There are so many bloggers and businesses out there working to get viewers or traction to their website or blog. Getting traffic to your website is the best way to gain a bigger following or produce more sales.
If people don’t know about your blog, they obviously aren’t going to be seeing your content or products either. How do you get more traffic to your blog? Good question. There are various ways to get people coming to your blog. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are 14 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog.
Table of Contents
1. Share On Social Media
It’s no secret that social media is now playing a crucial role in terms of marketing. By using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and other major social networking platforms, you can engage and interact with your readers, and share with them any of your new posts.
Ways to successfully promote your content via social media:
- Increase your following – Add follow buttons somewhere visible on your site to make it easier for people to follow you on social media networks.
- Post regularly. Do yourself a favor and come up with posting schedule for your social media platforms. Make sure to post on a consistent basis. Don’t post once every day for a week and then go 3 weeks without posting anything. Your followers will slowly loose interest.
- Add sharing buttons – Adding sharing buttons will encourage readers to share your posts. If you’re on WordPress, you can use SumoMe to install sharing buttons on your blog.
2. Leave Comments On Other Blogs In Your Niche
Engaging with other bloggers in the same niche will help you in many ways. It helps other bloggers and their readers know who you are, which also helps in promoting your blog.
Some advantages of commenting on other blogs:
- New opportunities– by consistently engaging on blogs you will be building your contacts, which in turn can lead to more connections, guest post opportunities and new business.
- Profile gets noticed – adding interest to someone’s article gets you noticed by other readers and the blog author.
- Drives traffic to your blog – it can drive more visits as other readers, commentators and the blog author will want to learn more about you.
- Creates more blogging ideas – reading other blogs is inspiring and the comments may create a new idea or way of looking at things to present an alternate view in your own article.
As a rule of thumb, make sure that every comment you make offers valuable insight or information so that other bloggers and their readers will show interest in visiting your blog.
3. Guest Post For Other Blogs
Blogging is all about building a network. The more platforms you distribute your name and your URL to, the more likely that search engines and in turn, readers, will take notice of you and your blog.
Advantages of Guest Posting:
- Guest posting builds relationships
- Guest posting is great for search engines
- Guest posting introduces you to new people
4. Respond To Comments
Plenty of bloggers make the grave mistake of not engaging with their readers. If you want to build loyalty, you have to reply to the comments readers leave on your blog posts. Especially those that ask questions or raise great points.
5. Learn SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing your blog content for search engines. Majority of people who surf the Internet use search engines such as Google, for instance to find what they are looking for.
I’ve dived deep into SEO and the steps you need to take to make your blog/website search engine friendly.
Beginner’s Guide To SEO – 8 Simple Steps
6. Spend Time Promoting Your Blog Posts
One big mistake a lot of bloggers make is creating awesome content but not spending enough time promoting it. If you publish a blog post and 10 people love it, there’s a good chance there are another 200 people out there that will also love it. The only problem is the extra 200 never knew about it.
You can promote your blog post in various ways. Here are some ideas:
- Share your article on all of your social media accounts: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
- Post to Facebook Groups (Blogging 101)
- Give some love to your old posts. Go back to articles you published 6 months ago and share them again.
- Link Roundups – Here’s a great list of 50 link roundups I found
- Share it in your email newsletter
7. Write High Quality Content
Ask yourself these questions before posting: Would I share this if I didn’t write it? Does this provide reader’s value? Think about what emotion your post instills in the reader. Great, shareable content typically includes answering questions people might have about a certain topic.
8. Create Pinnable Images For Blog Posts
Now that you’ve written great content, you want readers to find it online. Creating a pinnable image is a must have for your blog. Heck, 70% of my traffic comes from Pinterest (but that a topic for a different blog post!) To do this, make sure the image is taller than it is wide. Pinterest recommends a 735×1102 vertical image size. I do this via Canva. This specific sizing is under their “Pinterest” design types. Below is an example of a pinnable image created in Canva. You can also view the one at the top of this blog post as well. Both of these I use to promote blog posts over on Pinterest.
9. Add Call To Actions Within Your Posts
What would you like people to DO next, after they read your post? You can ask them to follow you, share your post, or download your freebie. Those are just a few examples.
This is a great way to create more engagement and get more eyes on your blog. Below is a call to action image I use. This shows you EXACTLY what I want my followers to do if they want to download. I always like to add a “click here” button to the image. It’s super easy and effective. To do this, I would add the link to my landing page to this image – so when it’s clicked on, it would take them directly to that page where they can enter their email for whatever freebie I’m offering at the time.
10. Be Detailed With Your Social Media Bios
Social media profiles are searchable! So make sure you’re using keywords and completely filling out your bios. This is a great way to gain traffic to your site and gain new followers and even clients. Make sure that from that tiny excerpt of text you clearly define who you are what you providing to your reader.
You will see that in my Pinterest profile I include:
- The URL to my blog
- Where I’m from
- What I do and what I plan to provide readers
- My freebie or course I’m promoting at the time
11. Make It Easy For Your Readers
Whatever your main goal is (to have your readers follow you on social media, share your blog post, or subscribe to your email newsletter…etc.) make it easy to do so. Using services like Better Click To Tweet to embed links directly into your post makes it easy for your readers to easily share it via Twitter. Here’s the Click to Tweet I made below for this blog post:Wanting more traffic? Check out these 15 ways to get more action on your blog!CLICK TO TWEET
12. Join A Facebook Group
Finding active Facebook groups is a great way to draw attention to your blog and find new people to follow it as well. As a matter of fact, I have a Facebook group specifically for bloggers. Join my free Blogging Facebook Group! I come into the group every single day to chat, answer questions and help people build profitable blogs!
13. Give To Your Readers
When it comes to readers, it’s quality over quantity! A small group of loyal, engaged readers is way better than a large group that doesn’t really care about your content. Some ways to give to your readers…
Offer free stuff. Everyone loves free stuff! Digital downloads, printables, wallpapers, etc are all great options. Create something for your readers that would be super helpful for them! Maybe even do a giveaway on your own or by collaborating with another fellow blogger.
14. Check Your Analytics To See What’s Working
Make sure you are checking your blog stats from the beginning! I used to be TERRIBLE at this. If you are too, stop it now! Go ahead and Set up your account on Google Analytics and get started. Not only will you be able to see how many people are visiting your site each month to track your growth, but you will also be able to check which of your blog posts are the most popular! This is a great way to see what is working and what is not.
I walk you step-by-step on how to set up Google Analytics as well as a guide on what stats you need to be looking at: