Once you know how to start a blog, (it’s mostly a matter of pointing and clicking), the next thing you will want is some traffic, then you will want to work on some strategies to increase blog traffic.
There’s something fantastic about finding out that something you’ve written has been read and appreciated… by as many people as possible!
It’s even better if the person that reads it decides to sign up for your newsletter or buy something from you! But people won’t find your blog on their own. You’ll need to help with that – at least at first. Here are some tips…
Tips On How To Increase Blog Traffic
• Figure out what people are interested in. then, if someone stumbles onto your blog, there’s a chance of them reading it, telling others about it through sharing the link, and then coming back to read future things you’ve written either through bookmarking you, signing up to receive new updates, or via adding you to their RSS feed reader. Word of mouth is a great way to increase blog traffic.
• On page SEO. Learn about keyword optimisation. A good rule of thumb is to include relevant keywords in the: title, meta description (or teaser. Most blog dashboards offer to let you hand-write your meta description), tags, subheadings, as well as a few times in the blog post. Learn more with this search engine optimisation checklist for blogs.
• Off page SEO. Link to the blog post from other places. Do this on your social bookmarking pages, through microblogging tools, such as Twitter, FriendFeed, and others, and by visiting to comment on blogs that link through to your last post (a WordPress plugin that does this is called CommentLuv. Add it to your blog and you’ll encourage visitors to comment, which helps you get more attention, rankings, and create interesting conversations that can draw in readers.) Consider adding an auto-ping function to the blog that notifies services of your new post.
• Update often. By updating regularly, (daily, or at least weekly) people will make your blog a daily pit stop. You’ll also get indexed quickly by search engines and could get picked up on blog search engines.
• Beyond figuring out the hot topics in your niche to write about, write well. Write valuable and interesting content so that people will want to read it and so that they’ll share it with others. Add compelling titles and hook the reader in the first paragraph. Help them solve a problem or give them something to think about. Provide value with what you write.
• Use your current blog traffic statistics to your advantage. Figure out where your traffic comes from, which words your blog is ranking for, and what sort of audience you’ve got. Then you can capitalise on that information and use it to help you get more traffic and more results.
A lot of people learn how to blog but don’t really learn how to get, or increase blog traffic. Spend some time writing great content, starting dialogue with your readers, social bookmarking your posts, and driving backlinks to your blog and it could be a very profitable undertaking – and a labour of love!
About Sean Rasmussen
Hi Sean.
Learning how to blog is one thing, but learning how to attract traffic to your blog is where blogging success starts.
I have found that using good On-page SEO and writing engaging content for your readers will give you a more consistent traffic flow, while bookmarking and Social media gives you higher spikes in traffic, which in the end probably helps give you greater exposure.
Either way they both work great as an overall strategy
Thanks for the great article,
Cade
Hi Cade,
Very well said. I completely agree. Things like social media and article marketing do give you traffic spikes and greater exposure. I just hope that some of the people that visit my blog during a spike will come back again.
I’m still learning how to increase blog traffic. It’s a work in progress.
Hi Jazz,
I guess it will always stay a “work in progress” as Google likes to shake things up once in a while. But as long as we have the foundations right, we will always float to the top
I have to admit I am amazed when looking at my statistics to see the flow that comes from articles and social media. Wouldn’t have thought of being that active there without Seans tips …
SEO is so important. This is how to lure attention, in the form of readers, to your blog.
Readers mean more business, links and subscriptions which are all good..
Follow these instructions to recieve more traffic.
im really beginning to understand the effective use of social media. i only really had facebook before, and now im signing up to as many things as I can, eg myspace, twitter, linked in etc, as i can see how important it is to not only increasing traffic to your site, but establishing a good reputation out there
This blog post is great! Its getting to some more specific aspects of Blogging and I find this stuff really interesting.
The off page SEO is an area I probably need to start doing more in.
I guess we need to alter the adage ‘Build it and they will come’ to ‘Build it and they will come, if they are interested and manage to find your content’. Knowing your customer behaviour is crucial in any online business.
Don’t know who came up with that one. I suppose it was someone with a store in High Street. Not much use if your customer is sitting down at their computer.
It’s amazing how powerful SM is. Blog owners neglect it at their peril
Sean:
You are right, blogging is the easy part and driving traffic is the more difficult task.
SEO is important to help drive traffic but you also need to have valuable content so the reader stays on the site and even better comes back again in the future. This is something I have been working on.
Thanks for the tips.
- Rick
Sean, this competition has really blown me away the power of drawing people in and commenting! It just grows exponentially and I’m loving the experience of social collaboration first-hand. With everyone adding their 2c, it really makes a great learning experience with so many perspectives.
Good to hear David, I am glad you are enjoying it and seeing the benefits of participating
Hi Sean
Successful internet marketing is like a science. The more probabilities you have weighed in your favour, the more you are likely to succeed. Common sense really but to the uninitiated, they would have no idea how extensive the learning is behind creating a successful blog, product and attracting a high volume of traffic.
All this information I have been learning endorses the fact that it is very important to have the proper guidance form the start if you want to become successful on line. There is so much to learn
One of the recurring points of utmost importance other than writing good content, is SEO and keyword research. These, you keep driving home in one way or another throughout your articles.
The positive thing about reading your articles over and over is that the information starts to form a hierarchy of what is most important, taking into consideration that there is no least important in this industry, and I am finding now that I know what I need to do to continue building my blog whereas 2 weeks ago I was still trying to figure out what to do next. Now I have a huge list!
Now isn’t that a fantastic discovery, I think so anyway.
