It all comes down to what kind of a blog we are trying to create, do we want it to be personal or do we want to reach out to as many people as possible. For many, it’s the latter. Without having any traffic to your website, it’s hard to determine if it is because your content is bad or simply you need to grow a little bit more.
In order to grow, you have to invest the time and work to get the word out there, to show people what you are all about. The reality is simple, if you haven’t got thousands to invest in advertising, you will be struggling the first couple of months, until a steady amount of users start rolling in every day.
I would like to go over some basic ways of improving a blogs traffic and visibility across many of the available platforms. I’m sure you will have heard of some of these methods before, but it’s always good to remind ourselves that these methods work and they will pay back only once we start putting some time into them.
How-To Increase Blog Traffic
Work your way up slowly, take some time to work with each method and see which one gives you the best results. A lot of the ways I will be mentioning are community oriented, and different communities have different interests.
Determination
It all starts with being determined, are you determined enough to eventually become a full time blogger? It does sound really good, and perhaps in your current life situation you are still questioning if you would like to work from home full time. Once you make an agreement with yourself it becomes a lot easier.
Daily Content
It is important to update your website daily, not only do you keep learning all the time, you also deliver constant value to your visitors. Reconsider your strategy if it has been involving posting updates less frequently. It’s not hard at all to start posting one article per day, soon you will be doing 2-3 at a time!
Interaction
Spend time reading others blogs, and leaving comments. There is a lot of stuff you can learn from other bloggers and their style of blogging. Blogging is all about being a member of a community and usually there isn’t much hate going on.
Article Directories
I have got this method of building traffic already covered in my article of quality link building!
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to increase traffic and gain much needed exposure. Please see my post on guest blogging I wrote a little while back, it covers all the important points that Google takes in consideration.
Avoid Shaming Others
Many bloggers might suggest shaming and blaming others. It means taking someones content and trying to prove that person wrong, or in some way try to prove that your content is superior. It might help you in the short-term, but in long-term people will get tired of you talking crap all the time. Be as friendly as possible.
Proper Interlinking
Google loves when it can find content on your site easily, especially if that content happens to be related to the original page it came from. Like you can see in this post, I have interlinked two of my articles that talk about getting traffic methods. It gives you, the user, more value and information that can help you increase your blog traffic.
Relevant Titles
Having relevant titles is the way to go, there is no question about it. You need to grab the readers attention with your title, explain as much as possible within 60+/- words. Before you start writing content, make sure you are happy with your chosen title and you think it will do good. Think like a reader.
Social Media
I wouldn’t recommend signing up to all the social networks out there, but a few big ones is probably required. Not only because Google now takes social media seriously, but also because there are a lot of people on social media sites that could become your readers. My choice of social media sites to use for any blog is usually: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn. A combination of these is all you need to reach the masses.
Giveaways, Freebies, Discounts
People love coupons and giveaways. They especially love free stuff. It doesn’t need to be anything big like an iPhone, it can be a small thing like a new mouse or keyboard. Of course I am mentioning those examples because I blog about technology, it probably is going to be something completely else if your blog is about food.
Give stuff away and you will earn peoples trust and respect. There are so many bloggers who make a lot of money from what they do, but hardly give back to their original community members.
I hope you were able to learn some new things or refresh your memory. You are most welcome to share your own tips and methods of increasing traffic to your blog!
Very interesting article. Thanks for sharing.