7 Surefire Ways to boost your blog Traffic in Just 30 Days! (NB. no. 4 is a gem!)
Get more traffic to your blog with these 7 failproof tips!
Traffic's the word. Commuters hate it but bloggers want it! Traffic is probably the number one word you go from loathing to loving when you move from employee to full-time blogger.
As a full-time blogger of half a decade now, I have long since stopped losing sleep over numbers, and I definitely don't want you to start. As I often stress with new bloggers, numbers alone do not a great blogger make! Content is king, and influence can be measured in many ways. The greatest influencers are those bloggers who have true authority and a devoted, loyal following, no matter the size of that following.
But, never the less, blog traffic is definitely important, and you may have been pulling your hair out at times, wondering, how do i get more readers for my blog?
How do I get traffic to my blog for free?
Traffic to your blog is the very thing that will grow your following and build you that influence. If you want to increase your earning potential and make your blogging business sustainable and strong in a short amount of time, you need to learn how to increase blog traffic fast, and, perhaps even more importantly; how to increase blog traffic for free!
It's true; influence isn't measured purely in numbers. You can have brilliant influence with your 120 followers, stronger than someone who has 15 000 followers without authority, but, if you could grow that following by the thousands and still hold their attention, loyalty and trust, then you have built an absolute influence empire! Imagine achieving this without spending a penny on advertising, wouldn't that be pretty nice?
Well, it's totally possible. You really don't need to fork out money to get more blog traffic. Just apply these 7 principles, and I promise you will see a lift in your stats!
“numbers alone do not a great blogger make. influence can be measured in many ways”
1. Boost blog traffic with social media
Yes, I know you've heard this one before, and I know that it sounds like a friggin broad subject. And it can be broad. But it can also be very specific, and done right, social media can be the number one contributor to the increase in traffic to your blog!
Specifically, you need to pick the social media platforms that most benefit your brand for the amount of time you spend on them. In other words, do a few and do them well, instead of spreading your efforts like you spread the last bit of mayo onto a large piece of toast. Sure, you've covered every corner, but you can't even taste it anymore, so you might as well not have bothered.
Spend a bit of time evaluating which social media platforms actually suit your niche and your content, delete the rest, and start reforming your efforts so that they become optimised for the platforms you choose to remain on. Pick well, invest the time and effort it requires, and you will reap the benefits in form of traffic to your blog.
Social media is a collective name for a well of platforms, but many platforms barely have much more in common than that very name. Thinking that one approach suits all, is social media suicide. Plus, you're dreaming, if you think that you, one person, can master every social media platform available without losing your mind (and thumbs). It's just not sustainable, and it won't be done well if you try.
traffic boosting Steps to take right now:
- Identify which social media platforms work well with your blog, brand and niche. Where are your readers, what do they like to share, and how can you stand out on those platforms.
- Optimise the content for each social media platform; choose images, formats, links and content that works for each site.
- Choose automation tools that help you schedule posts to the social media channels you've chosen for your blog.
- Add social media sharing buttons to your blog. Make sure there's an option to pin images from your blog posts to Pinterest, and that you have sharing buttons for the social media sites that are popular within your niche. Don't go crazy with sharing buttons, though! Too many options result in less shares, so stick with fewer, highly visible buttons in strategic places.
Next step Actions:
- Develop a social media sharing schedule for your blog. Decide how often and when you want to share your blog posts on each platform, and plot this schedule into your automation tool. You should spread the shares out at a pace and interval that suits each social media platform as well as your audience. Don't be afraid to promote the same content twice or more, just never use the same message several times over, and space out the duplicate shares. Change up imagery, text and format to keep your post interesting rather than spammy!
- Keep close track of the results and feedback! Make sure you use the integrated analytics tool for each social media site and, of course, your blog, to see which posts are succeeding (and which aren't), and where you're getting the traffic. If you have the skills and the budget, add third-party analytics tools too. Make sure you integrate Google Analytics if your blogging platform gives you that option.
- Reward sharing! Create an awesome downloadable that you give to people who share your content by installing a sharing rewards plugin on you blog, or, at the very least, thank your readers for sharing your content by visiting their social media sites and leaving a comment for them!
“ pick the social media platforms that most benefit your brand for the amount of time you spend on them”
2. boost blog traffic with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
You wouldn't expect a blank envelope to find you in the mail, so why would you assume that Google can find your awesome blog posts if there's no logical trail leading to them?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation to be specific, is the process of guiding organic traffic to your blog or website. It is the steps you need to take in order to be found by the algorithms search engines use to look for content online.