Blessings
Elly
Fantastic indeed Elly, I’m glad the information is helping you to progress
I agree with you Elly, Sean is very consistent in stressing keywords, SEO and great content.
For me they are so intertwined that I also found it hard to put them in a hierarchy and I also agree with you that they are all important. But finally I found an order to work on them so it ends up to be a great post:
- decide on my niche
- find the best keywords
- write great content while using these keywords.
Simple once you know it – but it needed a bit of good help from Sean (and the YOTA forum) to get there
I just wanted to pop this comment in here as It is now July 31st 2010 and it is the last night of the 7 week contest and I can honestly say that the learning part of this competition has been fantastic and as I am always a happy learner, I am even happier because I understand so much more about the interior and exterior workings of Internet Marketing.
Thankyou Sean
Here’s my analogy… imagine that we have a shop in the middle of an iceberg in Antartica. Does anyone know we are there? Does anyone care? We could be selling the best product in the world at the cheapest price but none of that matters unless you can help people to find you.
We need a STRATEGY.
Thank you for providing not one, but many. Your generosity is appreciated. So much time and effort and tears have been saved, I am truly grateful and know you will receive the good energy you give out to us, back to you tenfold.
I have not got my blog yet but after this Fridays webinar I will be starting one and using these strategies to get targeted traffic.
That’s the great thing about the internet Tara, if we do the right things, we have the opportunity to place our shop smack bang in the middle of town where people can find us
Yes starting a blog is easy but learning to increase blog traffic can be frustrating for a beginner but you are certainly giving us plenty of tools and knowledge to learn from. Even reading your blogs from a couple of years ago has given me insightful information.
Hi Sean,
That is my next project after writing regular blog posts. Learning SEO and how to increase my blog traffic. As someone else commented it’s a work of art in itself.
To learn this skill is all part n parcel of blogging. Tips to increase traffic is knowledge that I need so I can reach everyone possible with my blog. I know I’m in good company here Sean. Thank-you for this information.
Hi Sean, thanks for (another) greatly informative blog!! There are so many sites offering free blog pages. I note you recommend Google Blogger and WordPress.com. I’m wondering if, by setting up a blog on Google Blogger, will we get a higher ranking in Google c.f. other blogsites??
Google do like their own Blogger network Ian, however rankings will still come down to on and off page SEO factors (like backlinks for example).
Hi Sean,
Once I thought to learn to blog is the most important thing. Now I see that finding people to read and appreciate my blog is probably more important.
I am more equipped now to handle this challenge after reading this article and learning that there are many things I can do to increase traffic to my blog.
Yep – having an awesome site, all schmicked up with well written, quality blog posts, is certainly not going to do much good if you’re the only one reading it! While it may be a labour of love, it’s a love that is far better being shared with as many people as possible.
)
(note to self, add ComLuv & check my stats!..
It’s always polite to share Mel
Consistency and value are big ones for me. If I like what I read and it provides some value to me then I am more inclined to subscribe to a blogs RSS feed or bookmark it. If the content really does resonate with me and I feel that it could help other as well, then I may dig, tweet or Like it.
On the flip side, I try to do this too. If I can consistently provide value to the readers to warrant them spending time on my site, then I do hope that they will do the same.
I have to get into blogging! As I am formerly from an Industry full of gossip etc I tend not to read newspapers or read things like blogs because I though they were just people having a whinge! I now know different and there sure is a lot of education out there for the taking as well!
I will be using video a lot on my sites for my posts but I think this is becoming a popular medium.
I am nuts! I have been treating my blogs just as places to put in good content – and I should also be treating my blog as I do my websites.
Such as using good SEO strategies, good keyword insertion and, even putting up a link for my newsletter – going to do that now!
I watched that webinar and have started to use more images at least – have a nice blue poppy on my garden blog.
Once again, the power of social media comes to the fore.
But as stressed in previous comments above, in the end, it is hard to number everything in order of priority as everything is important when trying to increase blog traffic.
Cath
I wonder Cathy if you keep a check list for SEO?
This subject came up during the competition about actually having a checklist of all the SEO techniques and maybe we can mention it in the forum and everyone contribute so we can all share one.
Very valuable to remember all the strategies and have them listed.
Hello Sean,
I understand how to blog, and how to use keywords in a blog to rank on google but did not understand how to increase blog traffic, so I am needing to focus on this aspect of the blogging world.
Tips to increas Blog Traffic with all the links will sure fire my blogs..hopefully into outer space or at least world wide
Cheers
Lisa
Increasing Blog Traffic would have to be critical to making money online. This article contains lots of useful SEO information to help me do this. I need to blog more:)
I am still struggling to get my site up to speed so some one will want to look at it.
I can see that you have to learn how to increase your blog traffic as quickly as possible.
Still trying to get my head around how to increase viewings with key words and Maybe some up in the comments is right a google blog site may be step up to get more attention.
as we still struggle to make the blog thing look decent and figure out wordpress, I get a big queesy thinking about someone finding it – this week anyway! But no doubt by weeks’ end it’ll be SEO this and backlink that and I’ll be chattering on about boosting traffic. I see the consistent threads in Sean’s suggestions that your conent be current and interesting and your keyword optimisation plus the ping.ng subscription to update your social media accounts with your new blog posts will keep visitors rolling thru! Brilliant Sean- every night we chat about what a great bit of marketing this is for YOU for us to all be learning and chattering on at each other- its great for all, all around, thanks heaps and well done-
Thankyou for these great tips to help us increase our blog traffic and stop the plateau effect. Everything is a work in progress and for success we need to do every little bit.
Nice points you have here. Blogging on the hot topics always help in booming traffic on a blog. I have seen it through my blog.