How to increase blog traffic with simple strategies

Blogging remains an effective online marketing strategy. A well-populated blog page can easily attract web traffic while relaying specific marketing messages. Blogs are a simple means to spread brand awareness, bring a website to life, engage vast online audiences, build brand authority, and more.

However, there’s a catch. Blogs only work if they can attract enough readers. The more readers you can draw to your blog, the better. But how do you do that?

This article is a comprehensive guide on how to increase blog traffic. Read on to learn actionable tips to grow your blog’s traffic and success.

Why increasing blog traffic is crucial for success

Why is blog traffic such a big deal, and do blogs really matter in the first place?

As Bill Gates once said, “Content is king.” And despite the influx of attention-grabbing and deeply engaging media, such as TikTok videos, the written word still has its place. The humble text is still the best way to convey an enormous breadth of information, even online.

Blogs just happen to be the best medium for showcasing written content online. Moreover, blogging is probably the most flexible way to deliver content. You have unlimited control over each post’s length, subject, tone, style, etc.

So, yes, blogs still do matter in this day and age. So much so that around 7.5 million blog posts go live every single day. And that’s only from 600 million blogs.

Now, on the question of blog traffic — here’s why more is better:

• Increased visibility

More blog traffic means more people are exposed to your content and website. That way, you can push your marketing and branding messages to a larger audience. So, more people get to know about your business or brand and what you do.

• Higher engagement

Blogging presents a great opportunity for audience engagement. As traffic increases, so do opportunities for audience engagement — through comments, social shares, and subscriptions.

Deep audience engagement helps build a stronger community. You also gain valuable insights into your audience through continued engagement.

• Monetization opportunities

More visitors often translate to higher chances of monetizing a blog. Most bloggers earn through ad revenue and affiliate marketing. Blog posts also help businesses sell their own products or services. Whatever your monetization strategy, higher traffic opens up more revenue opportunities.

• Authority building

Building brand authority is another reason to attract more visitors to your blog. Consistently high traffic can establish a blog as a go-to resource in your niche. More blog traffic positions you as an expert or authority in your industry and builds trust with the audience.

• Search engine ranking

Blogging is a tried-and-true SEO strategy. Blogs with more traffic, especially from organic sources, tend to rank higher in search engine results. And higher-ranking blogs bring in even more organic traffic over time.

How to increase blog traffic with basic SEO tips

Leverage online search engines via SEO to increase organic traffic to your blog. SEO basically means making the blog and its content more search engine-friendly. Optimizing your blog for online search ranks it higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), exposing it to more relevant audiences.

SEO is a simple yet powerful way to increase blog traffic. It barely costs a thing, and if done correctly, it can be a long-term growth strategy.

Let’s go over the most effective on-page SEO techniques for traffic growth.

Use the right keywords

Keywords are specific words or phrases internet users are likely to use in search queries. Say someone is looking for information about skincare; they might search terms like “skincare tips,” “natural skincare routines,” and “best skincare products.” The search engine will then present them with blogs and websites spotting these keywords.

Ensure your blog contains relevant keywords likely to be used in online searches. Start by researching the most commonly queried terms in your niche. Then, work those keywords naturally into your blog content.

While the more keywords, the better, avoid oversaturating your posts with keywords. Keyword stuffing might compromise the reader’s experience.

Add internal links

Use various anchor texts in your blog to link to other pages on your site. Internal links help search engines create a comprehensive and accurate sitemap. A sitemap is essentially a blueprint of your website that enables search engines to crawl and index your web content.

On top of that, internal links make it easier for readers to navigate your site. For instance, the reader can simply click on a link to a related post, web page, or other resource. This helps keep the reader on the site for longer, which tells the search engine that your site is relevant to that particular audience.

Optimize blog pages for mobile

Mobile devices account for 63.38% of global web traffic. Most people will likely access your website and blog via a smartphone or tablet. So, it makes sense to optimize your web and reading experience for the mobile audience.

Mobile optimization mainly involves taking a responsive web design approach. It’s also more nuanced, like laying out, sizing, and positioning web elements with mobile users in mind.

Write meta descriptions and alt text

A meta description is a short text blurb briefly summarizing what a particular page or blog post is about. In addition to boosting the click-through rate on your page, meta descriptions provide contextual information to search engines.

Meanwhile, alt text is a brief description of an image that also provides context about how the image relates to the rest of the content or page. Alt text is picked up by screen readers, helping visually impaired readers understand image-enriched content. Also, search engines use alt text to index images.

Maximize page performance

Page performance is a vital SEO signal. Fast loading speeds, flawless functions, and instant responsiveness all contribute to the overall user experience and SEO ranking.

Optimizing page performance is more on the technical side. It entails compressing images, managing plugins, minifying scripts and code, leveraging browser caching, using CNDs, and minimizing HTTP requests.

Create high-quality content to attract more visitors

High-quality content is the backbone of successful blogging. “Quality,” in this case, means writing blog posts that resonate with your audience. Create content that not only aligns with search algorithms but also brings value to human readers. Publish posts that inform, entertain, intrigue, captivate, and engage the audience.

