This December will mark 15 years since I started blogging. I started with the now defunct site Themestream, and shortly after it went down, I moved to Blogger. Actually, in a sense, I’ve been blogging longer than that. For 3 years prior, I was writing articles for a weekly ezine.
Anyhow, over the years, I’ve learned a few tricks for driving traffic to your blog, and I wanted to share them with you. Here are 6 big tips for boosting traffic to your blog:
1. Blog regularly
One key to building a community around your blog is writing regularly. For this blog, I write twice a week, but on my most popular blog, I’d been writing several times a day at one point.
Try to stick to a schedule. As your visitors become regular, they’ll notice your schedule and may visit your blog on publishing days to see what you wrote.
2. Make it compelling
What you write should make people think, answer their questions, or provoke them to comment. Compelling content engages people and helps them find value in it.
Be bold. Take a stand. Write with authority. And don’t be afraid of controversy.
3. Link to other blogs
Find out who the thought leaders are in your industry and link to their blog posts. You could write a list post linking to several related blogs on a particular topic, or write about a topic and include thoughts from other bloggers on it.
These bloggers will notice your link in their trackbacks and in their analytics and may visit your site to see what you have to say. They may even link back to you in a future post if what you have to say is compelling.
4. Comment on other blogs
Commenting on other blogs shows others that you’re willing to engage with them. It also shows them that you have something to say, and it’s an extension of what you write on your blog. Plus, most blogging platforms link your name to your own blog, so if people like your comments, they may click through to your blog to see what else you’ve written.
5. Share on social media
Each time you write a blog post, share it on your social media accounts. If people like what they see, they’ll comment on it, like it, and reshare it, helping to drive traffic to your site.
6. Publish a newsletter
Another way to get more visitors is to publish a regular newsletter. Ask people to sign up in your sidebar, on your social media, and at the end of your posts. Use your blog posts as content for your newsletter. Because your email subscribers may not visit your site often, a regular newsletter serves as a reminder that you’re still pumping out awesome content.
Some of these tips take some extra work, but given some time, you’ll start to see real results.
Have you learned your own tricks for driving blog traffic? Let me know in the comments below.
