8 Strategies to promote and drive traffic to your blog
Starting a blog is an exciting journey, but perhaps after a few content pieces, you realise that it’s not really getting any traction. Your blog visits are dwindling and you’re not getting the engagement that you thought you would be.
A few months ago, I put together a 10-step guide to starting your own personal blog. For this post, I’ll be sharing 8 strategies on how you can promote and drive traffic to your blog.
1. Create content that teaches
As much as we like to talk about ourselves, sometimes it’s also beneficial to create content that focuses on helping others.
For example, if you’re a fashion blogger, don’t just post up your outfit of the days. Go the extra mile and put together an informative piece on how you can style a particular piece in 5 different ways. Not only will you tap into a new audience, but content pieces that teach are often more shareable.
Don’t forget to inject your personality into it though! It’s one thing to attract people to view your post, but another to make them stay hooked.
2. Get acquainted with basic SEO principles
Ah, SEO. My favourite. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Basically, it means you need to optimise your blog so that it’ll perform well in search engines like Google. If you have no idea how to optimise your blog or website for search, you should definitely set out a few hours in your day to learn the ropes.
To get you started, think about the titles of your blog posts. Is it a searchable title? What are your keywords? Have you injected those keywords into your blog posts (without making it sound too mechanical)? What about your URL/permalink? Does it contain the keywords you want your post to rank for?
Once you grasp the ropes of basic SEO principles, composing a blog post that’s search optimised will become second-nature.
3. Post as a guest blogger
Have a favourite blog you love reading? Why not offer to write a guest post for them? It’s a great way to get your name out there as well exercising your creative chops. Send your favourite blog a message and let them know your keen to do a guest blog for them (or vice versa)!
4. Write for other publications
This is a great way to earn a little cash on the side. Submit article and story ideas to publications that you’re interested in and think you can convert to your blog.
Of course, don’t expect to get a story idea accepted straight away – journalism is a pretty competitive industry! Try smaller and lesser known publications to begin with. A good way to figure out what articles you can pitch your ideas to is to browse your local news-agency for niche magazines.
5. Social media marketing
Who isn’t on social media these days? It’s a great way to let your followers know what you’re currently working on and share something you’ve just published. Utilise social media to your advantage, but be wary of some of the pitfalls.
First of all, you don’t want inactive numbers. It’s one thing to have 500k followers on your Instagram, but only get 1k likes on your photos with zilch comments. What you should focus on is getting engagement. Social media algorithms tend to favour content that gets a ton of engagement, like comments and shares. It’s no longer just about how many followers or ‘fake likes’ you can get on a post (even though those numbers are an ego boost, it’s just artificial).
So, that being said… be wary of using unrelated hashtags – you’ll only just be getting unwanted follows. Also be wary of Facebook’s sponsored posts – there’s a ton of ‘like farms’ in South East Asia who literally waste up your advertising money liking posts.
Here’s a video from Veritasium which explains Facebook fraud pretty darn good.
6. Post on community forums
Share your posts on community forums! It’s a great way to generate traffic from an online community that’s interested in what you have to offer. Reddit is a fantastic place to start. You can also get ins on specialised Facebook groups.
7. Build an email list
Along your journey, make sure you’re building an email list. This way you’ll be able to email followers about a new blog post! You can also run exclusive competitions for those who subscribe to your mailing list.
8. Start getting into analytics
Start being strategic and analytical over the type of content you’re creating. See what’s doing well and what should be flushed down the toilet. If you haven’t yet implemented a Google Analytics tracking code to your website – do it now! The sooner you’re able to analyse your stats, the sooner you’ll be able to devise a strategy on how to promote your content for the right audience.
*
I hope these 8 strategies will help you on your way to marketing your blog like a seasoned professional.
Remember, always keep your content human. As much as you’d like to drive traffic to your blog, it’s more important to stay authentic to your brand. Don’t just completely overhaul your blog because you think you’ll get more traffic by doing something that’s out of your character. Stay away from click-bait titles because you don’t want people to click out when they land on a page they didn’t expect.
Have a fun and creative day,
Leonie xo.