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Welcome to Day 6 of the series How to Start a Blog. Today we are tackling how to get blog traffic.
I’m sharing with you today my main tips to grow an audience and get people to actually read your blog.
I know how overwhelming it can be to get started, so I’m here to guide you step by step with all the tips that I have learned myself.
With a daily checklist to keep you on track.
Ready to start your own blog? I use and recommend Bluehost for your blog. If you have no idea where to begin, use my free ultimate guide on how to start a blog and make money blogging.
There are 7 posts in this Start a Blog challenge, so here is what you can expect:
- DAY 1: What do I write about?
- DAY 2: How to set it up
- DAY 3: How to customize your blog
- DAY 4: How to brand your blog
- DAY 5: How to write your first blog post
- DAY 6: How to get blog traffic
- DAY 7: How to make money blogging
TODAY’S CHECKLIST
- Use these SEO tips for every post
- Share on socials
- Make it pinnable on Pinterest
- Blog consistently
How to Get Blog Traffic
If you started this blog in order to possibly make a decent income out of it, then what you need is blog traffic.
More traffic = more opportunities = more money
If you haven’t already, I suggest you create a Google Analytics account and link it to your blog. You can either do it manually (they give you instructions in Google Analytics how to do so) or you can use a plugin to do it for you.
This will give you valuable insight into what’s working and what’s not working for your blog.
You will see how many pageviews you’re getting on a daily basis, where they are originating from (which is helpful to create a marketing strategy), which posts are the most popular etc.
It is essential to know all of these things for growing and assessing how you’re doing.
When you are just starting out, you might be feeling down about the numbers you’re getting, I get it. But if you’re consistent and you put effort into it, your following and pageviews will grow significantly.
Here are some proven ways in which you can boost your blog traffic:
1.Use these SEO tips for every post
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What this means is basically the chance you have of your blog popping up when someone searches something on Google.
Here’s the thing about SEO.
It is a long-term kind of game. You will apply SEO practices for months probably before you see results.
However, once your blog gains more authority, there will be more and more posts that will rank up higher in search – bringing you lots of traffic.
I have talked more about SEO in yesterday’s post, as well as how I got one of my posts to rank number #1 in Google search.
Make sure to download the SEO checklist I have at the end of this post. Also, make sure to install the free Yoast SEO plugin which will automatically analyze each of your posts to see how search-friendly it is on Google.
2. Share on socials
Social media is IT these days, isn’t it?
If you need to promote anything, social media is your best bet to get more eyes to your website or business.
Which is why I encourage you to be on as many platforms as you can handle. You will likely not be able to have 6-7 social platforms and ace every one of them.
It’s much easier to focus and grow a couple of socials at a time. Although I have found that when one of your social accounts starts growing, your other ones will follow too.
I personally gain the most of my blog traffic from Pinterest. It is the best platform to be on as a blogger. I will cover this a bit more below.
Some other platforms that I have used to drive traffic are Instagram and YouTube.
I don’t currently use Twitter or Facebook much, simply because I find it overwhelming to handle so many at once. But I have heard other bloggers who’ve had great success with those too.
Figure out 2-3 platforms that appeal to you the most and focus on nurturing those.
However, one of those needs to be Pinterest. Here’s why.
3. Make it pinnable on Pinterest
Pinterest is probably the only platform you have a chance of going viral on as a new blogger.
People love seeing beautiful pins that solve one of their problems. If you focus on that, you will be able to drive massive traffic to your blog from Pinterest.
This is what my current traffic sources look like.
As you can see 56% of traffic comes from social channels. The large majority of my social traffic is from Pinterest and then the rest of the bit comes from YouTube and Instagram.
I’m currently sitting at 200k views or impressions on my Pinterest account. This does NOT mean the amount of people who go to my blog. It means there are 200k people who have seen my pins on the Pinterest platform.
A part of those will actually click on the pin and go to my blog. Or some may even re-pin it if they find it useful.
A pin has a much higher chance of going viral than – say – a photo on Instagram or Facebook.
So how do you grow on Pinterest?
This topic might as well be a whole series in itself – growing a Pinterest account. I will try to briefly mention some things you want to start with, but I will probably go more in depth in some future posts (let me know if it’s something you’re interested in).
Make pinnable content
First of all, you’re going to want to create 2-3 pins for each blogpost that you write.
This will improve your chances of getting more visible on Pinterest, you will have more to pin about and it will help you realize which pin designs work best for you.
It might seem like a lot to begin with. If you feel too overwhelmed, create just one for each post. But make sure you have at least one pinnable image in your post.
Here is How to Create a Pin for Pinterest in Canva.
This is how I do it for every single post. I now create at least 2-3 pins for each post and I usually add one of them at the beginning of the post, and the rest of them at the end of the post or just upload them separately to Pinterest.
Describe your pin
When you pin them, make sure to write out the title and description of your pin. You can even add hashtags in the description (I would use 3-5). This will help Pinterest know what your pin is about in order to promote it in front of people who might want to see it.
Group boards
Another strategy that a lot of bloggers use (myself included) is to join group boards.
You probably already know that you can create boards on your account for various topics.
Group boards are basically boards where multiple people contribute. They usually have quite a high following and you can ask to join them.
You can either search for group boards in the Pinterest search bar or you can look at other accounts in your niche to see what group boards they are in and try to join a few of those.
They all have different rules you need to follow which are usually written in the description of the group board, so keep those in mind.
After you’ve joined a group board, you can start pinning your pins on there and get your content in front of a new audience.
Pinterest is amazing for gaining more traffic!
4. Blog consistently
This is something that I have started focusing on a lot more in the past few months and it has brought amazing results. Coupled with intense Pinterest promotion, it can really boost your blog traffic.
It is quite obvious when you think about it.
The more content you have, the more chances of people finding it and spending more time reading it.
You don’t need to blog every day or every other day. That gets overwhelming easily and it is not sustainable, in my opinion.
In the beginning especially, try to aim for 1-2 posts a week.
If you can’t commit to it, that’s alright. But make sure you come back with fresh content as often as you can if you truly want to see results.
Wow, that was a long read, wasn’t it?
Amazing job for coming so far.
I hope you’re feeling more prepared and informed now about how you can grow your blog traffic.
