For increasing blog traffic, you should be focusing on many different strategies, here are:
1. Write More Content
This is the most obvious one; just write more content. Many bloggers argue over how often you should be posting. The truth is there’s no right number. Some popular blogs post every day while others once a month.
“But I thought the more you post, the more traffic you’ll get?”
Nope, that lie has been floating around the blogosphere for years. There is some truth in it though. The fact is that it all depends on your marketing. If you’re targeting keywords and doing SEO then yes – the more you post the more traffic you’ll get.
However if you’re relying on social media and your tribe to share your posts, posting every day might not be a good idea. In that case, your tribe (followers) should wait a while before they get their hands on your precious content.
As if you want lots of social sharing, your content needs to be excellent and you need to keep your subscribers waiting eagerly for more. The more you make them wait for your stuff the more likely they are to read it and share.
On the other end, if you’re posting every day your content will be “standard” and won’t get many shares, BUT – it will get search engine traffic. So if you want to quickly grow your blog and get a crap load of traffic – start posting daily & target keywords!
2. Do Keyword Research While Writing
A great thing about SEO is that you can rank for lots of differnet search terms by simply mentioning them in your blog posts. Before you begin writing a new blog post, you absolutely must find a keyword to target. Use the Google Keyword tool and find 1 main keyword to craft your blog post around.
Targeting a main keyword and eventually ranking for it will ensure long term search engine traffic (just as long as you optimize your content + build backlinks). On top of your main keyword, you should be constantly doing keyword research whilst writing so you can find other related keywords to incorporate into your blog post.
When you incorporate lots of long tail keywords (more than 3 word keywords that are usually low competition) you increase your chances of ranking high on Google for them and receiving more search engine traffic.
3. Make Your Posts SEO Friendly
Just make your posts more SEO friendly. This means incorporating your keyword/s into your post title, description and header tags. Also using image alt tags and making sure your keyword density is above 3%.
4. Always Reference Your Blog Posts And Posts Of Others
This is a no brainer when it comes to increasing blog traffic. So simple, just link to your other blog posts throughout your posts and reference posts of other blogs. By linking to your own posts internally, you’re going to increase your avg. page views/visit and by linking to other people’s stuff you usually get a thank you link back.
Even if you don’t, you might get a nice email from them, a blog comment (all the time) or develop a new relationship that helps you in the long run.
5. Guest Post
To be very honest with you I’m starting to get sick of teaching this one. Guest blogging is one of the most powerful ways if not the most powerful for increasing blog traffic. You simply find other blogs in your niche and guest post for them. Many popular blogs will have pages that say “guest post” or “write for us”.
The key is to write great content and only ever write for the top blogs in your niche. When guest blogging, you can’t immediately start writing for the biggest blogs in your ncihe. You have to start with the less established blogs and work your way up to the top.
You’re generally allowed an author resource box with a few links back to your blog (this is where you get a free backlink and steal lots of traffic).
6. Comment On Other Blogs
Blog commenting is a stupid simple strategy, no explanation is needed. Start commenting on the posts of the most popular blog’s in your niche.
7. Use Your RSS Feed And Promote It
Most blogs don’t pay attention to their RSS feed, instead they focus on their frigging email list. I always say build your list first, then get your subs hooked on your RSS feed and following you on your favorite social network.
Using Feedburner (a free service provided by Google) you can quickly setup an RSS feed for your blog. They are really simple. When subscribed to a blog’s RSS feed, you get instantly notified about their new blog posts.
So it’s just another channel to leverage to drive more traffic to your new blog posts. You can enable email subscriptions in Feedburner so your subscribers will receive instant email notifications about your new posts.
Why? The more times someone sees or hears about your blog post, the more likely they are to check it out. If you’ve got an opt-in email list you mail about your new posts, your subscribers might check it out.
However, if they’re subscribed to your email list, RSS feed and are following you on both Facebook + Google Plus. They’re going to be 5 times more likely to read your post.
8. Target Sharing Audiences
The more times your blog content gets shared, the more traffic it will receive. The trouble is most readers just won’t bother sharing your stuff. Solution?
Target sharing audiences. When someone told me this, I thought how the heck am I going to attract the people who are most likely to share? Then it hit me…
Find the people who are already sharing, the best way of doing this is by finding communities. Many popular blogs have their own communities. Little communities of people who read, like and share all of their blog posts.
So how do you get your blog in front of these communities? Blog commenting, guest posting and participating in forums!
In Prosperity,
