If you want to be a successful blogger, you must get targeted traffic. Otherwise, no one will ever read the thought-provoking and authoritative content you are writing. No one will ever buy the ground-breaking product or service you provide. No one will ever visit the useful, targeted ads that you display.
The goal of every Internet marketing campaign is to increase traffic and to increase conversion rates. There are many ways that you can get more traffic to your blog, and some strategies are more effective than others. Here are some of the top tips for getting more traffic to your blog:
Keyword Research and SEO
Finding out what your customers are searching for in Google is the best way to make sure your site is the one they find. Research keywords related to your niche to find out what your customers want, then use those keywords appropriately in your site. Use keywords in your page titles, blog content, meta descriptions, image descriptions, tags, and more. You can even use your keywords in choosing your domain name.
On-page search-engine optimization is the best foundation for any marketing strategy for boosting traffic.
Commenting
Comments are a great way to build community, generate back links, and drive traffic. On your own blog, creating an environment that promotes reader comments encourages a community. Readers who comment on your blog become engaged in the conversation, coming back to your blog to check for additional comments and to offer replies. The more they return to your site, the more likely they are to become regular visitors.
You can encourage commenting on your own site by installing plugins like CommentLuv that link back to their blogs, by including a call to action at the end of your posts, or by writing compelling content that encourages discussion.
Commenting on other blogs is a great way to build links back to your site. In addition, when you leave interesting and informative comments that further the discussion, you invite readers to learn more about the content on your blog, encouraging them to become visitors.
Guest Posting
Writing quality guest posts for top blogs in your niche is a great way to build quality back links to your blog. Showcase your best work to highlight the kind of quality that readers can expect from your blog. The link will drive traffic to your blog and help boost your SEO efforts.
Accepting guest posts on your blog is also a great way to encourage more traffic to your blog. Guest bloggers will promote their post for your blog on their own site and their social networks, encouraging their readers to check out their post and your blog.
Giveaways
Everyone loves to get something for free. Offering giveaways, contests, and other promotions on your blog is a great way to encourage visitors to your site. Leverage the traffic-generating potential of these promotions by utilizing all the methods you have available for entries. This can include becoming your fan on Facebook, following you on Twitter, pinning your content on Pinterest, or sharing your content on any of these social networks. Each of these actions can be an entry, encouraging readers to promote your content more and increasing your potential for new traffic.
E-Mail Marketing
Growing your opt-in e-mail list is key to not only promoting your products and services but also to growing the traffic on your blog. E-mail marketing keeps readers informed of new blog posts, reminding them to return to the blog to check out new content. It is also a great way of letting them know about special promotions, new products, and other features of the blog. Getting readers to sign up for e-mail is a great way to capture these readers and to avoid losing them to apathy or forgetfulness.
Building traffic to your blog is critical to its long-term success, and it’s something that you have to continually work on. These tried-and-true strategies will help you get the traffic you need.
Are there any other tricks that you use to get more traffic to your blog? Tell us your ideas in the comments!