For online businesses and finally for all businesses, generating continuous targeted traffic to their sites is a major preoccupation. Questions like: how to increase blog website traffic for free, how to increase blog traffic fast, and how to increase traffic to your site are most common among bloggers, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and established businesses.
Each and everyone needs traffic. Period!
Increasing traffic for our sites or blogs ranks among the first priorities and traffic is never enough.
There is a plethora of tactics, strategies, and tricks to increase your blog’s traffic, you just have to start with the ones that are the most appropriate for your business and then expand on other modalities. Practically is not possible to implement all these tactics simultaneously from start, but one at a time, and soon you will start to see results. For sure!
Increasing traffic involves lots of testing because there is no one-fits-all method. Some strategies will have great results and some very little impact. Pick and invest just in what offers you the best results on your invested resources.
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Your Content Strategy Doesn’t Deliver the Expected Results?
Just keep in mind that you need diversified traffic sources. If for example, Facebook or Google change their algorithms, you don’t want to be deadly hit because you rely heavily on one source of traffic. Always have a backup solution.
To give you a hand, I gathered below some of the most important tactics that you can use to increase your traffic. I split them into two categories:
· Core Ways to Increase Website Traffic
· Supplementary Ways to Improve Your Website Traffic
And also, a comprehensive checklist to help you keep track of your endeavors.
Before digging into the specific traffic increase strategies, pay attention to some basic considerations:
· Clearly establish your business SMART objectives. Before generating traffic, you have to decide what you offer to your potential clients, what can they expect from your business, and why should they use your services/products.
· Define your audience. It’s easier to attract a targeted audience if you know who exactly she is. For instance, you may target real estate property investors in a certain area or young mothers looking to live a healthy frugal life.
· Choose a voice for your site or blog. Your authenticity will be expressed by the voice of your blog, maybe a professional one, a conversational-friendly one, or maybe a funny one. Your writing style, the colors of your brand, and your graphics are all contributing to your blog’s personality.
· Your content needs to be helpful and solve a problem, be useful. Each of us reads just the content that he is interested in, either to find out some information, either to get a solution or to learn something. “What’s in it for me” is what the reader is looking for, each and every time.
How to Increase Website Traffic – Core Ways
Create Great Content
The overused dictum “content is king” is really true, as content is the basis for everything marketing related. If you don’t have content that your audience wants to consume, you generate traffic for nothing. So, give Caesar what is Caesar’s: create high quality content, that is helpful and valuable for your readers.
Be authentic and provide personal experiences, and insights that might help others. Create comprehensive guides, tutorials, best practices lists, how-to posts, and reviews to help your readers achieve their goals and entice them to return to your blog.
Format your content for easy readability and avoid populating your posts with too many ads or pop-ups that make reading a struggle.
The aesthetics of your site is quite important when attracting visitors, so choose fonts that are easy to read, and a color scheme that is pleasant for the eye. Don’t forget to make your site mobile responsive as more and more users are using mobiles to consume content.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Publish Consistently
Publishing quality content regularly is an important trigger and fundamental pillar for traffic increase. Google loves new content; your audience will have a variety of topics to choose from and you will increase your chances of ranking in search results.
If you have content you have material to promote. So, publish consistently. Now there is a large debate on how often you need to publish content. It’s better to have a longer more comprehensive piece of content once or twice a week than publish every day 500 words blogs.
Be sure to privilege quality and not quantity.
Spread the Word Via Social Media Platforms
Social Media is nowadays a huge source of free traffic with its numerous variations. And one of the best places to find your audience is where she hangs out. Choose among the social media networks where your audience is most present. And concentrate your efforts on one-two channel at a time to see relevant results, not on multiple.
Join Pinterest
Many bloggers claim Pinterest is by far their major source of free traffic (I am on my way to confirming this theory 😉) and a true gold mine. Pinterest is a search engine, a visually focused one indeed, but one of the most powerful. You just might have a huge surprise!
Pinterest allows you to get in front of thousands or hundreds of thousands of persons in principle without paying. But to be more effective you have to use scheduling tools like Tailwind, so finally, this is not exactly free.
The key to Pinterest’s success is pins design, you have to find the successful formula that works for you in terms of graphic design.
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How to Increase Website Traffic? Join Facebook and Facebook Groups
Facebook doesn’t need any presentations anymore. These days if you are not on Facebook you do not exist. Consequently, it is compulsory to have a Facebook page for your business, where you can post your content, share content that inspires you, share and host online events, offer freebies, and not ultimately network. Social networks are meant for socializing.
Establishing relationships with other businesses or influencers in your niche will help you spread the word about your business, expand your audience and increase traffic, increase brand awareness, and ultimately grow sales.
Tip: Consider joining Facebook groups active in your niche.
Despite being supportive and offering opportunities to connect with like-minded people, Facebook groups most often have daily threads that allow you to promote your blog.
Tip: You also may consider creating your own Facebook group, as another way to help skyrocket your traffic.
Join LinkedIn
LinkedIn is another source of traffic particularly for B2B businesses, for bloggers blogging about personal finance, marketing, designers, SEO experts, etc. Be sure to optimize your profile for your target keywords so that your profile pops up in relevant searches. LinkedIn is a professional network and having a strong profile there tells your potential readers and clients about your business and strengthens credibility.
Tip: Join LinkedIn groups that relate to your niche.
Join Twitter
Even if many are rather skeptical that Twitter can be a reliable source of traffic, it’s still a good option. Twitter has a great blogging community after all. And hashtags are still a reliable way to get discovered and provide traffic. Embedded tweets are an interesting manner to share your content and format your post by breaking long paragraphs.
You have the opportunity to approach the “Twitter retweet” accounts that will help retweet your blog posts. Hashtags like: #BloggersTribe #FemaleBloggerRetweet could help expand your reach.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Join Instagram
Particularly helpful for visually appealing businesses, in industries like beauty, traveling, fashion, cooking, design, etc. Instagram can make a difference. But not necessarily, business accounts like Foundr have found huge success on Instagram. Make detailed research and see if Instagram may be a good option for your business and if your audience uses Instagram.
Anyway, using Instagram means great visuals that catch the eye of the Instagrammer. Don’t forget to insert the link to your site in your profile, as the most obvious way to access traffic from Instagram. Use tools like Instagram stories to enhance your reach.
Tip. If you are in doubt about which of these social media platforms to use, check the influencers and experts in your niche and see where they concentrate their efforts on social media.
Socialize and Network
Networking for business is an old practice. Now, we are fortunate enough to have tools that facilitate greatly this type of activity. Do yourself a favor and interact with other relevant bloggers in your niche. Follow the ones you like or your mentors, comment on their posts, share their content, and get involved in discussions. In some cases, you will see the favor returned.
Be nice and helpful as this is another way of attracting leads and customers. And it’s a sure way to gain authority in your niche and be trusted by others. You can also promote your content this way but do it just when it is relevant in context.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Build Your Email List
Most probably one of the best sources of returning traffic and the major asset of your business that’s your own property. The money is in the list correspond to the truth for most business. Your email list will generate most part of your sales.
Offer multiple valuable opt-ins to increase your mailing list faster. Communicate regularly with your mailing list and provide valuable content to help you create a connection with your readers and deliver them helpful stuff. Engage with the subscribers of your list, answer their questions and concerns, and encourage them to contact you.
To properly manage your list, you will need an email service provider that fits your goals. My choice for this stage of my blog is Mailerlite. Their service is free till you reach 1000 subscribers and is easy to handle, their design is nice. ConvertKit is also a very reliable option.
Guest Posting
Like it or not, this is still one of the most reliable methods to get backlinks and traffic. With guest posts, you will get in front of new audiences, get referral traffic, and gain authority and credibility if you post on high-authority sites. And also, will support your site with backlinks for SEO purposes.
Guest posting should be a long-term game for you and it’s better to start it as soon as possible.
To find guest posting opportunities just ask Google. Search with “write for us”/ “guest posts” + your niche.
Here is the result of guest posting research on marketing topics.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Optimize Your Site for Search Engines
SEO is a long-run game, a marathon not a sprint. It takes time, so don’t expect results overnight. Make all the necessary efforts to optimize your blog and your posts for search engines, to help you rank as high as possible in SERPs. The higher the position the larger amount of traffic you gain for your site.
SEO will supply your blog with free traffic in the long term, so you should start focusing on SEO from day one. There are many tools to help you with search engine optimization like Yoast plug-in for WordPress, Google Keywords Planner, SemRush, Buzzsumo, KeyWordFinder, etc.