Plainly speaking, SEO puts an "address" on the envelope that contains each of your posts, so that search engines can "read" the label and send traffic your way. Search engines have a system for how they read these "addresses", and this system is called algorithms. Algorithms look for certain criteria on your blog, and when these criteria are met, the search engine will recognise it and give your blog a place in their search results.
So, what criteria do the search engines use when they are scanning your blog?
Well, most of these criteria are well known, and we can optimise our websites to suit them. Hence, the name Search Engine Optimisation.
If you think SEO sounds a bit scary and complicated, then you're not alone. But you don't need to be a programmer or an expert to make simple modifications to your content that will make a HUGE difference in how you attract traffic to your blog!
A few well-known criteria search engine algorithms look at are:
- Titles
- Keywords
- Link wording
- Links
- Authority or reputation
Traffic boosting Steps to take right now:
- Make sure the name of your site and your blog post titles represent the content well. For example, if you write a post about your favourite chocolate cake recipe, and your blog post title is "Wow, did I overeat on this thing last night!", then Google will probably think you're writing about overeating, and not a chocolate cake recipe. If you wanted a fun and low-key title, a better option would be "This Delicious Chocolate Cake Recipe is So Good it May Cause Overeating!".
- Make sure you use keywords throughout your blog posts that explain to Google what your blog post is about. For example, because I want Google to know that I am writing about how you can increase traffic to your blog, I will use variations of sentences including words like "traffic" or "blog traffic" throughout the text where this is appropriate. See what I did there? ;)
- Make sure you use relevant keywords in the titles of the images on your blog, so that when search engines scan the URL or the titles of your images, they will understand that these images belong to posts about the topics that you have chosen. All too often, I see images on Pinterest or in searches with awkward names like "img_23785.my.butt.looks.good.in.this.one_edited65" when they should be named "7 surefire ways to double your blog traffic in the next 30 days!" - Or whatever your post is called!
- Write good content! Google favours quality content, plus, longer web articles tend to get more love from the Googlebots that crawl through your content to index your site, as well as more linkbacks.
Next step Actions:
Get reputable websites and blogs to link to your content! Now, this is a slightly harder task to accomplish, but it sure will drive traffic to your blog like nothing else!
You see, Google, like other search engines, believes that if a lot of other websites are linking to your content, then you must be doing something right. A lot of links to your blog indicates that you know what you're doing, and that you're worth directing traffic towards. We call this authority or reputation.
Links from high-traffic or reputable sites are counted as more valuable than links from low-traffic or low-authority sites. This is the search engine's way of weeding out all of those websites who try to manipulate the algorithms by creating or buying phony links.
So, how do you get other reputable blogs and websites to link to your content so you can increase your traffic?
Here are 3 things you can action right now, to get more links to your content:
Once again; write good content! Quality blog posts, and especially evergreen blog posts, are more likely to get shared, and thus linked to, throughout the web.
I'm still kinda baffled that this happened, but not long ago, I was contacted by kingpin The Huffington Post who asked politely if they could please post some of my content from my blog The Gluten Free Lifesaver. Now that's an email that makes a blogger smile on a Monday, I tell you! Check it out:
Now, I can't tell you exactly how that happened, I don't have the exact recipe for how to get published on The Huffington Post (although a lot of other people do -it's quite the rage). Truth is, this wasn't even my favourite post by far. But, it was one that I had put a lot of effort into making, and, as by a some sort of magic, the Huffington Post found it and thought it was pretty cool. Luck may strike.
Ego-trip aside, my point is; put effort into creating strong content, and someone awesome and influential will inevitably find it. I'm no special flower. If it can happen to me, then it can certainly happen to you!
2. Guest post! Establish collaborations with reputable bloggers, and pitch your unique, quality blog post for a guest posting opportunity on their site. Not only does this get your awesome content in front of a whole new bunch of potential new followers, but you gain at least one link back to your site in your bio (if not more throughout your post if that's alright with the person running the blog), as well as a new blogging connection. Guest posting really is gold!
>> Guess what: You can totally get your content published on blogitbetter.com! Just submit a request for guest posting HERE!
3. Actively share your blog posts on sites that attract other bloggers within your niche! Be present and active in communities that share your interests and work within the same niche, and if your interest is genuine and your contributions valuable, your content will be noticed, appreciated and shared.