Give readers a reason to look forward to the next post. Also, readers are more likely to share good reads with friends, family, or colleagues.

Follow these content creation tips to drive traffic to your blog:

• Understand the audience. Find out what your target audience wants to read about. Everything about the blog, including the topics, tone, and perspective, should cater to the readers’ needs and preferences.
• Make the content scannable. Break down content, especially long-form posts, into bite-sized scannable chunks. This helps grab the reader’s attention while making the content easy to read and digest.
• Enrich text with visuals. Plain old text can be a bit boring; spruce it up with captivating visuals.
• Be consistent. Publish posts on a regular schedule and maintain a consistent style, tone, voice, and general outlook across all publications. More importantly, align your blog with the message and brand values you want to put across.

Leverage social media to increase traffic to your blog

With over 5 billion users, social media is a great way to increase blog visibility, traffic, and engagement. An active presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., can massively expand your blog’s reach and following.

All you have to do is create social posts linking back to your blog. But keep in mind that not all social media platforms are equal when it comes to content marketing. Facebook, for instance, is great for promotional posts. LinkedIn is ideal for insightful, in-depth, and thought-provoking content. Pinterest works best with lifestyle brands. So, pick a social platform that best suits your niche and target audience.

You can leverage social media in many different ways, including:

• Using hashtags
• Collaborating with influencers
• Making blog posts sharable on social media
• Promoting social media content using sponsored posts
• Engaging directly with your social media following

Grow your blog traffic with email marketing

Email marketing is a simple and effective way to distribute content. In addition to giving your content more eyeballs, emailing can pull readers to your blog.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on turning your email campaign into a traffic generator:

1. Create an email list. First things first, create a substantial email list — the longer, the better. Gather as many contacts as possible from leads, past customers, and your blog’s subscribers. Fill the list with contacts who are likely to enjoy or find value in your blog.
2. Segment your audience. Once you’ve got your list, break it down into discrete segments. Group contacts with similar interests in the same segment.Email segmentation is the basis of personalized email marketing at scale. For instance, you can’t send new prospects and past customers the same email.
3. Curate your content. Select the particular blog posts to email to specific audience segments. Remember, the goal is to increase traffic to your blog. So, pick content that resonates with each group of audience.
4. Set an email schedule. There’s such a thing as the “right time to send emails.” Studies show that emails sent between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. have the best chance of being opened and read. Mid- to late afternoon is also a good time for emailing.More to that, create a schedule around your email blasts. For example, you can have emails go out every time you publish a new blog, which should be at least once or twice a month.
5. Craft traffic-focused emails. Once everything is set, it’s time to write the emails. Visually captivating newsletters are the way to go here. Design the newsletter to grab the reader’s attention with a catchy subject line and a brief summary of its content. Be sure to include a tease to your blog and clear action-provoking messages with links to your site.

Take advantage of guest posting

Guest posting is another great way to expand your blog’s reach beyond your online domain. This is where you post content on a third-party website to promote your own blog.

You only need a willing host website. The host could be one of your business partners, an open blogging platform, or an affiliated brand. There may be some rules you have to abide by, but that’s about it.

When guest posting, it is important to ensure that every post features links leading back to your blog or website. However, extensive guest posting can quickly complicate backlinking. You might need link building services to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the links leading to your site.

Engage with your readers to keep them coming back

Reader engagement is key in building a blog following. A good read is not always enough to keep people coming back. Some readers like to engage with the content, author, and even other readers. Encourage such engagements in the following ways:

• Post highly interactive content using infographics, polls, quizzes, games, interactive video, etc.
• Have a live comment section below each post.
• Enable direct interactions via social media.
• Allow readers to contact you (the author) via email or chat.
• Create a bloggers’ forum.

Repurpose old content to drive new traffic

As you populate your blog with fresh content, don’t forget about the older posts. Depending on the topic, an old post might seem outdated and unappealing to readers. But it may only need minor editing and updating to recapture attention and bring in new readers.

Republishing old content not only turns readers’ heads — it also boosts your blog’s SEO performance. It also takes less effort and time to update a post than to write a new one. Plus, updating and repurposing old posts makes for an evergreen blog.

Track and analyze performance

Keep close tabs on your blog’s performance. Use web analytics tools such as Google Analytics to track key performance metrics such as:

• Bounce rate
• Time on page
• Subscriber growth
• Unique and returning visitors
• Engagement depth
• Page and post views
• Page authority
• Social shares
• CTR on internal links

Measuring these metrics will give you insights into your content and audience. It will help you figure out what you’re doing right and what you’re getting wrong. And with that, you can continuously improve your blogging strategies to bring in more traffic.

Start implementing these tips today

There’s no silver bullet for increasing blog traffic. You really have to put in the work, from writing high-quality content and applying SEO strategies to running outreach campaigns. The key to all this is patience and consistency. 

Dec 10, 2024