You published a well-written blog post and expected (and hoped) others to see, read, share and comment on it. But instead, you got NOTHING. This isn’t as unusual as you might think. In fact, most bloggers experience a blogging drought at some point. And every time it happens, it feels like no one is EVER paying attention to your blog posts, let alone reading your articles or sharing them.
The blogging drought phenomenon happens all the time, particularly with company blogs. In most niches and industries, you’ll be in competition with hundreds (if not thousands) of other bloggers for the attention of a small pool of readers. To stand out from the rest, your blog must be truly one of a kind in all aspects — design, content, marketing, and so on.
Making an exceptional blog that gets regular organic traffic requires serious time, dedication, and effort. Based on an article posted on Forbes, roughly 80% of blogs fail. That might make starting your own blog feel like an impossible task, but you can beat this hostile statistic — step one is increasing your blog traffic.
The important thing to remember is that “more traffic†won’t always get you the results you want, unless the increased traffic is pertinent to your brand and niche.
This means it must be RELEVANT and TARGETED traffic.
Beginner bloggers might not know where to start, so here are some tried-and-tested blogging tips and tricks designed to boost relevant traffic to your new blog.
1. Be smart about your blog post ideas
If you write something that no one or only a few people are interested in, you’ll have difficulty generating blog traffic, regardless of how well-crafted your blog post is. Focusing on a personal interest and nothing else is a mistake that many newbie bloggers are guilty of. So, how do you capture the attention of your target audience? Write about relevant topics — subjects that your target audiences might use search engines to find out more about.
While keyword research is a good starting point, Google Trends is considered the “BFF†of anyone who wants to grow a successful blog for good reason. It’s mainly where you — and every other blogger — can monitor the search volume of the keywords and key phrases your market uses in their online search. Aside from Google Trends, you can also use BuzzSumo and SEMrush for blog post ideas.
While following topic trends is important, it’s also crucial that you look for topic ideas that fit your market, content strategy and personal brand.
Capturing the attention of your market with the right blog topics is a significant step in standing out from your competition. If they happen to match perfectly with your personal interests, then that’s an added bonus.
2. Pick a type of content.
Passing off a large blob of text as content is a big no-no for most online readers. Even if your writing skills are top-notch and your blog post topic is “on point,†all they see is ´blah-blah-blah.’ You want to encourage your target market to read your entire blog post and not shy away from it. Keep in mind when you’re writing blog posts that some content types get more traction than others.
Based on a study by BuzzSumo, the top two content types that people appreciate most are listicles and infographics. Between the two, listicle is a crowd favorite. It’s also scientifically proven that people love to read content with bullet points. See, even this blog post you’re reading right now is a listicle.
3. Prioritize long tail keywords.
Neil Patel explained it well. Focusing on single keywords doesn’t work anymore — at least, it’s not as successful a search engine optimization (SEO) technique as before. It’s extremely hard to rank for one search phrase, so rather than focusing only on them, use a keyword research tool to identify related keywords that often appear in conjunction with your content’s target keyword.
An important part of this is making sure that you’re meeting the search intent of your target audience. Search engines do their best to figure out user intent and give them a list of the relevant results. So someone wanting to budget for children’s sneakers won’t end up on a blog post from someone complaining about how expensive kids’ shoes are when they search for “childrens sneakers cost.”
4. Share the content multiple times.
An article from MarketingProfs zeroed in on the fact that many brands don’t use social media effectively. When it comes to spreading and sharing your blog post, once isn’t enough. The trick here is to have a content calendar where you schedule re-sharing your blog content in a timely fashion. For instance, you can publish content and immediately share it on your socials.
After a day or two, tweet about the article again, but with a different message. After a week, share the blog post on Facebook or LinkedIn again. Find out what your top-ranking pages are with Google Analytics, and share those articles once more. Reposting your article can attract readers because it tells your target market that your content is still timely and relevant.
5. Shake up your theme once in a while.
If you’ve been a blogger for quite some time and have fallen into a lull of things, introduce something new to your readers. Start writing some fun, off-topic stories once a week. Do a ´throwback’ to old blog posts on Tuesdays instead of Thursdays. Mixing in something new and paying attention to its publishing date can increase user engagement and catch the attention of your target market. It can also revive the interest of your followers and make them more active in dropping comments or sharing your blog posts.
