In this article we
look at ten simple ways you can increase blog traffic. Some involve minor
tweaks to your content; others require a more fundamental look at how you
approach blogging.
Before we delve into
specifics though, let's start with an important question: why blog?
Why
blog?
There
are two main reasons.
First,
blogging can be a lot of fun. It allows you to express yourself and share your
views with a potentially large audience.
Second: done
well, blogging has the potential to dramatically increase the number of people
visiting your site. According to inbound marketing experts Hubspot,
businesses that blog regularly tend to attract 55% more traffic than those that
don’t.
So,
if you write well and are blogging about a subject in which there is a sizeable
interest, you can end up with a large amount of traffic on your website. And we
all know what lots of traffic to a website means: increased sales opportunities
and revenue.
1.
Find the right writer! (Hint: that might not be you)
At
the heart of getting your blog noticed, and driving lots of traffic to it, is
writing really great content – and that content is going to be much better if
the person writing it is both knowledgeable and passionate about what they are
writing about.
Posts
that are written from the heart – and not by a content farm – are far more
likely to be the posts that interest people and crucially, get shared.
BUT: it
might be the case that you personally are not the best person to write the
posts for your site. Perhaps you're not a great writer; perhaps you don't
have time to devote to blogging.
If
either of those statements sounds like it might apply to you, consider finding
a writer who is capable of creating really great posts and putting in the hours
to do so.
Whoever
ends up writing the posts on your website, their personality has to shine
through. Readers identify with writers because there is much to like (or even
dislike) about their personality, mouthiness or tone of voice.
If
a reader likes YOU as a writer – and not just the quality of the content you
are producing – you are far more likely to attract a dedicated following.
So, make sure your personality comes across in your posts; this
helps you form a rapport with your readers, who may be more inclined as a
result to come back to your blog simply because they like you as an individual.
2.Use keyword research to identify good topics to blog about
It's
dead easy to sit down and write blog posts which cover, in considerable depth,
topics that nobody is particularly interested in.
Similarly, it's easy to write a blog post covering an area that people are really interested in, but to give it a title containing keywords that nobody ever searches for.
Similarly, it's easy to write a blog post covering an area that people are really interested in, but to give it a title containing keywords that nobody ever searches for.
Keyword research is your friend here: you can use a wide range
of tools including Ahrefs, Semrush, Serpstat and Google Keyword Planner to
discover the number of monthly searches for particular keywords, and find out
how difficult it would be to rank for particular search phrases.
Once
you've done your keyword research, you should ensure that your keywords feature
in all the right places in your post — its title, meta description, headers and
body copy.
3.
Focus on producing long-form content
Studies
show that ‘long-form content’ performs better in search results than short or
'thin' posts. Long-form content refers to posts with high word counts
that go into HUGE depth on a particular topic.
There
are a couple of reasons why long-form content helps to generate higher
positions in search results.
First,
longer posts will naturally be more keyword-rich and therefore more likely to
crop up as results for 'long tail' keyword searches.
Second, the in-depth nature of a long post is more likely to satisfy
readers who come across it. The post will be more likely to answer your
visitor's query, or solve their problem. As a result, the post is more likely
to get shared on social media or get linked to from other sites — with very
positive implications for traffic.
4.
Keep your content fresh by updating existing posts
If
you do any online research into blogging or SEO, you'll come across loads of
articles which stress how important it is to create 'fresh' content in order to
generate good search results and traffic to your site.
However,
I'd caution against interpreting this as an instruction to constantly produce new
posts. With my own content, I've found it much more useful to focus on quality
over quantity; and rather than blogging just for the sake of it, I prefer to
invest my time in keeping my existing content as strong (and as in-depth) as
possible.
I do this by continuously reviewing older posts and enhancing them with the most up-to-date information available.
I do this by continuously reviewing older posts and enhancing them with the most up-to-date information available.
Not only does this send the 'freshness' signals to Google that
the search engine's algorithms reportedly approve of, but it typically
increases the length of posts and helps provide the 'long-form' content which
tend to perform better in search results.
5.
Accompany your blog with fabulous images
It’s
REALLY important to use good images in any blog posts you publish.
There
are four main reasons for this.
First,
it helps readers get a sense of what you are writing about (this is
particularly important if you are exploring difficult concepts – visual aids
can really help simplify matters).
