Julia Tiedt — April 13, 2018 — April 13, 2018
More blog traffic — a dream for all inbound and content marketers, right?
Unfortunately, there is no magic formula for driving more viewers to your blog. In fact, chasing the changing algorithms sometimes gets you short-term results, but that often gives way to frustration when the algorithms change again.
So, what’s a smart marketer to do? Put in the time and effort to make your content work no matter how the algorithms change, the things that help you build your audience steadily over time. And hey, you never know when one of these growth tactics will turn into a home run.
So, here are six tested ways to grow blog traffic to your website.
1. Create Value for Your Ideal Customers
It’s so important to have a communication strategy behind your blog and stick to it. You want to set clear expectations that the reader is going to get value every time they come to your blog and once you communicate this, don’t disappoint.
While it seems obvious, growing your blog traffic only begins when you put your audience first. It may sound harsh, but chances are good that your readers probably don’t care about what award you recently won, what integration you’ve recently launched, or if you just hit the no. 1 spot on a B2B list.
Do you know what your customers care about?
They want to know how to solve their pain points, how to grow their business, and how to get better results. If you can figure out how to speak the language of your customers, you’ll develop a loyal following. For some businesses, it might take time to figure out what will spark their interest, but it is definitely a worthwhile effort.
Spend time talking to customers about their problems and pain points, monitor trends, and find out what is buzzing in your industry. Then, write your company’s unique take on the problem. Over time, your audience will look to you for your opinion on things.
2. Follow SEO Best Practices
We live in a world where people find answers to their questions on search engines, that’s just the reality. Sadly, we still see so many people that are writing content with no consideration of SEO (search engine optimization) best practices. If you aren’t incorporating keyword research as part of your content creation process, you are probably leaving potential blog traffic on the table.
With the constantly updating Google algorithms and changing viewer habits, it can be ever-evolving game to get more people and traffic to your blog. But if you want to get ahead, you must embrace them as one of many ways to identify and create the content that your audience wants.
In addition to the actual content that’s optimized for search engines, another important factor is creating a great user experience that minimizes page loading time.
If your page is taking too long to load, your audience will absolutely bail on your blog before they even read a word of content. Plus, search algorithms also take page loading times into account in their rankings.
3. Cultivate a Thriving Community
An important part of growing your blog traffic is garnering a following. It’s all about getting the same people to come back time and time again while also introducing new readers to the mix. But you need to do more than just hope the subscribers continue to come — give them reasons that will guarantee a return.
Way too many companies are blogging without having a place for readers to subscribe to their content. This is such an easy, non-salesy way to stay top of mind with your audience.
Make sure that you are engaging with your audience by responding to their comments and creating content that sparks ideas and conversation. Encourage your sales team to engage with comments on blogs and social media posts to kickstart your discussions.
4. Give Your Audience a Voice
There is a reason user-generated content is so successful on sites like Instagram or Facebook. People care about their peers’ opinions and trust what other users say over what a business says. So, why not empower one of your advocates and invite them to contribute to the blog?
Open your blog up for guest blog contributions from your target audience. Ask power users to share their success stories, case studies, and experiences. Share their photos, quotes and more to show real-life examples of how others engage with your product, service, or brand.
5. Network with Other Bloggers
Generating content can often be thrown on the back burner due to the number of other responsibilities we have on a daily basis. But as you may know, consistent content is key to creating and nurturing a following on your blog. You don’t have to take on all of that responsibility on your own, you can turn to guest bloggers to help you with your content (and bring their audience over to your site as well).
Your relationships with other bloggers can be more than just helping to generate more content, figure out other ways you can mutually help each other. For example, a great tactic could be as simple as sharing their blogs on your social accounts and vice-versa to share audience bases.
6. Don’t Be Afraid to Share, Share and Share Again
Your work isn’t done just because you hit the publish button. Spend time sharing your content on social media, post links in your emails, share it to groups and forums. Don’t expect that your content is just going to go viral, it takes hard work to get your post noticed, especially when you are just started.
Look for natural opportunities to share your content on your site and other sites around the web. Creating a guest post for other sites with links to your content can be a great way to drive a new audience to your content.
Conclusion
There’s no silver bullet to help you drive droves of new traffic to your website. However, there are tested strategies that you can use to grow blog traffic to your website and better engage with your ideal customers online.
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