“you don’t need to be a programmer or an expert to make effective SEO modifications to your content”
3. boost blog traffic with great headlines
Great headlines are super important for your blog, but it's also equally important to master the art of good headlines on social media and in your newsletters. In fact, great headlines are one of the most important factors for generating traffic to your website!
Think about it; what is the first thing you see when you look for an article on the internet? The headline. This naturally applies to all humans out there looking for content. Hence, your headlines must be appealing to your audience.
What's more, search engines like Google also read your headlines to work out what's in your blog post! This means, that not only must you create headlines that are attractive to humans, but you must also figure out how to make them attractive to search engines. Usually, humans and search engines are attracted to different sorts of stuff (which is good, or else we'd be connecting with Googles and Yahoos on Tinder..), so your headlines have to cover several bases.
Here are 10 things humans look for in a great headline:
- Headlines that fit within search results (max 65 characters) and that you can quickly scan.
- Headlines that reference the reader by using personified words like "you" and "yours"
- Headlines that ask direct questions, like "How would you like...?"
- Headlines that use numbers, like "7 ways to boost traffic" or "5 steps to.."
- Headlines that use eye-catching adjectives, like "delicious" or "Strange"
- Headlines that prompt fear of loss, like "Without ... you could miss out on...!"
Here are 3 things search engines look for in a great headline:
- Headlines with keywords
- Headlines that are specific
- Headlines that describe the content of your post
traffic boosting Steps to take right now:
- Firstly, never promise that your post will deliver something it won't! make your headline awesome, but relevant.
- Consider the character limit for each social media channel your headline might feature in
- Make sure your headline works on its own and makes sense even when it's not attached to the post or visible next to an image.
- Make your headline easy to read and understand, and avoid the sort of "punny" fun headlines that grab attention in printed media, but really don't make any sense in a search feed.
- Bounce ideas with people around you, and see what grabs their attention!
Next step Actions:
- Try A/B testing in your analytics tool to see which types headlines perform the best over time. If you don't have access to testing tools, simple pay attention to which headlines get the most clicks, and try to replicate them.
- Try headline helper tools online to test your headlines for flaws and SEO, and get tips for improving them.
- Do a blog tidy-up, and spend time improving existing headlines on your blog that aren't performing.
>> Take Your Blogging To The Next Level With the Blog It Better Ultimate Blog Planning Kit!
4. boost blog traffic by including long-tail keywords
What is a long-tail keyword? It sounds complicated, but the answer lies right there, in the Google search bar, in the form of Google autosuggest!
Whenever you start typing a sentence for something you're looking for in Google, the autosuggest feature prompts a series of possible sentences in a drop-down menu. These sentences represent popular searches. Like this:
This is Google telling you what most people who use those keywords are looking for. That's really useful information to you!
Long-tail keywords are essentially keyword based phrases that match what your reader is specifically looking for. When a reader types in a chain of keywords, google knows exactly what that person is looking for. If you can manage to bake these long-tail keyword phrases into your content, then Google will send those readers straight your way!
Apart from the fact that long-tail keywords generate blog traffic, they also ensure that you get exactly the right reader for your post, and in turn a very likely long-term follower!
To make sure you don't mess up with long-tail keywords, and get the phrases all wrong, simply use Google as a tool to discover what your audience is searching for!
>> I Can Make Your Blog Look Totally Professional and Attractive, Fast! Click here to learn more..
5. BOOST YOUR TRAFFIC BY COLLABORATING WITH OTHER BLOGGERS
Getting your content published onto as many external sites as possible will absolutely increase the traffic to your blog!
More eyes on your content means more of the right people in your niche will find you, but it also means more links to your site.
In some ways, blogging really is a numbers game, and the more people who see your name pop up and your content floating around, the more hits you will get. That sounds pretty straight forward, but what you also need to remember, is that getting your content published or talked about on other blogs and websites, also improves your reputation and authority within your niche.
There are many ways you can get your content seen across a multitude of websites, and here are a few of them:
5 ways to get your content seen by more people through collaboration:
- Guest posting! Numero uno! Guest posting is such an amazing and valuable way for you to reach a new audience, gain authority within your niche, and build a great blogging network for yourself! If you aren't guest posting already, you are 100% missing out on the most important traffic-building tool in the blogosphere. Get on it, and get yourself featured on high-quality blogs within your niche, right now!
>> Wanna get your content published on blogitbetter.com? You can submit a request for guest posting here!
