most of them started out the same way you did.
3. Optimization - make sure the website is fully optimized
This is certainly one of the most important aspects of a successful blog that sees plenty of daily traffic. How many times have you heard of a blog that isn't doing great because it's not properly optimized? Effective SEO is all about producing the best possible content, carving out a specialised niche market that you can rank high in, and focusing on long tail keywords and meta descriptions just enough to make it a bit easier for people to find you, instead of being bent on cheating the system. Although meta tags no longer play as big of a role in determining SERP rankings, they can be used to shed more light on what your page is all about, and should be utilized without making them look overly spammy. Besides proper SEO, you should also consider some of the many tools and plugins that can help you in driving traffic to your website. There are also some details bloggers often take for granted:
- Email subscription - make sure that the subscription form is featured on multiple areas of the website, that it has a strong call to action and elegant design, and that there is some kind of incentive, e.g. free ebook or weekly tutorial videos, for the visitors to sign up.
- Social sharing buttons - they are important so make them large, clear and easy to access.
- Plugins - find the most useful plugins for your blog and add them, but don't overdo it, as you don’t want your blog to end up like a jumbled mess
With some research and a bit of work, you can do some basic optimisation yourself, but if you are considering growing your blog past the initial stages, then it is best to contact a professional to help you get the best results.
4. Guest blogging - Is it really so important?
One way to promote yourself and your blog is guest blogging. It is perfectly clear that the more you write the better you'll become. By guest blogging you will be able to build reputation as an expert, but you will also be able to find out what others think of you. It will also help you create a more interesting social media profile, with plenty of useful material shared each day, and you can gain a lot of followers. Guest blogging is a perfect way to build a solid portfolio and to earn trust and credibility, as you begin to publish material on large and reputable industry blogs. You are able to reach more people and to spread your influence, which is why you should also be active outside of your own blog.
Not only does it introduce you to new people, but also it helps you build relationships with other experts and a wider audience. A great thing about this approach is that you don’t just get more traffic-you get visitors that are better targeted and are thus more likely to sign up for your newsletter or buy products from your shop, if you have one. Another important part of guest blogging is certainly the search engine rankings. Links leading to your site from reputable well-visited websites are the ones that will raise the value of your blog in the eyes of search engines and people alike, and make it easier to find.
5. Social Media Channels are powerful tools
Make sure you have complete profiles on social media channels, as this is a great cost-effective way to promote your blog and yourself. You can boost traffic through sharing your posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on, and creating different types of unique content to best suit each particular social network. However, the real question is how often you should do that. For example, you've shared the post once but it didn't go so well, and you are thinking about another one. It's perfectly normal to share more than once, but be careful. If you overdo it, your friends and fans will simply click the hide button and that it something you certainly don't want them to do. Reposting is perfectly acceptable as long as it doesn't become spam, so make sure not to overdo it.
A simple rule to remember is to follow up a self-promotional post with 3-4 industry-related posts from different sources and 1-2 reshares of posts by influencers. Throwing in a funny post or something cute and inspirational that isn’t necessarily related to your niche helps paint you as a normal person with different interests, instead of a self-promotional spam profile. Social media can help you identify the target audience, and once you do you can focus your effort on giving them what they want.
Nowadays, blogging can be an outlet for your creative energy, and a great way for promoting your business or earning money at the same time, which is the main reason why more and more people are doing it. There is no simple formula to help popularize your blog and launch you into superstar status, so you are going to have to work hard and provide the audience with quality, inspiration and originality. Sometimes, especially with blogging, it may seem hard to stand out from the rest of the crowd, but don't be discouraged. If you are truly dedicated and willing to adjust and improve, you should be able to gain the trust of your audience, and get your posts shared. When it comes to the actual writing, always be ready to learn new things, as things constantly change and evolve, and if you don't evolve with the times, you'll find yourself a couple of steps behind the competition.