6. Take advantage of your email list.
One of the most important blogging tips you’ll ever get is to work on your email marketing. This is because your email list is one of the top sources of blog traffic you have. Sending an email newsletter to your loyal subscribers is like giving them a nudge to check your blog at once or when they have free time. An email list is a vital tool for generating relevant traffic because if you sustain it, it will keep on growing. Also, unlike the number of your blog visitors that can fluctuate over time, your email list is a reliable database where you can reach out to people at any given time. And your blogging platform will often come with built-in email marketing tools.
7. Start with your headlines.
Compelling headlines matter. People who search online almost always read the blog titles to gauge if the blog posts meet their search intent or not. There are a lot of strategies on how to write engaging headlines, but the two important factors you must always keep in mind are the following:
- Treat your blog titles as a promise. The blog post is where you deliver that promise.
- Regardless of how you construct your headline, it must always leave an unanswered question. And yes, the answer will be the blog content. This is an important aspect of your digital marketing efforts and promotion strategy.
Recommended Headline Generator Tools:
- Title Generator
- Kickass Headline Generator
- Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator
- Headline Wizard by Tim Gross
8. Repurpose your old content.
Everything is a cycle. At some point, the trending or relevant topic you’ve written about months or years ago will resurface and become the new, improved ´thing’ once more. This is an excellent opportunity to give your old content a new lease of life. Not only will you improve your audience’s user experience, but you’ll also get more search traffic. When searching for an old topic to update, make sure to:
- Add new information about the topic that is genuinely helpful to your readers.
- Add new links or resources to support the updated content.
Once you’ve updated an archived article, you can publish it as a new post under the same URL. Just make sure it updates with your new publishing date so visitors know its fresh content. But, if you want to use a new URL, make sure to add a 301 redirect from the old one so your readers can follow the flow of content correctly.
9. Take full advantage of social media platforms for promotion.
Practically everyone who goes online has some form of social media account. So another one of our top blogger tips is to optimize on this fact. Today, staying active on different social media platforms is a great opportunity to foster relationships not just with your target market, but also with industry influencers. Apart from promoting your blog posts and engaging with your followers, you can also curate the blog posts of the influencers and unobtrusively add links to your content.
10. Promote beyond the standard social media platforms.
While it’s tempting just to focus on promoting your content on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you must step out of these comfort zones. You can get a competitive advantage when you share your articles on smaller (but still well-known) networks. Most of these smaller networks have active audiences/members, so your content can stand out with less competition for attention. Promote your content to these three smaller networks for a change:
- Quora — a Q&A-based website where all content is created, edited and curated by its user community.
- Tumblr — a microblogging site that is the “home base†of the young and the hip, which makes it perfect for niche-based content.
- Empire Avenue — a site that is one-part social networking platform, one-part social media marketing tool which members are mostly composed of SMBs, social media professionals, and bloggers.
11. Guest blog.
Among the fastest ways to grow and expose your blog is guest posting on other people’s websites. Make sure to target blogs that are bigger and more popular than your own so that their digital marketing efforts improve your search traffic. You’ll be allowed to include a link to your blog and a bio where you can invite readers to check out your online space. Always check out the host website’s rules for guest posts because sometimes you’ll be able to add multiple external links, or they’ll only publish certain types of blog posts.
12. Be a contributor.
Apart from guest-posting, you may also become a contributor to major websites related to your niche. Becoming a contributor isn’t an easy feat, though. As a new blogger, you have to start small and work your way up because there are a lot of bloggers competing for the same position. To have an edge over them, make sure to submit unique, well-researched and engaging blog post ideas. Also, avoid sending the same sample article to different websites. Tweak every blog post to match the content with the style of the site you’re aiming for.
13. Use visual content as often as possible.
People are visual creatures. And so, visual content is a big deal. In fact, there’s a lot of content marketing statistics to back up this fact. Visual content can get you more shares and reposts than regular, text-based blog posts. And search engines love content that people are sharing, because it means they find it valuable and interesting.
