Many blog owners think that they have to pay readers to come to their blog. Things like pay per click advertising and banner ads are expensive and many bloggers feel like they do not get all the real hits that they would want. However there are other, more natural ways to get traffic to your blog. Best of all this traffic consists of the readers you really want; those that are interested in your product or service. Here are ten ways you can increase your blog’s traffic naturally:
1. Find your niche – The first thing I always recommend to bloggers who are looking to increase the traffic on their blog is to find a niche. It is great that you have a blog but if your niche is too wide or too narrow then you will miss out on getting the number of hits that you need. When your niche is too wide your audience can get confused about what you offer. For example I may be interested in reading about cosmetics but not children or dogs. If your blog is about cosmetics then make it about that only. Do not water down your blog with a lot of other things. However you do not want to be too narrow either. If you have a blog just about blue mascara you will not have a large enough audience to appeal to. Somewhere in the middle is ideal. Be sure that your blog is focused but not to the extent where you limit your audience.
2. Know what you offer – One aspect of finding your niche is knowing what you offer to readers. Is your blog for informational purposes only? Are you looking to sell a product? A service? Do you want traffic to your ads or promotions? Do you want readers to click on a widget or enter their email address? Your approach will change depending on what you have to offer them and what you want in return. There is no sense trying to hide what you want. Readers are getting smarter about things like that. Instead, be clear about what you have to offer in return and you will not lose readers as readily. You can only promote your blog like a product if you know what kind of product your blog is.
3. Know your audience – Once you know all about your blog it is time to get to know your audience. Your readers are people just like you. What would make you want to come to a blog? If your target market is teens then what are they interested in? If your market is seniors than what do you have to draw them to your blog? You cannot hope to get traffic if you do not know what traffic you are trying to get. Make sure you really know who your blog appeals to. Like the Pokémon frenzy among twenty something men, you might be surprised who really reads your blog.
4. Do your research – One of the best ways to find out who reads your blog is to do some research. There are many programs online that can help you to track who your current readers are and what your prospective readers are looking for. Common search terms and phrases can help you to tailor your blog posts to your audience. You can also learn from the competition. Check out what makes your competitor’s blog successful and try to learn from it. You can even use tools that help you know how to best exploit things like social media to further your blog’s scope.
5. Use keywords – Once your research is complete you should integrate keywords into your blog posts. While keyword packing is a great way to get your blog’s rankings down, you can use keywords naturally to increase your blog’s ranking on search engines like Google. By finding out what topics your readers are interested in and the keywords or phrases that go along with those topics you can form informative and exciting blog posts using those words naturally. It is not hard to use them in your post without going overboard or sounding artificial.
6. Title well – Beyond just the content of the blog posts you should also pay attention to how you title your blogs. The title is often the first and only thing a prospective reader will see. The title is your chance to get a reader hooked and pull them in to your blog. Only by clicking on the title or link will they get to see what lies beneath. That is why you should make your titles pop with action words and mystery. You should also integrate keywords and phrase so the title comes up in search engines. Adding in name recognition, like Batman or Kevin Bacon or Hugh Grant, can get you even more readers pouring in. Keep the titles on the short size, usually under ten words, for the best effect. You can also add numbers to get readers in because…
7. Use lists – Readers love lists. I am not quite sure what makes readers love lists as much as they do. Maybe it is the fact that they can scan down a list and just read the points that are pertinent to them. Maybe it is because a list has numbers and numbers help readers to know ahead of time how long a post will be. For example a list post with five points will be considerably shorter usually than a list post with fifty points. However that is beside the point. The point is that lists work well for readers and bloggers alike. They are easy to write, do well on social media and in searches and can bring in a lot of traffic.
8. Keep it short – Another great point that often goes overlooked by blog writers is that blog readers love short posts. I am not talking about micro posts of a hundred words or less. No, short posts of about five hundred to one thousand words seems to be the target market for readers. That size of post offers both useful information and a quick read. There are very few readers who want to scroll through page after page of text. Your best bet is to keep your blog posts short.
This also has the added advantage of making them faster to write. If short posts are not your forte then try to break up your post into smaller sections. By using headers or bullet points you can make it easier for readers to scan your blog post. You can also break up your long blog post into several shorter sections, like part one, part two and so on. That way it looks like you are offering more information but with the same amount of writing.
9. Be human – Be passionate about what you write. No one wants to read a boring blog and no one wants to read an encyclopedia or a sales pitch. Instead, try to remember why you started blogging. You love something about your product or service. Why are you passionate about it? The more passion you put into your blog the more your reading will connect with you. Encourage connections. Many bloggers take off the ability for readers to comment because they fear spam. That is like refusing to eat because you fear poison.
It just does not work. Instead open your blog up to comments and foster interaction with your readers. The more connected your readers feel the longer they will stick around and the more friends they will tell about your blog.
10. Update often – Last but not least, update your blog often. If you do not keep your blog updated every day or at least several times a week then you are not reaching your full potential. Search engines prioritize by time. The more recent the better. Keep your blog updated to stay on top of search results and to keep popping up in your reader’s minds. The more you get your blog’s name out there the more memorable you will be. Stick to a schedule and update frequently to make the most of your blog.
These are just a few of the ways that you can get more traffic to your blog naturally. You do not have to pay for your traffic. Instead use your knowledge and wisdom to create a blog that readers will be drawn to.
Author Bio: Nancy provides feedback on all elements of the site “www.enannysource.com” helping us to really make sure that we are making it as easy as possible for caregivers to sign up and find work. In addition, she spends quite a bit of her time on freelance writing tasks.
