How To Increase Blog Traffic: 5 Easy Steps to Stardom


1. Be Strategic About Your Content

If you want to increase blog traffic, the best thing you can do is quite simply create better content. You’ve probably heard this before - the term “content is king” is thrown around more than a funnel at a frat party. But creating “better content” isn’t just about quality. It also means being more strategic with your content marketing efforts.
The most successful content is the kind that meets a specific need. Think about your audience and what they love. Content these days almost always falls into one of two categories: cool and funny or useful and educational. Choose either and you’re probably off to a good start.

2. Don’t Fear the Keywords

If you really want to drive big-time traffic to your blog, keywords and SEO have to be a part of your strategy. People get really nervous these days when you suggest doing something in the name of SEO, but remember, search engine optimization is fine when done right. More than fine  - it’s wonderous! You get targeted traffic from Google, and users find the information and answers they’re searching the web for.

So go ahead, shout it from the rooftops, “I care about keywords!” Be loud and proud my friend.

The key thing to remember with SEO is all good things in moderation.

Use keywords in your context text? Yes!

Use keyword stuffing to saturate your content completely with search queries? No.

 

Link to other related blog posts you’ve written on a specific subject? Yes!

Include so many links that every other sentence is dotted with blue hyperlinks? No.

 

Let keywords influence your outline and help conceptualize your post? Yes!

Put keywords and search bots before user experience? No!

Google drives billions of searches a day. Trust me, you want to use keywords to get a piece of that pie.
3. Find Your Flock: Hunt Down Your Audience’s Nest
When it comes to promoting your blog, you must be strategic about where you spend your time. While it’s nice to establish your presence across a range of social networks, you’ll quickly burn out trying to excel with every social site.

Dip your feet and see which social networks work best for you. Is your blog heavy on the visuals? You’ll probably want to set your sights on LinkedIn. Is your blog catered more towards nerd culture? Find the right subreddits and you could strike it big. 

If you’re looking for seagulls, you go to the seashore. To drive blog traffic, you need to go to where your flock hangs out. Know where to find your bird of a feather. Understanding your audience is also key to building strong referral links from relevant websites. Use Google Analytics to see which websites are driving the most referral traffic.

4. Optimize For Speed and Mobile

Your visitors aren’t going to wait around for your blog to load. If your page isn’t coming up fast enough, they’ll hit the back button and move on to the next Google listing (ie your competitor) before you can flip a flapjack.

Need to check your site speed? No problem! Google page speed will give you your speed score, as well as tips on what you can do to give your site the kick in the pants it might need.

5. Play Nice With the Other Kids
Good manners go a long way online. If you’re looking to build blog traffic, you’ll want to establish good relationships with other bloggers in your niche. Sometimes you’ll even want to team up with your enemies, Game of Thrones style.

Comment on other blogs and be active in various communities. Consider interviewing major industry loggers or including other bloggers in a “best of” post (for example, Top 10 Blogs Rocking Pinterest). Once you have a blogger cited or featured in one of your posts, tag them in a tweet to let them know. Chances are that blogger will retweet and share a post mentioning them, getting more shares and more traffic as a result.

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