- Link-parties and Sharing Pods! Link parties are essentially engagement happenings hosted by a blogger on his/her site. Link parties give bloggers the opportunity to join in, and share their own links. The internet is littered with them, and you need to find those that are popular and reputable within your niche. Tip: Make sure you get in early when the link party opens, so as not to be completely drowned out by other bloggers in the feed.
Sharing pods are a similar concept, but structured a bit differently and can generate even more quality traffic if you are active within a good pod.
A sharing or engagement pod consists of a group of bloggers who join up on for example Facebook or Instagram, and agree to share each other's posts in exchange for return shares. Sharing pods are a fantastic route to blog traffic, and has the added benefit of helping you form long-lasting blog relationships within your niche!
>> Contact me HERE if you would like to join the Blog it Better Tribe Sharing Pod for bloggers!
- Get active on Pinterest Group Boards! Pinterest is an amazing tool for bloggers who want to boost their blog traffic, and Pinterest Group Boards can be the opener to a well of new viewers and collaborators!
Pinterest Group Boards are boards that allow collaborations with other pinners. This means that you can receive or request an invite to pin, and, if you're accepted, you can share your own pins from your blog onto a board that has a lot of viewers, most of which you probably wouldn't reach otherwise.
>> Click Here To Request an Invitation to Pin to the Blog it Better Tribe Pinterest Board!
If you are confident you have a great profile and you're beginning to attract a few followers, you can even create your own group board and invite others to pin. The perk of creating your own group board is that it will be displayed on your collaborators' Pinterest walls too, and so all their visitors will see it!
--> I want to just show you how much love I get from Pinterest on a month where I've had absolutely NO time to pin (and, importantly: I have NO autobots or pin-robots working on that blog/Pinterest account! This is not a result of automation!), so that you can see the traffic boosting power Pinterest has even without any work, once you've got it up and running.
Take a look:
As you can see, even on a slow month, Pinterest generates almost as many hits as Google on The Gluten Free Lifesaver (my food blog). That's pretty darned significant, especially if your blog hasn't been "discovered" by Google yet (it can take a while)! Pinterest alone has the potential to totally TRANSFORM your blog traffic if you use it right.
traffic boosting Steps to take right now:
- Establish connections with great bloggers within your niche, and pitch a unique and well-written post for guest publishing on their blogs.
Try to pitch with purpose, instead of sounding like a generic sales rep. Explain why you'd like to guest post to their particular blog, how your content can contribute, and why you are an expert in your field.
Don't be afraid to be a little bit picky, and definitely don't underestimate yourself! Leap, and the net will appear (said John Burroughs)!
>> Wanna get your content published on blogitbetter.com? You can submit a request for guest posting here!
- Seek out engagement- or sharing pods within your niche, or start you own! Contact bloggers you'd like to work with via private messages on Instagram or Facebook, or via email, and suggest a collaboration.
Once again, don't be shy, and just give it a go!
>> Contact me HERE if you would like to join the Blog it Better Tribe Sharing Pod for bloggers!
- Make sure you have an active and attractive Pinterest account! If you don't have one already, get started with one straight away. Build your Pinterest audience by creating useful and attractive boards, and pinning great content.
Follow the Blog it Better Pinterest Account to see how it's done, and once you have you own awesome account up and running you can send me a request to pin on the Blog it Better Tribe Board.
- Make sure you have a Pin-it button installed on your website! Platforms like Wordpress and Squarespace let you activate a setting to allow these buttons to appear, and on a self-hosted blog you can either get a plugin or install it yourself using code. Super important!
The Blog it Better Tribe Board is an opportunity for you as a blogger to have your posts viewed by thousands of new readers!
>> Click Here To Request an Invitation to Pin to the Blog it Better Tribe Pinterest Board!
6. Boost your blog traffic through your mailing list
How important is a mailing list to a blogger? THIS important! I have shouted it from the rooftops before, and I will yell it again until it rings in your ears (sorry), but I simply can't stress it enough: YOU NEED TO HAVE A MAILINGLIST!
Why, might you say.
Well, if you've read my e-book "My Top 10 Steps to Infinite Blogging Success" - Which by the way you can download exclusively for FREE here, you will have learnt about the dangers of building your house on rented land.
Because that's what you're essentially doing when you build a following on social media or a free blogging platform. You're putting your blood sweat and tears into building a structure that can be taken away from you.
Your email list, however, is your own. And, what's more, it is your #1 way to communicate directly with your tribe! Which is what you're gonna do, right now, to increase your blog traffic.
