You’ve added a blog to your company’s site and spent hours researching topic ideas, adding content, and sharing what you post with your social media followers. But your traffic is either stagnant or growing way too slowly for your tastes, and suddenly, the time and effort you’re putting into your blog seem pointless.
Don’t give up just yet – these seven tips will give you long term gains.
7. Include links in blog posts
Whenever you mention something linkable in a blog post, like a product you’re reviewing or a service you use, incorporate links to those products or businesses in the post. Google increases rankings for sites that contain outbound links, and the companies you mention might link back to you in return, driving even more traffic. It’s also important to link to other posts or pages on your own site that correlate to what you’re writing about; it keeps users on site and increases your SEO.
6. Make it easy to share
At the top and bottom of every blog post, include Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn sharing buttons so readers can easily market for you. And don’t be afraid to point those buttons out in the body of the post!
5. Cross promote with other blogs
Inviting people to guest post on your blog reduces the amount of time you spend writing and opens you up to that blogger’s followers when they share the link to the post. But don’t stop there: pinpoint blogs that your audience is reading and offer to contribute guest posts as an expert in your field. Again, this expands your readership and also shows your followers that you ‘know what you’re talking about’. After all, another blogger wouldn’t put your content on their site if it wasn’t worthwhile.
4. Expand your keyword choices
Although you should always start out with primary, short keywords to focus on when creating posts, long tail keywords aid in SEO tremendously. Competition for long tail keywords is significantly lower than shorter, less detailed words and phrases, and it shows search engine algorithms that your site hosts a wide breadth of information. What’s the difference between the two? If you run a local home decor store, you’ve probably already got ‘home decor, home decorating, rugs, curtains, etc’ on your list of words to focus on. By adding in specifics like ‘medium wood midcentury modern chairs’ or ‘gray lined linen drapes’, you target people who are actually looking for what you’re selling and simultaneously show search engines that you provide detailed, unique content.
3. Go ahead, @ people
When you’re reviewing a product, mentioning someone in your industry or outside of it, or talking about a social media influencer in your niche, make sure to @ or tag the person or business when you Tweet or share your post. Their followers will see it and probably click right on over to your site to check it out.
2. Treat the comment section right
If you aren’t responding to comments on your posts, you’re missing a huge opportunity to keep readers coming back for more. Those replies build relationships with your followers and encourage others to jump into the conversation: seeing that the site owner is active gives readers more reasons to comment and share the post, all of which increases SEO and drives traffic.
1. Tackle Reddit
Reddit is massive, allowing you to engage in conversations with people who may not know you exist. Share useful information, get involved in a friendly back and forth, and reap the benefits – any link from a site this huge is a massive boost to your traffic.
These simple tactics, when coupled with quality content, will quickly grow your blog!