To make the visual content on your web page stand out from the crowd, you can:
- Create/use a unique featured photo.
- Use colorful and engaging graphs and charts to emphasize data and numbers.
- Add infographics.
- Embed a video.
- Create your own brand-related cartoon which you can use repeatedly.
- Use screenshots.
- Add memes.
You don’t have to be a Photoshop expert to make your own visuals. There are many attractive templates that can make creating visual content for your blog post a breeze. Monitor your Google Analytics to see which types of content are performing best, and make more of the same.
14. Create a podcast.
A podcast is a great medium to showcase your expertise. It’s also a tried-and-tested way to generate more traffic to your blog. But the thing with podcasts is consistency both in making new ones and the actual promotion. When you start off, it’s okay to feel like no one is listening to you (which can also be true), but a regular post frequency and consistent promotion will grow your audience. And in your future episodes, you’ll have more listeners. Another great podcast tip is to invite a guest, ideally an influencer in your niche. With your followers and their supporters combined, you’ll generate relevant traffic for your blog.
15. Mention influencers in your content (and let them know about it).
Influencers in your niche have a lot of followers. More often than not, they’re good with bloggers mentioning them or citing their articles; some even expect this to happen. You can take advantage of this opportunity and succeed, but only if you provide additional insight. Mention an influencer or use their work in your blogpost if you can add value and help your target market. This is also a good way of building relationships with other bloggers in your niche. Caution: don’t mention them just for the sake of name-dropping as this can burn bridges instead of building them.
16. Monitor trends.
In the online world where everything is practically a competition, having a successful blog means striking while the iron is hot. Find out what’s hot and new in general and in your industry, and write about it. Avoid rehashing what’s been said about the trend. Instead, emphasize why it’s the new “it†thing and add relevant information about it. Also, make sure to connect your brand to the trend and don’t forget to do your keyword research.
4 Recommended Tools to Monitor Trends:
17. Run a giveaway.
Although this tip is geared towards business blogs, personal blogs can also run a contest to generate more traffic. Create a special offer like winning a huge discount on your favorite product or give away a special package for free. Your blog readers can be contest participants and win the prize if they share your game on different social media platforms. Monitor Google Analytics to see which giveaways bring the most traffic back to your website.
18. Host a caption contest.
As mentioned above, visual content is a big deal. Using the images related to your niche, you can engage your target market with image captions. This is an exciting way of sharing your brand’s funny, laidback side — something that will remind your readers that there’s a person behind the blog. Establishing a regular image caption contest to your editorial calendar is also a fun way of engaging with your followers on your blog and other social media platforms.
19. Create a SlideShare summary of your article.
With over 80 million visitors on average every month, SlideShare is a lot more than a simple content-sharing platform. You can use SlideShare in various ways, but one of the most recommended by the experts is an overview-type of content.
Create an overview of your article with the slides highlighting the key points of the content. Add a link back to your post in each slide. At the end of the presentation, you can embed it and share the link to your blog and other social networking sites.
20. Create a “Top 10†list.
The top 10 list never gets old — and for good reasons. It’s a fascinating and entertaining way to learn something new. Also, you can make a top 10 list on just about anything. To stand out from the rest, stay away from topics that have been listed over and over again. You can get creative to make your readers laugh or get creative to make them think. You can discuss unusual or controversial topics. You can go with the crowd-favorites. The bottom line is for you to research about your topic and inject as much information (or humor) into every item on the list as possible. As always – don’t forget your keyword research. BuzzFeed is an excellent example of a successful blog that has made listicles part of their brand and a great source of inspiration for topics to explore and otherwise.
21. Interview your target audience about your niche.
A successful blog will often interview influencers in their niche, but only a few will try to speak with their audience. One of the blogging tips that new bloggers tend to forget about is that your audience is everything. So, invite a few of your customers or target audience to an interview. It can be a written one, or you can record it and post it on your YouTube channel. You can hit two birds with one stone with this tip: you have a golden opportunity to connect with your market and to promote your brand. Your interviewees sharing their experience on social media is also a way to increase your search engine visibility, get more traffic, and attract new followers.
