Blogging has become a very popular way to get accepted online and make money in the process. If you’ve just started out on your blogging journey or are looking to ways which will give you the lift you need, you’ve come to the right place.
I’ve experimented with many methods and ways which include some new ones and some time- tested ones too. Though increasing traffic to your blog is not an easy job, there are certainly some secrets that have made the top blogs out there become money churning mills.
I’m here to open up a treasure trove of success formulae that will definitely get your WordPress site flooded with traffic in no time.
1. Optimized Posts
While getting to the first page is what every blogger aims at, what they don’t know is that the way the post is showcased on the search results can influence the ranking to a great extent. In your post, you need to tweak two main aspects, namely, the title and the description.
In the title change the wording, so it is more relevant to your post and to people who are in search of information.
The other important aspect is the description. Make sure you add a meta description of the posts. This will state the clear intent of the post and what readers can gain by reading it. There are several free WordPress SEO plugins like the SEO Yoast plugin, which makes it a breeze for carrying out the changes you need.
Once you’re all done, the search engines will draw in the information and use it appropriately.
2. Analyze Your Headlines
Headlines in my opinion are very significant and most successful bloggers will attest to this fact readily. However hard you strive to include high quality content, it is the headlines that can make or break the post.
One simple yet effective way to drive traffic to your blog is by doing a split test of the headlines. The WordPress title split testing plugin aids in creating two different types of headlines and these are presented to visitors in a random manner and their clickability feature is measured.
From the amount of clicks received, you can decide which is the most popular. This can help you implement changes immediately and also help you understand what is trending now. Accordingly you can form even better headlines that grab the attention of visitors.
3. Lure Visitors to Navigate
Interlinking of posts is an important thing to do, if you want to see effective results. I’ve seen many visitors ignoring navigation and this state of affairs is not good for the site. When you add links to the related posts inside the content, it will lure them to navigate and spend time on other posts too.
To accomplish this I’d suggest including relevant links to all related posts, while creating any new post.
4. Social Media to the Rescue
Twitter is one of the social networks with easy access in relation to increasing the traffic and building followers. There are plugins that can drive traffic to your site from Twitter. All you need to do is link the plugin to your account in Twitter. The plugin retweets all archived posts present in your blog. When your followers click on these posts, they are exposed to old content and re-engage themselves with your blog again. When they retweet these posts, this will bring in more new followers.
5. Don’t Underestimate Content
In my experience as a successful blogger, I can attest to the fact that content is the undisputed influencer of a blog’s popularity. In the beginning you may not have much content to display, but in time this changes with your content growing slowly and steadily.
It helps if you’ve at least 15 to 20 articles ready at hand before your blog is functional. To hike the traffic level to your site, meaningful and shareable content is must. The popularity increases only when you’ve over 60 good articles. You’ll have great audience who will share your posts.
Find out what problems people are having by visiting forums or other blogs and design content that solves these problems. When your content hits the target right on from the beginning, attracting traffic will be a cake walk for you.
6. Contribution brings in Traffic
Successful bloggers add value to their site by the contributions they make. I’d suggest doing the same with your blog. How to contribute?
There are several ways in which you can accomplish this. Host interviews of popular personalities, create videos, podcasts, ebooks, etc., do guest posting, provide newsletter with powerful content, and give tutorials and other such measures.
By these contributions, you increase your creditability, give top quality service, and increase your opportunities too. All this should be built gradually and as you’ll have by now comprehended, blogging does not give results overnight.
7. Breadcrumbs
Navigation with Breadcrumbs feature is a great user-friendly way to attract visitors with. They can know where they’re in your site at any given time and understand the setup easily by this navigation method.
Another benefit that I like about Breadcrumbs is it gives a new dimensional appearance to your site in the search results page.
Your site is more clearly displayed, giving readers a deep insight even before they enter by clicking on it.
The feature is easy to add as it uses WordPress SEO Yoast plugin.
8. Community for Empowering Your Blog
Successful bloggers know how valuable community is to them. People contribute and share values, ideas, beliefs, and skills effectively via this platform. I’ve seen many businesses benefiting greatly from the community and network activities in their blog. The more significance you place on your community, the more dynamic your blog will transform into.
9. Keep the Bounce Rate Low
An ideal blog should have negligible amount of bounce rate. If a visitor clicks on your blog, and not on any other part of the blog, the efforts you’ve put will be in vain. Retaining readers’ interest will lower bounce rate. Design the front page in such a way that it looks simple, but effective. Remove unwanted and irrelevant things and focus on the relevant images, videos, and content.
10. Give Importance to Readers
As far as I know, a reader visits a blog in search of a solution to his or her problem. If you don’t provide what they’re in search of, the chances of your success are minimal. Focusing on readers is very important for your blog to survive and increase its traffic.