It’s an incontestable fact that the headline and the keywords have a heavy impact on driving organic traffic. You can test your headline with a tool like the Headline Analyzer of CoSchedule.
Supplementary Ways to Improve Your Website’s Traffic
Create Promotional Videos
People in general connect quicker to a face that represents a business and establish faster a relationship. Consider creating promotional videos, as they will increase your credibility.
Now, video is on the verge of a great expansion and is one very effective way to attract free traffic, as is considered more engaging. Video statistics indicate that 93% of businesses use video content for their online marketing and sustain that their main focus will be video this year.
Ensure That Subscribing to Your List Is Super Easy
In our speed century if the visitor doesn’t find instantly what is looking for, clicks back and he is gone. So, subscribing should be a breeze with just a minimalist form and nothing more. Remember that your subscribers are responsible for your returning traffic and form the gross of your customers. Make their life easier!
Share Your Story
Connect easier with your readers and blog visitors by telling them your story, why are you doing what you are doing and how did you arrive here. Share with them your success and also your mistakes. Why are you a trustworthy person? What’s your authority to teach them or to help them?
Insert Sharing Buttons
More shares translate into more traffic – the more the better. Hence, make it as easy as possible for your readers to share your content and help them promote your business. Add sharing buttons to your site and ask your visitors to share the content if they find it appropriate.
There are lots of tools to help you do this, from applications to various plugins. I preferred Elegant Theme’s Monarch, it is responsible for the buttons you see on your left, for the upper bar, and for a pop-up that will appear in front of you at a certain moment. (I hope that will not bother you, I tried to make it good-looking 😊).
Consider Starting a Podcast
The reality is that not everyone enjoys reading as I do; I will always prefer reading to listening to a podcast or watching a video when it comes to learning something. But listening to podcasts has its own advantage, can be done during other activities, like driving or commuting, or running.
You can increase your blog’s traffic by starting a podcast based on your already-written posts. And you will attack another market segment, that of those who prefer listening and not reading.
Commenting on Popular Blogs
Commenting on other blogs, preferably on high authority blogs helps you increase your reach and simultaneously creates backlinks to your site. This tactic also sustains your networking efforts. Create a Gravatar and with just one click other persons will find relevant information about you and your business.
Write an Ebook
Writing an ebook will establish you as a specialist or expert in your niche and will reinforce your credibility. An ebook is a great base to expand your audience and cultivate long-term relationships with your existing and future customers.
Create a Free Mini Course as an Opt-in
It’s universally known that we all love free stuff. The more the better. Creating a mini email course is an excellent way to provide valuable information for your readers in exchange for their email. You gain new subscribers and your readers get valuable stuff, a win-win.
Use Paid Advertising
If your budget allows it, take into consideration promoting your posts or your products, with paid advertising on Facebook, sponsored content on Instagram, paid Pins on Pinterest, etc. Start small and test each option before infusing large amounts of money. See which channel gives you the best ROI.
Visuals are the first vector of sales.
Use Professional Styled Stock Photography to Promote Your Business.
Use Satisfied Customers’ Testimonials
Testimonials of happy customers are a very effective way to promote your business. And satisfied customers are the fuel of your business development. Entice satisfied customers to provide feedback for free or in exchange for a bonus, discount, or freebie.
Their testimony will act as a hook for future clients.
Write Posts Featuring Interviews with Influencers
Most of us are interested in learning from the best in our industry and from those that have already achieved the results we want to achieve. Interviewing experts and influencers in your niche can skyrocket your traffic and reach new audiences, those of influencers. Not to mention you will have top-quality material for your own audience.
Having a plethora of information at your disposal and a myriad of ways to increase your blog traffic, well that can be overwhelming at least. To identify those methods that are most reliable and cost-effective for you, start with two or three options at a time. Avoid the mistake of spreading your efforts in ten directions so that none brings relevant results.
When you have picked one that works well, pass it to another one or two, or three. But concentrate on a few at a time.
Now that you have a comprehensive list that shows you how to increase your website traffic at your disposal, decide and select the ones that you think will be the most impactful for your business. Start with a few, work on them, master them and move to the next ones till you have identified the best strategies to promote your blog and business.
