It’s all too convenient to hit publish on your website, sit back, and wonder where everyone went. If you’re searching for tried-and-true ways to boost blog traffic, you’ve come to the right place. So without further ado, let’s dive into the best practices.
Implement Fundamental Content Best-Practices to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
These are the first four tactics you’ll need to ensure you’re ready for all the traffic you want to bring to your site.
1. Create Valuable and Share-Worthy Content
When you want to create valuable and share-worthy content, make sure you’re not trying to sell anything on your website right off the bat. Many websites aim to produce valuable content for their audience on their blog initially, but they end up repeating the same 500-1,000-word posts that provide zero value.
Not only is there no lack of that material on the Internet now, but it’s also the last thing that will help you stand out and leave a lasting impression on your followers. It would be much easier to promote your content if you focus on depth rather than breadth. Examine what your competitors are offering, and if you can present 500-word advice with a 5,000-word step-by-step guide that assists people, the readers can note.
You’ll not only have a better chance of convincing people of the value of your post, but it’ll also have a better chance of going viral. Also, it will be more extensive and in-depth; thus, Google will rate it higher in organic search.
When it comes to learning how to push traffic to your blog, this is by far the best piece of advice I can send you: Create content that goes above and beyond what others are doing to support your readers.
2. Nail Your On-Page SEO.
Your top priority should be to learn the right SEO blog tactics and best practices for using target keyword phrases. You should know how to run/do/manage keyword research and then use these core target keywords in your headlines, article content, and image file names.
To achieve that, you can use Google Search Console and type a keyword you want to rank. Go to the bottom area of the page and look for the “Related Searches” area, which can be a great pool of keyword ideas.
If you’re using WordPress, you may want to try installing a plugin like Yoast SEO. Yoast is a blogging tool that optimizes your page by testing it and asking you questions about your keyword.
3. Optimize Your Content for Long-Tail Keywords.
You don’t need to think about this move if your site already has a high domain authority (DA). If you’re not familiar with domain authority, it’s a search engine ranking score ranging from 1 to 100 that predicts how well a website would perform in search results.
Your brand-new blog would have a page rank of about 1, while other big pages like Facebook have a page rank of 99. Your DA score will rise as you grow bigger and stronger. Since your site is likely to have a low score, you’ll want to conduct keyword research to begin targeting the most important words and phrases—but avoid broad terms because you’ll have a hard time ranking for those terms early on. Instead, focus on long-tail keyword phrases to increase your chances of ranking.
4. Start Building an Email List
First of all, you should try to understand who your readers are and make an effort to engage with them on a more personal level. Start nailing your blog email marketing and include a sign-up form for a newsletter in your posts and on your homepage, which is one of the most effective ways to keep your readers interested in what you’re doing.
Consider using a tool to organize your mailing lists. There are many email marketing services online that can help you create strong campaigns that will skyrocket your traffic over time.
Use Content Outreach to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Guest Posting
There are many different ways to go about guest blogging, and I’ve tried a lot of them. The first step is to find similar bloggers in your field and contact them to see if they’ll consider a guest post from you–you’ll have to make a lot of trial and error here because you’ll get a lot of rejections, but reaching out to a new audience will pay off. Write a well-researched guest post and link back to your site to gain that potential traffic.
Natural Link Building
Simply put, natural link building is the process of obtaining high-quality links from other websites that point to your blog. As previously stated, this will increase your DA (domain authority), and as a side effect of increasing domain authority, you will drive traffic to your site. To be sure, there are a few ways to do this safely, naturally, and following best practices for blog SEO:
- Guest post swaps. Craft a guest post for their website with a link or two back to yours, and they do the same. You’ll typically agree to promote the guest post to help drive traffic to your blog and get more readers back to your website from a targeted source.
- Dead links. Some of the links that drive traffic to a website might end up being broken. Here is an excellent chance for you to leverage these links by asking the editor to link back to your article.
- Create a standout resource. If you’ve spent a lot of time creating a unique piece of content that’s valuable to reputable sites, you have another ace in your pocket.
If it’s something that would help their readers, you can make a convincing case for why your material should be covered by contacting the editors. That’s how you get high-quality backlinks and push traffic to your blog the right way.