Second,
the main picture accompanying your post will show up whenever your visitors
share one of your posts on social media, and if it is a dull picture, it’s far
less likely to generate click through to your site.
Third, as with text, images can be optimized to help your content appear in search results. By adding suitable keywords to a picture’s 'alternative text', file name and caption, you can help search engines gain a better understanding of what your post is about (and by extension, help the post appear in relevant search results).
And finally, good images help to make your content look
authoritative. If you use a beautiful piece of photography instead of a dodgy
piece of clip art to accompany a blog post, it is far more likely to be taken
seriously — i.e., read in the first place! — by people who come across it.
6.
Optimize your blog posts
There
are a series of technical steps — known as 'on page SEO' which you should take
to give your blog posts the best chance of performing well in search.
You
should always:
- create blog post titles which
reflect your keyword research, and accurately describe what you are
writing about
- include keywords in each post’s
URL that reflect the content
- use keyword-rich headers to
break up content
- use keyword rich alt text and
file names for your images.
There
are also a few 'technical SEO' steps you can take. Google prefers content that
loads really quickly — a few things that can help in this area include:
- ensuring all image files are as
small as possible (without being pixilated)
- avoiding use of unnecessary
scripts on the page
- using a CSS style sheet rather
than loads of in line CSS
- registering your site with Google Search Console
7.
Capture email addresses
Once
you’ve attracted a visitor to your blog, you should always attempt to capture
their email address. This allows you to notify visitors via e-newsletter of new
blog posts, which can result in more traffic and shares.
To do this, you need to ensure that there is a data capture form
on your blog post, not just on a 'sign up to our mailing list' page on
your site. You can do this using a sidebar, pop-up box or a simple text
call-to-action to encourage people to join your mailing list.
* Be
careful with pop-ups (or 'interstitials' as Google likes to call them). They
can dramatically increase the number of leads you generate, but they can also
have a negative impact on search traffic, particularly if over-used on mobile
versions of your site
8.
Encourage social sharing
Actively
encourage your readers to share your blog posts.
If
they follow these encouragements, not only should you see a rise in traffic to
your posts, but you may also be sending subtle ‘signals’ to search engines
regarding the popularity and quality of your posts (the jury is out on whether
social sharing has a direct impact on search results, but there does seem to be
a correlation of sorts).
Using a tool like Sumo or Add this – which allow you to add
a truckload of clever social sharing icons to various parts of your website, as
well as data capture forms - can help in this regard.
9.
Encourage comments and user engagement
Encourage
people (yes, even trolls!) to add their own views at the bottom of your
posts. There are three reasons why this is beneficial:
1. It creates more
keyword-rich content on your website
2. It can help encourage
return visits to your blog, as discussions take hold on your comments section
3. Some SEO experts
believe that Google treats posts which generate a lot of community discussion
preferentially to those without any comments.
10.
Build backlinks to your posts
At
the simplest level, there are two key ingredients to ensuring a blog post ranks
in search:
First, your post has to be contain quality content.
Second, it has to have a lot of backlinks — links from other sites — pointing to it.
We've covered the 'quality content' bit earlier: you basically need to focus on producing long-form posts which cover the topic you're writing about clearly, and in considerable depth.
Getting backlinks is often a harder task, as it involves reaching out to other bloggers and asking them to include a link to your content on their posts. This is a time consuming affair, but it's absolutely essential, and if you take a thorough approach to it, it can prove very fruitful.
First, your post has to be contain quality content.
Second, it has to have a lot of backlinks — links from other sites — pointing to it.
We've covered the 'quality content' bit earlier: you basically need to focus on producing long-form posts which cover the topic you're writing about clearly, and in considerable depth.
Getting backlinks is often a harder task, as it involves reaching out to other bloggers and asking them to include a link to your content on their posts. This is a time consuming affair, but it's absolutely essential, and if you take a thorough approach to it, it can prove very fruitful.
Another option with regard to backlink generation is to hire an
agency to build links for you — but you have to be careful here, as hiring an
agency or consultant who then goes onto place or buy links on low-quality sites
can actually do more harm than good.
Any thoughts on how to
increase blog traffic?
We hope you've enjoyed our tips on how to increase blog traffic.
If you have any suggestions or queries relating to blogging, we'd love to hear
them — please add a comment below!
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