Want More Blog Traffic? This Post is For You
If building traffic to your blog was easy, every blog would have hundreds of followers. Obviously, this isn’t the case. Growing blog readership numbers is one the the top concerns of all bloggers; no one wants to be pouring their time and effort into a blog that only has a handful of readers.
The number one way to grow readers is to publish well-written posts on a regular basis. No one is going to keep coming back to your site to read half-formed thoughts or poorly written content, or if you only update once a month. But, if you already consistently write great posts, what else can you do?
You need to develop a way to get word out about your blog. If you’re new to using social media for your blog, you can start by inviting any current social media friends and followers to check out your new site and share it with their friends. Depending on your blog subject and the interest level of your friends, this could turn into a good boost in your traffic.
Make new connections. Get on Google+ or Twitter and find people with similar interests. Look for pages on Facebook that match your topic. You can search for people who talk about the things you blog about. Once you find them, join the conversation. Share your opinions and share relevant links (to your site and to other authority sites) where useful. This can open up doors to dozens of new readers. Also, if you’re going to focus on using social media to bring in more traffic, make sure that you have links to your blog in your profile, to make it easy for followers who are interested in checking out your website.
Target a specific audience. Not all traffic is created equally. Some readers are more beneficial to your blog than others, simply because they’re more active on social media sites. Create content that will engage those who are most likely to read and share your work. The truth is, there are hundreds or thousands of people that could be considered potential readers for your blog. You can’t reach them all yourself. Targeting the readers who will happily pass your best posts onto their own followers can broaden your reach in ways that you couldn’t manage on your own.
Reach out to people who have questions related to your niche. Sites like Quora allow users to ask and answer questions in a community setting. The best answers (and the people who provided those answers) are moved up into a more visible area of the site. You can link your answers back to a blog post you wrote on the topic, and you can include a link to your blog in your profile. If you are willing to put in the time with Quora, it can greatly increase your blog traffic, as well as positioning you as an authority on your topic.
To improve your daily traffic numbers on your blog, you need to focus on quality posts and on connecting with the online community that already exists for your blog topic. Connecting with your community, and building an extension of that community on your site (and social media pages, if you have them) is the only way to create a permanent increase in blog traffic.
What other steps could you take to connect with others in your niche’s community?
