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5 Tips to Drive Traffic as a New Blogger
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How to Get Traffic to a New Blog
Have you been struggling to increase traffic to your blog, even though you felt like you have tried everything?
When you do see a soar in numbers it’s only after you had spent hours of posting on Facebook.
It’s tough when you’re a newbie blogger! Getting people to your website is not only difficult and time-consuming, but it’s also frustrating and overwhelming.
Especially if you’re not too sure where to start!
Check this post to find out what method the majority of bloggers recommend to drive traffic from Social Media: Which Social Network is the best for driving traffic to a blog? Poll + 21 Actionable Tips from Experts!
Guys, I know the pain. I was here myself! Here you’ll learn how to generate blog traffic for free when you start as a new blogger!
If you want to be ahead of the competition, you have to make sure that you aren’t making any of these blogging mistakes!
It does take time and work to really start bringing in big numbers to your blog, however, you can start by applying these 5 tips to give you the BOOST you may need, so your hard work really pays off!
First, Know your Stats
It’s amazing how many people fail to optimize their WordPress site for traffic. So, before we get started, make sure you know your current numbers.
You can do this a couple ways; with Google Analytics and Jetpack wp plugin.
I have two websites and use them both, while they are both great, Google Analytics does require a few extra steps in the set-up. Read; How to Install Google Analytics for Beginners for help in setup.
The second option is using a plugin called Jetpack. Jetpack shows you all the stats including where your traffic is coming from. The set up is super simple, but the plugin can slow down your site speed. So just be aware of that.
Alrighty, now it’s time to boost our traffic!
1. Install Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin
Yoast SEO is an easy to install free WP plugin, although there is a paid version, the free version of Yoast is all you really need.
If you don’t have Yoast SEO, you are missing out! With Yoast SEO you can fully optimize your website by writing better content, and tips on using keywords with their Green/Yellow/Red light guide, so let me further explain just why I love Yoast so much.
- Readability score– In your blog post draft, there will be a light (green, yellow, or red) indicating your score for readability. Format your blog post accordingly to show green using tips from Yoast.
- Focus Keywords– Yoast SEO will give you tips on creating the best keyword for your post.
- Title & Description– This is where you create the title you want to show up when someone types of a keyword in google. The description goes under the title.
- Configure Social Media– Link your social media accounts under the settings tab of Yoast SEO.
- XML Sitemap– This is an advanced feature of Yoast that you can activate with a click of a button. It is beneficial in increasing your SEO, even if your site is all optimized.
2. Use Keywords and Meta Descriptions
Google loves them keywords! Make sure to include keywords (A keyword in SEO simply means using words that a reader would use to look something up on the web) in your blog post titles and content headings.
Google can pick up these keywords to help rank your post higher for those search terms & eventually increase your blog traffic.
Did you know that you can add keywords on the images that you load in your posts? That’s right! And you should be doing this. Because without any keywords on an image, Google won’t know what it is.
When you go to add an image to your blog post or just up in your media, you will see a bunch of words below the picture before you fully upload it.
Most people will end up just leaving this blank because they have no idea what they should write.
Take a look at one of my images below. See where it shows Alt Text? This is where you would use a few keywords that a user might search for under images. That’s it! Just write a simple phrase and your image is good to go.
3. Social Media Sharing
Another great way to bring in traffic to your blog is through social media. After all, social media is where a lot of people get the latest information, right? Depending on the type of reader you are trying to attract, will determine which platform you should use.
Typically, these 4 social media sites tend to send the most traffic to your blog:
Be sure to connect your social media to your blog. For easy sharing, I go with the Social Warfare Plugin. It’s a paid plugin at $29 a year and worth it in my opinion.
Social Warfare allows for easy to see and customize buttons that keep track of blog post shares. See mine here.
Create a FB page linked to your blog and constantly share blog posts, and tips to your page. You can also create a Call to Action button that leads to your website or another action. If you want to take it a step further, create a FB Group of your niche and build an engaged audience. See my BP on getting your first 100 members quick 7-days!
Create click-able quotes to tweet.
You don’t have to have your own twitter account to do this, just make sure to have Twitter as an option for others to share on theirs.
If you are looking to reach more professionals
Then LinkedIn might a good choice. There has been a lot of good changes on LinkedIn since when I first used the platform years ago!
Now with a Plus (paid) version of LinkedIn, you can customize your account, add recent blog posts and include links as well! Pretty cool if you ask me.
There have been some pretty cool tools
that now make it easier than ever before. Instagram is great for sharing bright and light-colored images. Perfect for travel blogs and home décor too. Tools like Linktree create a bio link that branches off into other links.
For instance; when someone clicks on your bio link there will say 4 options to click on, that will take the viewers to that specific site. See mine. Click the link here to my Instagram then click bio link.
Points to Remember:
- Share blog posts frequently
- Keep your audience engaged
- Ask others to share your content (Reddit, Warrior forum, FB groups)
4. Choose One Main Traffic Source
Stick to one main traffic source in the beginning until you know the ropes can automate it then move on to another source.
Why would I do that?
Well, when you are trying to juggle several different platforms to drive traffic like; YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, for instance, it can be very difficult to become great at that platform.
So many people are bouncing from one platform to another knowing very little on getting the most out of each platform because their time is divided into so many different areas. Make sense?
The rule of thumb and something I learned from taking blogging courses is to focus your attention on ONE platform.
Commit to this source of traffic for at least 30-60 days. Learn as much as you can about it before trying something new.
I started with Pinterest as my main traffic source. There was a lot more to Pinterest for business that I never knew about before upgrading my personal account.
Now I schedule my pins with an automation tool, so I just take one day a week and schedule all my pins for that week. (although you could do a month if you wanted)
Here is a pic of one of my rich pins gaining traffic.
So, take advantage of one platform and stay consistent. Your blog will thank you for it!
5. Get Backlinks on High Traffic Sites
Okay, what’s a backlink and why do we need it?
A backlink is a link created from one website to another.
It’s important to have a strong foundation before you start creating backlinks (well-optimized site). Having a well-optimized running site makes backlinks more effective.
The key to having a strong link strategy is to create content that readers will crave. When other big industries create links back to yours, Google recognizes this and therefore see’s your content as relative information. The result, your website ranking goes up in search results.
Here are some tips when writing guest posts:
- Look for websites that have a lot of traffic in your niche. You can see how much traffic a website has by going to Similarweb.com (this is an actual backlink). Don’t overlook sites that don’t have “write for us” or “taking guest posts”. You should still reach out to them and ask. Don’t waste your time on sites that are smaller than you, because it will do little good for your SEO traffic.
- Write more than one time for a blog. Building relationships with others in your niche is important. You don’t want to be seen as using others as a stepping stool.
- Create valuable content others are searching for. For best SEO results aim for 1000-2000 words.
So, which tip are you going to try first? Let us know in the comments below or describe what strategy you use to increase your blog traffic for free!