No one wants to be paying for traffic, but what can you do to drive more people to your blog? How can you be discovered by more people and what do you need to do to get more eyes on your blog?
There are several simple things you can do to drive long-term organic traffic to your blog while doing what you want to be doing – writing.
Blog Consistently
Blogging consistently is one of the biggest factors in driving traffic to your blog. Not only does it allow people to know when to expect new content from you, but your consistency also helps you appear higher in searches. “The bottom line is that while the quality of your content matters, how frequently you post and update that content is vitally important, too. Balancing the relationship between quality and frequency is critical.”
However, whilst you may be consistently blogging and have many visitors on your site, ultimately, they may never subscribe to your blog or even read the whole of your article meaning your efforts are going unnoticed. This is why lead generation conversion plugins are so effective. A great plugin that works well is Optinmonster as their features which range from optin forms to well-timed pop-ups help to grow your email list by converting abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers.
Optimise for Search Engines
While your consistency is vital in growing your traffic, the quality of your posts is important, so make sure you set a schedule for yourself that you can not only stick to, but also create engaging, value-packed posts each time. Whether you’re posting once a week, once every two weeks, or three times a week, do not just throw together a post to get something up on your scheduled day.
Spend some time on each post working on your SEO (search engine optimization). Utilizing a plugin tool , like Yoast for example, is an easy way to check the frequency of the use of your keywords, how readable your post is, and how well the post is optimized for SEO. Writing about the same general topics, but changing your keywords up a bit will show both Google and your readers how in-depth your knowledge on that particular topic is and will keep bringing that reader back to you to learn more about the subject.
Write Engaging Headlines
You’ve optimized your posts properly and you’ve written incredibly valuable content, but now how do you get people to click through to your blog? Your headline. Your headline is the first impression you put out for your reader and it must be magnetic enough to pull the reader in. Let the reader know what your post will be about, but don’t give away all the juicy details in the title. Leave the reader with the feeling of wanting to know more and entice them to click through to your blog post.
Leave Genuine Comments on Other Blogs
The easiest way to grow your community and get your name out is to leave comments on other people’s blogs. Don’t just post comments that lack sense or meaning like “Great post!” or “Thanks for sharing,” but real, genuine comments that demonstrate that you have actually read the post. There will be times when you can add more analysis on the topic, or gracefully present another point of view, but the key is to truly engage with other bloggers.
Most commenting plugins require you to provide your name and email address when you leave a comment, and most offer you the opportunity to leave your website URL as well. Take advantage of this. Regularly engaging on others’ posts will keep you on both the other bloggers’ radar and those who read the comments on the blog. Leaving authentic comments will encourage them to check out your blog as well.
Guest Post on Other Blogs
Once you have started creating great content consistently on your blog, one way to get in front of a new audience is to guest post on other people’s blogs. Find bloggers that you admire who write about similar topics to what you cover on your blog and ask if they accept guest posts. If they do accept guest posts, craft a well thought out topic that will both be of interest to their readers, and also allows you to demonstrate your knowledge.
A well-written post that’s of quality content with an author bio at the end will drive the new audience to your blog to learn more about you and your zone of genius and will ultimately drive traffic to your blog. When you write guest posts, the other blogger will likely also share the posts across his or her social media channels, so be prepared to have traffic coming from new referral sources once your guest post is published.
Share Your Posts on Social Media
With billions of people using social media each day, sharing your blog posts with your friends and audience on social media will drive more traffic to your site. Find out where your ideal reader spends the most time and make sure to share your posts there. Remember that things like tweets have a shorter lifespan than say a Facebook post, so it’s ok to share one post many times (just not back-to-back).
Another way to get the most bang-for-your-buck with social media is to create different graphics for your post, so that you can share the same post more frequently using different graphics so that it doesn’t feel to your readers like they are being spammed.
The key to growing your blog is to continually draw more traffic to your site and that can be done without paying for advertising. Use the tools and tricks listed above to get your name and your blog in front of as many eyes as possible and your readership will grow.
