The uncomfortable truth is that increasing traffic on your blog instantly is never an easy task. You could have the best blog in the world, but if you can’t get people to read it, you’re wasting your time. There is too much content, with as many as 7 million blog posts published each day. So, if you’re to have any hope of attracting visitors, you’ll have to make your blog worth their time.
Despite the discouraging stats, things are not as bleak as they seem. Increasing traffic on your blog instantly is actually not the most difficult thing in the world; you just need the right approach.
With this post, you will learn how to increase your blog traffic, and perhaps more importantly, keep a sustainable flow of said traffic to every newly published post. This will help you increase the reach of any new content and breathe new life into existing posts.
[Source: Unsplash]
Increasing Blog Traffic in 5 Simple Steps
We’ve talked to our friends from a leading web design agency los angeles and come up with a set of easy steps you can take to bring a steady influx of new readers to your blog.
Follow the guide below, and you’ll see the numbers go up in no time.
Learn What Your Audience Is Interested In
Content marketers often fall into the trap of creating content based on assumptions of what their readers want to see. If this is you, we have some good news — there’s a good chance that this is the main reason your blog traffic is stagnating.
You’ll never get anywhere writing about topics your audience doesn’t care about. It is like trying to play a concert in Las Vegas with your entire audience sitting in offices in New York. Why would they fly across the country for a show they’re not interested in? Before you even begin writing, take time to ensure you’re writing about the right things.
So how can you do your research and make sure that your target readers actually care about what you have to say? Here are a few simple tips:
- Perform online research — Dig into Quora, social media, Reddit, Google search, etc., to find whatever it is people in your audience are talking about.
- Talk to experts — What questions are influencers in your space asked the most? Which questions do they struggle to find the answers to?
- Look to sales teams for guidance — Try to find out which questions leads tend to ask before they convert. This will help you increase traffic from prospects in the latter stages of the buyer’s journey.
Make Full Use of Keyword Research Tools
We’ve already briefly touched upon the usefulness of search engines when it comes to increasing blog traffic, but you can only truly tap into their power by getting your keyword research right.
Once you have a topic in mind, use one of the many high-quality keyword research tools to compile a keyword set. In simple terms, these are the phrases you think your audience will search for, so you want your blog post to show up near the top of the search results when these particular phrases are used.
Keyword research may seem daunting if you’ve never dealt with it in the past, but it is deceptively simple, especially if Googling comes naturally to you. As we said, many tools can help you out here, the most notable ones being Semrush, Moz, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner.
There are enough guides online for each of these keyword research tools, so we won’t be delving into the specifics here.
Once you have an idea of how to use the software, your goal is to understand the search intent behind the keywords. Essentially, this requires you to think about why people use these terms and what they’re trying to find.
Google separates keywords into the following four categories, referred to as micro-moments:
- I-want-to-know
- I-want-to-do
- I-want-to-buy
- I-want-to-go
Your keywords will belong to one of these categories, so use the intent to structure and inform the content of your post.
If this is a bit too abstract for you, don’t worry, we’ll illustrate it through an example.
Let’s say one of your keywords is “how to install Windows 11.” This is an I-want-to-know keyword, so you want to create a list-based guide or tutorial blog post, not unlike the one you’re reading right now.
On the other hand, “Windows 11 deals” is an I-want-to-buy micro-moment, so the reader is looking for a roundup of the best offers for Win 11 keys on the online market, or perhaps a list of great deals on laptops with Windows 11 built-in.
When you’re trying to optimize your blog content for organic traffic, search intent is crucial. Google puts a lot of effort into analyzing the intent of each query to produce a list of the most relevant search results. If your blog can match this, it will have an immeasurably higher chance of success in driving organic traffic to your blog.
[Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/keywords-letters-scrabble-word-2041816/]
Set a Course for Every Post
Writing a blog post without clear directions is like being lost in the woods without a map or compass. In this case, the civilization you’re trying to find is a town full of your ideal readers, waiting patiently to read every word you have to say.
Your brief is your compass, and your outline is the map you’ll use to get you to this El Dorado. Don’t just start writing whatever comes to mind — create a brief for every blog you intend on publishing. The brief should include:
- The post’s ideal audience
- What will make the post interesting to them
- What angle the post should take
- Which keywords you’re trying to rank for
- All subheadings and main points the post should cover
Whether you’re writing the post yourself or assigning it to a professional content writer, this information will help create the best possible blog post. It will enable you to craft the content according to your audience’s interests, attracting more blog traffic as a result.
Write the Most Useful Blog Post on the Given Topic
Each blog post you write and publish needs to meet two criteria if you want it to be successful:
- It must be easy to find.
- It must contain the most helpful content on the topic at hand.
In the first two steps of this guide, we’ve dealt with the first criterion, but the second is arguably more important. The best chance for a blog post on a given topic to succeed is to include all the information the reader needs. The idea is not to give them a reason to go anywhere else.
Read any content that already exists on the topic, and make sure your angle stands out from the rest. Although there are likely many great posts covering the issue at hand, none of them is perfect. They could be missing key points, real-life examples, or even links to reputable sources.
Using factual data to back up your opinions and points is the only way to build trust with first-time readers and keep them coming back for more.
Optimize Your Content for Skimming
According to research from the Nielsen Norman Group, as many as 79% of people scan or skim through new pages they come across, and only 16% actively read every word. This means readers often “judge a book by its cover,” or in this case, an article by how it looks in the first few seconds.
Instead of bemoaning your fate and blaming the modern internet for the evident shortening of the average user’s attention span, format your content so that it is easy to skim and share. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Writing a quick and digestible introduction covering the talking points
- Using meaningful, to-the-point subheadings
- Using bulleted lists
- Explaining statistics and making listicles more interesting through infographics
- Using videos to make points clearer
Blog creators often bypass visual content, such as infographics and videos, because it takes more time and effort during the content creation process. However, the added investment usually pays off. It allows you to capture audiences who don’t necessarily learn through text, but it also gives you a chance to repurpose your content on social media.
Think about all the extra visitors you could get by uploading an infographic or video summarizing your post on Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube.
Optimizing the alt text of your images is also an essential step. As clever as they are, search engines still haven’t mastered interpreting images, so they use the alt copy to determine what an image depicts. Having optimized alt text will help you drive more traffic through Google Image Search, Pinterest, and other image-based platforms.
Wrapping Up
As you can see, there is a wide variety of tactics and strategies you can use to increase your blog traffic. That said, the most important thing is the quality of your content. If you can create something share-worthy, the promotion will often take care of itself or just need a subtle nudge in the right direction.
Spend time “in the trenches” to set yourself up for success. Learn the types of posts you should create through relevant and topical research, and make your posts higher quality than anything you can already find on the topic. Make sure to write an attention-grabbing headline as well.
If you do this, we guarantee that you’ll soon start to see the traffic gains you’ve been looking for.
[Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/laptop-computer-business-table-3317007/]
Author Bio
Sophie Douglas is a digital marketing specialist and a journalist based in Columbus, state of Ohio.
Her characters are passionate, innovative, and ambitious.
Before becoming a writer for DigitalStrategyOne, she was writing short stories, screenplays, and directing short films.