22. Do a ThrowbackThursday or a FlashbackFriday.
Things move fast when it comes to online content: what’s in today will be out tomorrow. But, people have an affection for the past. You can use this emotional attachment to create a stronger bond to your readers. Use your blog as a time machine every once in a while. Write an article about something that happened in your niche a year ago. Document your blogging journey so far, complete with screenshots of your milestones. Look into your blog archives and see what you can revive. In terms of product marketing, nostalgia is a great decision-making influencer.
23. Post product reviews.
Most online users trust product reviews, especially if you’ve established yourself as a fair reviewer. Posting a product review is advantageous to you because it can draw large traffic AND can give you extra revenue. If you want to monetize your blogger account, this is a clever way to do so. Affiliate links, especially Amazon Affiliates, can help you earn a steady income just by posting product reviews.
24. Design a blog that visitors can appreciate.
Aside from content, the user experience is something you need to focus on. The design of your blog matters a lot. Some online users will judge your blog based on its design alone. If you have a dull-looking or a crowded blog, it can turn off a lot of visitors. And high bounce rates will negatively impact your site, no matter how good your search engine optimization is. Whatever theme you use, make sure it’s user-friendly, clear and crisp. These days, you don’t have to be a designer to create an impressive blog design. If you want to have a unique layout, go for a paid theme. The following are all great options:
25. Remove pointless or redundant distractions from your blog.
Traffic generation is more than just acquiring new visitors for your blog. It’s also keeping the traffic you already have. To do this, you need to make sure you only give the best to your visitors. Examine your blog and check if there are elements that you don’t need or that visitors find annoying or distracting. Odds are that search engines such as Google and Bing will feel the same way. Remember, every single thing on your blog must have a purpose. If you find an element that doesn’t help you to achieve your goal, delete it.
26. Insert internal links.
Adding internal links to your top-ranking pages makes it easier for your readers to find the best existing content on your blog. It’s also a smart way to help search engines index your content. It’s important that you learn not to overdo it, though. Adding internal links just for the sake of it is a bad move as it can be grating to your readers. Only write content that addresses your readers’ pain points, is based on original research, and add links to relevant pages that can help your blog visitors.
27. Make it easy for others to share your content.
This tip is particularly relevant for visual content as they get more traffic than text-based articles. There are several tools you can use to make your images easy to share, but the easiest — and, arguably, the best — on the list is the SumoMe’s Image Sharer app. A content management system like WordPress will also usually have tools to make sharing your content directly to your different socials as easy as pie.
28. Leave comments on other blogs.
The ´right’ comment on a popular post from an authoritative blog is one of the most effective ways of generating more traffic for your blog. Check out the top blogs in your niche and leave a comment on these blogs regularly. This is a smart way of letting the blog owner and his followers to notice you. Just make sure that the comment you leave is relevant to the topic. Also, avoid blatantly promoting your blog.
29. Use major events to catch people’s attention.
One of the traits of successful bloggers is creativity. They can turn anything — even subjects not even remotely related to their niche — into something they can connect with their blog. If possible, try to make sure your unique spin still matches the search intent behind the trend.
One of the ways to do so is to key into major events (ex. election, Superbowl, fashion shows, etc.) and capitalize on them using an angle relevant to your niche. If you dig in and tap your creativity, any event can be tied up to your blog.
30. Improve the loading time of your blog.
There’s no doubt about it: if you waited minutes for this article to load, you wouldn’t be reading this last tip right now. Even if your article perfectly matches a visitors search intent – they’ll never know because they’ll have already left. Even Google agrees that your blog’s loading time is important. It’s common knowledge that a top reason for massive drops in conversions is the site’s loading time.
If it’s slow, you can say goodbye to your potential readers. The loading time can generate traffic, but more importantly, it can keep your existing visitors happy enough to go back to your blog in the future.
You now have 30 tried-and-tested tips and tricks to generate relevant traffic to your blog. While you can try all of this (even at once), it’s important that you choose the best tactics that fit your blog. You can also experiment or mix and match. Find the combination that will work best. Get started now.
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