Every blog has a purpose. It could be to give relationship advice, to tell a story, to display your writing skills or your art, to advertise your business, to meet new people and so on. Whatever the topic or purpose of your blog, high traffic is vital to your blog’s success.
Traffic is what gives the blog owner the opportunity to make money off their blog. Consequently, the question on every blogger’s mind, both old and new, what can be done to increase blog traffic?
These are our 12 tips to increase blog traffic:
Create valid content
To increase your site’s traffic, it is imperative that the content you post on your blog applies to your reader. Valid content in this context is that which benefits your target audience.
When creating content, you can do it in such a way that isn’t restrictive. Create content that helps both men and women. This way your target audience can be broader, and it will bring more traffic to your website.
Smart bloggers create blog posts which remain relevant over time. Your blog post should be helpful to visitors even if they come across it months after its initial posting.
Helpful evergreen posts will increase your blog traffic over the long term. Creating evergreen blog posts is easier when you write answers to the questions that people ask most often.
Create content based on trending topics
The internet is full of one trending topic or the other. It could be a celebrity scandal, a meme that’s cracking everyone up, a new fashion trend and so on. Creating blog content which satisfies your audience’s craving to delve deeper into these trending topics can increase traffic to your blog.
Here is an example of a trending topic that you could use. Imagine that Santorini, Greece is currently trending as a holiday destination. Not everyone can afford a trip to Greece, but reading blog posts about Santorini can help them feel like they did make the trip.
To attract traffic to your site, find out what the recent trends are. Research them and create appealing content that relates to the trend in order to satisfy the curiosity of your target audience.
Search engine optimization
After putting in the time to create the perfect content, the next important step to increase blog traffic is to work on your search engine optimization. Search optimization increases your blog post rankings on the search results page. Write your blog content in a way that makes it easy for Google to find.
We recommend Surfer SEO for content marketing & on-page SEO.
When your blog ranks high on search engine results pages, it becomes easier to attract traffic. You can provide search engine optimization by creating strong content with good Meta titles and Meta descriptions. Researching and making use of strong keywords is also very important for search engine optimization.
Use effective keywords
To attract traffic to your blog, making use of keywords is very important. Keywords are those two to five-word phrases which summarize what you are talking about in your blog post. Keywords are also the words or short phrases that you believe your target audience will search for when looking for the content you offer.
Keyword research is easy (and free) at UberSuggest.
For example, when writing about cooking tips for preparing Lasagna, it’s most likely that your audience will search “how to cook Lasagna” so this could be your keyword. When including keywords in your blog posts, take care to insert them cautiously so that they flow seamlessly within the text of your article.
Use catchy headlines
Catchy headlines are a helpful way to increase traffic to your blog. Both humans and search engine bots consider headlines before proceeding to click on a blog page. Search engine bots also read headlines before selecting posts for inclusion on the search engine result page.
Research has shown that ‘How-To’ headlines attract a lot of attention. Headlines constructed as questions also get lots of attention on search engines. More tips on optimizing your headlines, including a cool automated headline analyzer can be found here at the CoSchedule website.
Write good meta-descriptions
Meta-descriptions are the brief informational text located under the link of a blog on the search engine results page. These descriptions are necessary as they give the readers a summary of the information contained in your blog post.
To attract more readers to your blog post and increase traffic, it is crucial that you write good meta-descriptions. Keep your meta-descriptions captivating and convincing but also truthful.
“The sooner you learn to craft a good description, the sooner you can start boosting your rankings and helping your overall SEO efforts.”
How to Write Compelling Meta Descriptions That’ll Boost Your Rankings, Neil Patel, neilpatel.com
Add your target keyword in URL
Remember that your keyword can make it easier for your target audience to find your blog post. Your page’s URL is the link which when clicked on, directs your target audience to your blog.
To increase your ranking on search engines, include your keyword in your URL. This way search engines see the keyword every time they read your URL. When anyone searches for information that you offer, search engines will have one more reason to suggest your page.
Ensure your blog loads fast
A lot of online users are not patient enough to wait for a blog post to load, especially when they have other options. To increase blog traffic, you need to ensure your blog loads fast enough.
You can improve slow loading time by optimizing the images and videos posted on your blog by resizing or compressing them. Also, deleting old posts and inactive plugins will enhance loading times. When you do this, your blog page becomes lighter, making it much easier to load.
The theme you use may contain extraneous features that do not apply to your blog. Consider updating to a more straightforward, leaner blogging theme to speed up your site loading time.
Make attractive content
You want your readers to not only click on your blog post but also to stay for a while. Retaining your readers long enough for them to get a good look around your blog will only happen if they find your content attractive and enjoyable to consume.
Ensure the content on your page is well organized and categorized. A jumbled blog post will repulse your site visitors. Organize your content by making use of subheadings and also using bullet points.
We recommend the top free blog writing assistant out there: Grammarly! Check it out.
Post links to your blog on social media
Posting links to your blog page on social media is a great way to attract traffic to your site. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest are known to have some of the most active users.
You can post the link to your blog with a catchy heading. You can also reach out to social media influencers to help you advertise your blog to their followers.
Optimize your images
To attract traffic to your site, you need to optimize your images. Optimize your images by giving them a descriptive title, also known as an alt attribute.
Use your keywords as part of your image titles whenever possible. Using descriptive titles can also help your target audience find your posts and images easier and understand them better.
“When you use an optimized alt attribute with a target keyword, it gives your page a boost because the alt text is a helpful relevance signal for search engines.”
IMAGE SEO: DOES ALT TEXT STILL MATTER IN 2018?, Anna Davis, DirectOM.com
Post on your blog consistently
The last (but certainly not least) suggestion to increase blog traffic is to update your blog frequently. Most successful blogs post regularly, at least once a week. Posting only once a month or bi-monthly will make your blog posts weak and stale. Additionally, people want up to date information based on current circumstances and trends. Posting four or more times a month to your blog is an excellent way to show consistency for your readers and gain traffic and new subscribers. Check out my post: Why blogs that post weekly are great.