Having a jam-packed mailing list is a fantastic thing (even though Mailchimp charges you incrementally more to send out emails when you start getting into the multiple thousand subscriber count -hello fun surprise.) because it gives you the freedom to talk your followers directly, when you want, and in your preferred way.
If you already have an email list tucked away somewhere in a virtual junk drawer, it is high time you bring it out into the light, dust it off, and start using it to direct traffic to your blog!
traffic boosting Steps to take right now:
- Start collecting e-mail addresses on your blog or social media site, if you aren't already! My favourite way to reward my readers for handing over their email address, is to reward them with a super useful and valuable tool that I know they will love, like my Free E-Book for Bloggers which is exclusively available to my newsletter subscribers (and nobody else!)
- Make your newsletter opt-in highly visible on your site! A lot of bloggers like pop-ups, but I'm more of a header kinda gal. I like to offer them a beautiful plate of goodies that they can grab at their own leisure, rather than pushing a meal into their faces if they're not even hungry. But that's just my strategy. You find one that works for your niche!
- Start planning a newsletter design, style, content and posting schedule! Find a way to distribute valuable and exclusive content to your followers on a regular (but not too frequent) basis, and let them know about any new or popular content on your blog. This will help them find their way back to your blog time and again, even if they had (God forbid) forgotten about you after their first visit.
>> Hey Blogger! Would You Like My Really Good Blogging E-Book For Free, PLUS Gain Access to Exclusive Updates and Content? Click here!
7.boost your blog traffic by creating viral content
Wow, that seems a tall order, right? Creating viral content.. But wouldn't it be just nifty if you got it right!
Viral content is, without a doubt, a goldmine for bloggers. Some posts go viral for no reason at all, and others are carefully crafted by expert content creators, to make the journey from obscure to viral as quick and painless as possible.
You can experience a post going viral "just like that", for example after sharing it on Pinterest, but for the most part, bloggers who want their content to become insanely popular and shared to the rafters, have to prep for it.
Viral posts have the ability to bring literally thousands of new readers to your blog, and you can get a blog traffic boost like you've never seen before.
Viral content may seem random, but there are a few common denominators that connect them.
traffic boosting Steps to take right now:
- Write longer quality posts! Statistics show that longer content receives more shares on average, in fact, blog posts with over 2000 words receive the most shares and are the most popular. Just look at this graph from okdork.com:
Image courtesy of www.okdork.com
- Invoke strong emotions in people! If you can successfully manage to make people laugh out loud, struggle to hold back their tears, or shake with fury; then you will likely see that post shared to viral proportions.
- Create posts that appeal to people's pride or sense of self! We all want to share content that makes us look good; be it funny, intelligent or of sound social conscience. That's why people tend to share content that confirms this belief of themselves or reaffirms their self-image to the world around them.
- Use attractive images in your posts, and make sure they fit the social media platforms most frequently used by your niche!
- Create list posts! List posts (like this one) are super popular. They are easy to read (or even skim), they mix information with entertainment, they appeal to the organiser in us, and more than anything; they are tempting and easy to share!
- Use Google Trends or Quora to search for popular topics within your niche! If you can find out what problems your tribe needs solving, then you can reach out and give them the answers they are looking for!
With all these elements in place, you have primed your blog posts to go viral. And, if you do find yourself on the receiving end of viral blog post traffic after using these tips, then you need to make damn sure you have all the other tricks from this post in place so that you can keep those new readers entertained and coming back!
Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to leave a comment or share this post if you appreciated the info :)
-Kristine x
hey, blogger!
What is the biggest challenge you are facing on YOUR blog right now, and what are you going to do to fix it?
start a conversation in the comment field
HEY, CAN I ASK YOU A TEENY TINY FAVOUR?
If you appreciate my content, it would make me the happiest gal in the blogosphere if you would share my post ❤️
Perhaps you think that your little share doesn't matter, but it means a HUGE deal to me! Without shares from people like you, I literally couldn't keep this blog running.
A share from you won't take up much of your time but it will seriously help me out, so please hit one of the (very convenient) little buttons below to tell your friends about Blog it Better!
Hint: I've included a pretty neat Pinterest banner that I think you'll like 😉
Thank you so very much, you're totally awesome!
Kristine x
you might also like:
HI, I'M KRISTINE!
I've been a full-time blogger for half a decade and a business and marketing professional a decade before that.
Now I help bloggers reach their goals, grow their income and increase their influence by giving them the tools they need to confidently pursue their passion.