- Comparisons and reviews. If you find yourself mentioning a product or service to your audience regularly, that’s another excellent source of traffic for your website.
Each of these content pieces aims to inform readers how to make the best choice possible when comparing services that are often similar. When other authoritative websites search for reliable reviews to use as sources, these articles are designed to draw natural links from them.
Pro tip: When you build your link building strategy, be careful and avoid link exchanges or paying for backlinks. You should avoid both of these traffic-generating tactics because they would do more harm in the long run.
Interview Industry Leaders
Create a podcast and feature industry leaders. This is one of my favorite strategies to interact with other entrepreneurs, talk with them, and usually learn a lot.
It’s also a great way to promote your material. When the podcast goes live, most of them will share it with their viewers, earning it a spot as one of the most effective ways I’ve discovered to drive traffic to your site.
Content Partnerships with Other Bloggers and Brands
If you’re new to blogging, this one would be more challenging to pull off. You’ll need a significant amount of traffic first if you want to get big brands or bloggers in your space to sell your content to their audiences.
That said, you should always be on the lookout for other bloggers or brands who are just a step ahead of you and with whom you want to partner and brainstorm ways to add value to their company first.
Pro Tip: Take a moment to spot any openings for more popular bloggers or brands in your space that you can mention and start developing a relationship with when writing a blog post outline for your upcoming article.
By first providing value to others in your room, you will begin to create a community of influential people who will help drive traffic to your blog over time.
Leverage Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
Social media is one of the most efficient ways to communicate and engage with your potential audience genuinely. Let’s take a look at some social media-focused ways to boost traffic to your blog now.
Share Images on Pinterest
Many bloggers I know have had great success driving traffic to their blogs using Pinterest. Suppose you want to drive meaningful traffic to your website. In that case, you’ll want to make sure you have good visuals (photos, videos, infographics) to go with each blog post. The most popular Pinterest bloggers suggest that you post at least 10 unique pins (images) for any new blog post you publish on your site.
Most importantly, note that Pinterest, like any other social media platform, is a community, so stay involved by interacting with those in your niche and re-pinning others’ content.
You’ll have a hard time gaining momentum and finding out how to push traffic to your blog from the platform if you’re only shouting into the void by just posting your photos.
Write on LinkedIn
LinkedIn can be a great place to communicate with others, participate in content that interests you, and share interesting and innovative blog post ideas with your network.
However, in my experience, if you want to drive traffic to your blog from LinkedIn, you should keep your posts link-free (to reach their algorithm just right) and leave a link to your blog post in the first comment as a reaction to your article.
Stand Out on Instagram.
Instagram is rapidly expanding through all demographics and has the power to boost traffic to your blog. High-quality photos are crucial on this site, and not every type of business can succeed on it.
One of the pillars to find success would be developing partnerships with other influencers in your industry. Pay attention to your audience and give them sneak peeks of your blog posts to encourage them to visit your website.
Use Twitter to Create a Community
Twitter is a great place to start honest discussions with people in your industry. It’ll work better if your blog has some technology-related material.
Regardless, Twitter isn’t to be overlooked, as it’s a perfect place to start creating an audience that can engage in conversations. For most bloggers, it’s all about community building and less about moving traffic.
Use Groups, and Online Communities
There’s no big secret to learning how to drive traffic to your blog with this approach. It’s as easy as figuring out where your audience spends their time online and directing them back to your blog.
Share on Facebook Groups
Find Facebook groups in your niche and enter the ones with the most active members that tend to be in your target demographic. You can spend weeks (or months) interacting with the community by liking and commenting on others’ posts and developing a rapport before promoting your content and attempting to use the group to drive traffic to your site.
Group moderators easily identify members that are there to shamelessly self-promote. People are already there to consume content relevant to their niche (and learn more), so if your blog helps them, you’ll find a willing audience. Now, it could be an opportunity to get targeted subscribers to join your email list.
Other Interesting Methods to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
Get Interviewed on Podcasts
I know that podcast hosts are always searching for people with remarkable stories in their niche to interview and showcase for their listeners.
