10 Keys to Growing Your Traffic
I’ve had my blog for several years. The first couple of years, my traffic was relatively stable, with sporadic growth spurts and declines. Overall, it didn’t go anywhere. In the past six months, my traffic has grown by thirty percent every month. What’s the difference? Here are the 10 Keys to Growing Traffic I employed:
1. Blog every day. Seriously. This is the simplest, yet most difficult, step for many bloggers, but it’s critical. In order the grow traffic and page views, your blog needs to become a habit for your visitors. Be there every day.
2. Serve your visitors. This is absolutely as critical as blogging every day. Who does your blog serve? Yourself, or your visitors? Think about it. Why should people bother to come to your blog? Are you promoting yourself, your business/products, whining, venting, writing about personal things only your friends or family would be interested in? Blogging is a form of writing, and if you want to build traffic, you have to write to entertain, to inform, to serve. Serve your visitors first. The traffic (which then serves you) will follow.
3. Advertise. Don’t be afraid to spend money to make money. Blogads, as one example, is a great way to advertise your blog on other like blogs that can help speed the process of building traffic.
4. Join Facebook. Network with friends and friends of friends and friends of friends of friends to spread the word about your blog.
5. Use photographs. Educate yourself, at least minimally, about photography. Use crisp, clear, interesting pictures and keep the kilobyte (download size) small to ease user time. Blog visitors love photographs.
6. Design to please. Use reader-friendly design, color, font size, etc, on your blog. Don’t turn new visitors away with a cluttered, heavy, dark design. Welcome them in with clear and functional navigation and a warm, friendly environment.
7. Participate. Talk back to your commenters. Encourage the sense of community on your blog. Don’t just post and disappear. Blog readers love having their questions answered. Answers emails, too! Care about your readers, and they’ll care about you.
8. Encourage page views during each visit. Link inside your post to back posts, and make it easy for new visitors to find posts that explain who you are and what this blog is about. I use a “Featured Posts” list in my sidebar. I also have an “About Me” page that provides background for new readers. I also use a Related Posts plugin at the bottom of posts to draw visitors to read further. Give first-time visitors have a way to catch up and feel part of the story on your blog.
9. Approach the media. Write a press release for your blog and develop media contacts. The best advertisement is free advertisement!
10. Love what you’re blogging about. If you have a passion for your blog topics, readers will see it and be drawn to it. If you don’t care about what you’re blogging about, they’ll see that, too. Love what you do!
Let me know what you think! Do you have any great ideas for building traffic? Feel free to share them in the comments here. I want to know!
If you would like to learn more about creating, maintaining, and promoting your author website along with the creative spirit it represents, please subscribe to our
full RSS feed.
Another great article! I have learned so much from this site…and my traffic is increasing steadily (like 20-30% a week) over the last several weeks. Since I shifted my focus from my day was x, y, z and started telling stories, I’m amazed at the traffic increases. And so pleased. Thank you!
I already have an advertising plan in place (both for advertising I pay for online & in the real world, and for ads on the site) for when I go to a self-hosted site (thanks, gals!), but I’m very iffy on writing a press release. Not sure how to do it (it sounds vaguely like a synopsis…OMG, is that a toilet that needs cleaning?) Any chance you might have a more detailed tutorial coming down the line, maybe something with samples of how you answered the questions in the press release post?
Anyway, thanks girlies! This site is fabulous!
I really need to work on #2 and #5. I just can’t seem to break the rambling, whiny post habit.
Great advice. Thank you. I am glad I found your blog!
Great ideas! Advertise huh…..OK I’ll start with you. Check out my blog, please and tell me what you think. Please go back and start at the beginning.