8 Tips On How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog

Ever thought of starting a blog? Or maybe you already started one but would like to get your writings in front of a larger audience. You can implement these eight practical tips right away to get into the right blogging mindset.

Blog frequently
Most new bloggers dislike hearing this. Committing to a schedule doesn’t come natural to creative people. Most blogs that were started with enthusiasm, die a quiet death after a few weeks or (maybe) months. Keeping up the pace isn’t easy. Even for me, the struggle for fresh content is ongoing. New bloggers, however, feel like it’s just happening to them. The truth is, don’t get a blog just to have a blog. Get it, commit to it, and keep it updated. Content is the quickest way to gaining traffic. How often should you blog? The best days to blog? Nobody knows, even though many pretend to know. Stick to a schedule you can stick to.

Stay on point
I tell my book writing authors this all the time: stay on point, stay on topic. The same goes for blogs. If you don’t you’ll lose your readership. Once someone commits to your blog they want to keep reading relevant information in line with what they have come to know you for. So don’t blog one day about your book, your speaking, or your mission and the next day share your gradma’s apple pie recipe (even though it’s really good).

Plan your blog posts
While spontaneity is the catalyst for creativity, planning is a good way to stay on track. Create a content calendar. Start to map out key dates that you want to blog about that have some relation to your topic. This way when you’re at a loss for topics, you can always pick one from your list of planned out blogs.

Also, if you need some writing prompts, you may want to consider these topics to blog about:

a) Future predictions: everyone loves these, to the degree that you can predict market trends in your industry do it, and the readership will follow.

b) Industry news: what’s happening in your industry that you can talk about? There’s always something going on worth mentioning that directly relates to your topic.

c) The elephant in the room: talk about the stuff nobody else does. What new trends are emerging that your audience needs to be aware of? What’s next for your market and how will it affect you? Think of things that scare you and talk about them.

d) Write reviews: review other people’s books, product or work. Let them know when you do. This is a great way to network and to become a trusted content provider for your industry.

e) Other blogs: what are people talking about? What did your favorite blog just say? Virtual networking (with other bloggers) is a great way to grow your reach and get to know others. Don’t forget to link to the blog you’re discussing!

Invite interactions
Interactions are really important. The more people you can get interacting with your content, the quicker your blog will get passed around. Comments are a great way to do that, but there are other ways to make your content interactive or shareable. In general, if you have a “no comment” feature on your blog, remove it! You want people to be able to comment and give feedback. In fact, at the end of every blog, why not invite readers to comment? If you start getting a lot of responses to this, begin featuring your favorite comments in future blog posts!

Comment on hot news topics
The quickest way to get traffic is to get your blog featured on a high-traffic site. This is called “news jacking”: you write a relevant post about a trending news topic. But how can you do this? By commenting on news stories. Most major news sites have a feature that will list blogs that are talking about the various news stories. Not all blogs get featured, but if your if your topic is related to the story and you’ve written an insightful post on the topic, you’ll likely get listed.

Share your blog
Got something to say? Of course you do. Share your posts on social media. Start by creating an account with the most important ones. If your new to this, check out my social media course on how to get everything up and running. There’s a lot of tools that will help you automate this step and share new content from your blog around the web without you lifting a finger. In a nutshell, that’s what my Business Autopilot course is about. Saving you time by running those tasks on, well, autopilot. Once you get this up and running you can use this to promote your blog, your book, speaking event, whatever you want. It might sound like a “who cares” idea, but trust me, everyone’s on social media these days and instead of just contributing on those platforms you may as well start to drive some traffic back to your platform.

Create your voice
People want to connect with other people, so sound natural. Be yourself and don’t use an “official” voice on your blog. Pretend you’re sitting across a friend over coffee. My travel book started as a collection of emails to friends, explaining them how I booked and arranged my travels. Talk to your audience in a casual, conversational tone and you’ll not only get more readers, you’ll likely get more comments and interactions too.

Get Started
It doesn’t take much to grow a blog, just a little dedication and creativity. Here’s a few links to help you get started:

Social Media Course
Business Autopilot
Webhosting
Happy blogging!