Here’s how to do it in your niche: Try a fast Google search for a keyword phrase you’ve written about plus the word “podcast” to see what shows come up. If you think the hosts of those shows will be interested in having you on their podcast, reach out to them—you would almost certainly expect traffic to your blog due to being featured.
Launch a YouTube Channel
People nowadays look up instructional videos for everything. This is a no-brainer strategy for learning how to drive traffic to your website if you can have high-quality, well-thought-out instructional videos in a particular niche.
Only make sure to stick to video subjects that have already been confirmed to have a demand from people looking for answers on YouTube. Are you unsure? To be sure, do some keyword analysis. Then it’s just a matter of fine-tuning your video marketing to boost rankings and attract more viewers and subscribers.
Host Webinars
This is a unique way to communicate with other brands and influencers of the same industry. All of you get together for a live chat that will simultaneously inform your joint audience, create new leads, and drive traffic to your blog.
To host a webinar, gather a group of bloggers or brands with a large number of readers in your target market, then pick a subject that you’re both passionate about and create something together. Simply create a Zoom account that allows you to host webinars, and you’re good to go.
The best thing about webinars is that everyone who participates will bring some of their audience with them, resulting in a fantastic lead generation opportunity. After the live show, you’ll have an enthusiastic audience of people who are interested in your field from which you can push traffic to your website.
eBooks, Books, and Audiobooks.
This is a win-win-win strategy for increasing blog traffic. Put together enough information to create an in-depth, valuable, and entertaining book (or eBook).
Then, write an eBook and promote it to your social media fans, tap into existing partners you’ve connected with, write about it in a guest post—and give your eBook away as an incentive to those who sign up for your email list. The right eBook on a killer subject within your niche can become a massive weapon for driving traffic to your blog.
Offer Free Downloadable Templates
Free stuff is something that everybody appreciates. Contrary to common belief among young entrepreneurs, freely sharing your ideas is not often the worst thing you can do for your business.
It can sometimes be the best. Organic search, word-of-mouth, social media, and even significant publications can all drive traffic to your blog with the right (free) template. It can be a calendar or a template about website design. The key is to have something of genuine value to your audience.
What’s excellent about providing free templates is that these are the types of items people search for on Google, which means they’re almost sure to drive traffic to your blog if you pair them with some long-form content and promote them well.
Plus, if your audience finds you through these types of free tools, they know you’re delivering significant value in your field, so they’re far more likely to hang around for more.
Teach Online Courses
If you’ve never thought of having an online course before, it may sound daunting, but you can simplify it by asking yourself one fundamental question: what does your audience want to know?
Provide valuable and in-depth content that your audience needs in the form of videos, written lectures, and interviews with thought leaders in the room, just as you would with any of your posts, comments, or blog content.
What are the issues that your readers are facing? Teach them how to solve them, and you’ll see an increase in traffic to your blog as a result of your online course. As your authority increases, you will begin to receive offers for other forms of work from home jobs, such as coaching, consulting, and advising as to your audience.
Offline Strategies to Create More Traffic
I understand that the Internet is the best place to learn how to drive traffic to your site, but don’t overlook the following offline methods for bringing people to your blog.
Utilize Paid Search and Social Advertising.
Although it’s not the optimal way to drive traffic to your website in the early days, if you’re driving readers to the right page, it might convert well. Then scale up your paid advertisement spend when there’s financial return, and you can have a pretty profitable investment.
Apart from that, the positive social signals you’ll be sending by getting a large number of active users on your site can help you get more links and social shares, increasing your chances of driving traffic to your blog from other sources.
The Takeaway
It’s getting more challenging to stand out in a sea of competitors as millions of new bloggers enter the content development game each year. You’ll need to find innovative ways to leverage your talents, expertise, and relationships while avoiding the blogging blunders that can sabotage your efforts. New social networks will emerge as significant traffic generators. Search engines will continue to send traffic to websites and treat your content as a database for directly answering search queries.
We are living in a period when change is occurring at an unprecedented rate. It’s up to you to adapt, develop, and take advantage of new opportunities that come your way. Are there any traffic-generating tactics that you think I may have overlooked? Let me know in the comments section.
