Do you want more readers? Do you want more traffic?
Well, of course you do!
If you’re like many other bloggers who start with great enthusiasm and end up quitting, you might have missed important points on how to get more traffic to your blog.
Traffic is so important when it comes to blogging.
It’s like taxes that give life to your country.
After all, who would like to write blog posts and not wanting people to read it, right?
In this post, I’ll talk about how to build traffic to your blog.
As a beginner, blogging can be very daunting if you don’t know how to be successful in this endeavor.
Read the following and get the basics of driving traffic to your blog.
Beginners Guide: Building Traffic To Your Blog
1. Start with Social Media
It’s no secret that social media is now playing a crucial role in terms of marketing.
Big companies are doing it. Small companies are doing it.
Everybody is doing it, which means there is no reason for you not to take advantage of social media as well.
By using Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other major social networking websites, you can engage and interact with your readers, and share with them any of your new posts.
How to effectively spread your content through social media:
- Increase following. Add follow buttons somewhere visible on your site to make it easier for people to follow you on social media networks. This way, you can keep in touch with your readers in the future. Take a look at my little social icons on the sidebar. You can also ask your friends to join you on your business pages.
- Post regularly. Use attractive images along with personalized messages for maximum impact.
- Ask your followers to share your content if they find it useful.
- Add sharing buttons to within your content to encourage your readers share your posts. See how I added mine at the left side. If you’re on WordPress, you can use SumoMe to install sharing buttons on your blog.
- Read How-To: Promote your blog with social media for more detailed tips.
A chain reaction will then start which results into your posts (as long as they are good and are “share worthy) being shared across multiple users and platforms.
2. Leave Comments on Other Blogs
Engaging with other bloggers in the same niche will help you in many ways, but mainly, it helps other bloggers and their readers know who you are, which also helps in promoting your blog.
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
And let other bloggers guest post on yours as well. Remember, blogging is all about building a huge 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.
But you need to be careful on who you guest blog for, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Check the quality of the content you’re writing for. Meaning, their content must be useful and valid.
- They have to be within your niche. Ask yourself “Do they offer the same type of content as mine?” “Do they have the same target market as mine?”
- They must be updated regularly.
- Make sure to review their requirements!
3. Respond to Comments
Plenty of bloggers make the grave mistake of not engaging with their readers. As a result, most of their readers, well, just read and consider their blog just any other blog.
If you want to build loyalty, brand your blog and make yourself more of an authority, you have to reply to comments of readers to your posts, especially those that raise interesting points, or have a few questions about your content.
4. 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, Yahoo!, and Bing to find what they are looking for.
So it’s very important to make your blog search engine friendly.
Basic ways to optimize your blog for SEO:
a.) Use keywords, but don’t overuse. Keyword is one of the most crucial pieces of SEO. When people look for something, they will type that in the search engine tab. For example, if you want to talk about building a blog, there are many aspects you need to talk about such as its processes, factors that affect its practice, how to be effective with it, and many others.
Some ways you need to identify to come up with relevant keywords:
- Know what your blog should be about.
- Identify who your audience is. Who are they? Where are they from? Gender? What do they like?
- Determine how your target audience speak and what language do they use.
Let’s say you’re creating a new blog post about “Getting Traffic To Your Blog For Beginners”. Use specific keywords on your post such as “Growing Blog” or maybe “Increasing Blog Visitors for Beginners”. You may include them in your title or within your content. So when people search for “How to Build Blog Traffic”, your post will appear in top results in search engines. But do not overuse keywords as Google may flag you as a spammy blog. They should flow naturally within your content.
If you have any trouble coming up with good keywords, you can use Google Keyword Planner, Word Tracker, SemRush, or Longtail Pro.
b.) Provide quality content. The content you provide should be your main focus. Search engines put great emphasis on original, unique, and relevant content. If people think about your content as something helpful and full of essential information, they will most likely stay on your site, refer it to their friends, and use your blog multiple times.
c.) Post fresh content regularly. Blogs that update their content regularly often rank higher compared to those that do not.
d.) Earn quality back links. Your blog site is only one part of the equation. If your blog’s URL is found in other credible websites, search engines will most probably consider you as an authoritative site to be included in top pages of the search results. Some of the best ways to earn quality back links: provide great content, give out freebies and ask for a link back when they use your stuff.
But never settle with the basics of SEO, you should expand your knowledge regarding this subject if you want to maximize your SEO traffic. Here are some articles that can help improve your SEO skills:
5. Update Your Blog Regularly
While there are many reasons as to why you should update your site regularly, you only need to take note of these three.
- Like I’ve mentioned earlier, you increase your chances of ranking well on search engines.
- Regular updates also means that your readers or visitors will have a reason to keep on coming back.
- You also get your hands on valuable data more often, helping you get to know which changes affected your website’s performance the most, for better or for worse.
6. Write for Your Intended Readers
Your blog should always have a specific target audience. This way, you do not overwork yourself by writing something for a more general audience.
Yes, almost everybody can use the information found in your posts, but always remember that when you write, the first thing that comes into your mind is that specific target audience whose problems you want to solve, or whose questions you want to answer.
7. Don’t forget bookmarking sites
Bookmarking websites or social bookmarking is importance because of four key things:
- It’s fairly easy to distribute or share content through a wide variety of bookmarking websites, making huge traffic a very likely end results.
- In some ways, bookmarking sites allow you to brand yourself and promote it simply just by creating your own profiles.
- Because of the number of sites you submit or distribute your URL to, you also make it easier for search engines to index your URL and site through a variety of means, the most common of which is by tagging yourself using trending keywords in your niche that are related to your content.
- Submitting your URL or site through bookmarking sites will help you get quality backlinks from your submissions, as well as a higher page ranking.
List of some bookmarking sites that you can use as a beginner:
- Reddit – without any doubt, Reddit is the fastest and most popular bookmarking.
- Twitter – we already mentioned Twitter in our list of social networking site, but it can still work miracle as a bookmarking site when used with the right content and the right exposure.
- StumbleUpon – this website is known for offering rich content about almost anything. Make sure to add your link here to get noticed.
- Pinterest – you can “pin” your content here to reach more people.
- Other bookmarking sites you might want to try is Delicious and Scoop.it.
Explore each of them and see which of them fit your needs, preference, and even budget.
Final Words
As a blogger who aims to conquer and wants to make it BIG in the blogosphere, you need to take into heart the tips and guides mentioned above. There are a lot of things you need to know to be successful in blogging. Nevertheless, you need to start small to attain big things. Just stay committed and passionate in blogging!
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