11. Related Posts for Better Retention
Related posts are according to me, the best and proven method for boosting traffic to your site. Doing so, visitors get a chance to continue reading content. How do you do this?
There are services that provide related posts from your site as well as from other sites. This boosts traffic by over 5%. Further, other blogs too will link to your posts, thereby increasing the benefits. To make this possible your content should be impeccable and compelling enough.
12. Compile a Blog List
This is very easy method to follow. Put together a list of different articles that have relevant content. The list gives readers to explore your blog further and also serves to display some of your best posts.
13. Improve Usability
A site map is an important inclusion you should have in your blog. There are many easy to set up plugins that make it easy for a reader to navigate your blog. From seeing the monthly archives to the blog post list, everything can be displayed in a compact and easy to access manner. Google too has a great affinity for sitemaps. It is easy for search engines to scroll through your content, so I’d say that all around it is a definite way to increase traffic to your site.
14. Categorize Appropriately
If you want to have links in the side bar, adding appropriate categories is must for readers to view them as relevant. Usability feature should be given priority every time. Making the reader think is not what you want. When you provide clear and precise features that are easy to grasp, it’ll make it easier for the readers. Categories are important for creating such an atmosphere.
15. Add Significance with FAQ Pages
The various technical terms used on internet like RSS feeds, bounce rate, conversion rate, PHP, Google page rank, SEO or PPC are not familiar to all readers. When you create informative articles, tutorials, and other relevant content that educates readers, it is a sure-fire method to get noticed. Getting traffic to your site is easier this way. To further enhance, I’d suggest interlinking the terms to glossary listings.
16. Excerpts Grab Attention
Endless lines of text can be quite vexing for readers, especially on the home page. Your objective of getting the reader to go further into your site becomes futile, when you use such a style. Instead I’d suggest using attractive images, excerpts, and attractive design, so a reader is glued to your site and wants to view more of what you have to display.
17. Take Part in Discussions and Forums
There are many forums, discussions and question and answer sites that you can use to get more traffic to your site. But I’d recommend using these sites wisely as you should only answer the quality and relevant questions.
Make sure while answering questions, it shows your authority in the subject involved, so you give the right solution to those who see them. By including a link that leads to your site, you can capitalize on the answers you give. But take care to avoid looking spammy. This occurs only when you link to irrelevant and unwanted content. When you do it right, I can assure that it’ll earn you top quality traffic in droves.
18. Increase Your Site’s Upload Speed
Sites that take forever to open when you click on them are completely avoided by readers and also the search engines. Ensure that the loading time of your site is fast. This can be done by
• Minimizing the image size
• Take measures to reduce the unwanted server load and bandwidth use
• Cache should be set up to optimize the speed
• Delete the unwanted and unused themes and plugins. This increases the security and performance of your blog
• Instead of resizing images, try using image editor for altering the image size. Photoshop or any other online resizing tool can be used.
19. Track with Google Analytics
With Google Analytics, you get free tracking software which helps in focusing on the results. The software gives a plethora of information including those related to the origin of your traffic, data on new visitors and returning visitors and it points out the sites that direct high quality traffic to your site. With the help of analytics, you can know which social network is right for your blog and which aspect of your digital marketing strategy is not working. Such information is of paramount importance, which the analytics provide you with in plenty.
20. Create Link with Bloggers
When you create a link to another blog, they’ll know about it. This will make them visit your blog to see who has recommended them. If they are attracted by your content and find it is of high quality, they may also link to you in the posts they publish.
But I’d suggest doing this sparingly as jamming your post with links can backfire on you. The best way to do this is using an excerpt from the page you like and add a link to the remaining part. By finding out sites that post content related to your site, and subscribing to them and using their tags, you can appear in their site too.
21. Comments Increase Visibility
When you comment on relevant blogs, it is a great opportunity to showcase your writing talent and the expertise you possess. It’ll make people recognize you as an authority on the concerned field and make them interested in what you have to say in your blog. When you choose the blogs properly and add your comments, it is a great way to drive traffic to your site. You can read through this post http://seotechyworld.com/how-commenting-on-other-blogs-will-increase-traffic-to-your-blog/ to realize the significance and supremacy that act of commenting possess.
As you can see, there are countless numbers of ways which can make your site go viral in a short time. When you choose your methods carefully, reaching success is guaranteed. Best of luck!
Author Bio: Nisha is an expert blogger who loves to explore the changing faces of digital marketing. She shares her experience and tips on starting your blog and taking it to a level of success that you could be proud of. To get hold of her tips and suggestions, she welcomes you to her site www.seotechyworld.com.
