August 29, 2016
You may genuinely enjoy writing as much as most non-profit bloggers do, but a blog is mostly pointless if you do not strive to reach other people. Monetized or not, readership is an essential aspect of blogging that makes the activity worthwhile. Below are six important strategies that will help bring traffic to your blog:
1. Leverage Influencers
Networking is an essential pillar in modern online marketing. To increase the authority of your blog and reach a larger audience, the first thing you need to do is to build connections and invest in your relationship with the major influencers. A widespread strategy is to have other bloggers with an established following to write for you. This approach works in different ways:
- An influencer contributes content to your blog
- An influencer writes about your blog from their site
- An influencer shares and writes about your content in social media
Regardless of your approach, you need to have an established outreach strategy to start working with influencers. There are also plenty of tools such as BuzzSumo and Followerwonk that can help you find influencers in your specific niche. Just remember that you should also work on making your brand worth partnering with.
2. Keep on Sharing
A social media presence is imperative for building your credibility as an information source. Some bloggers don’t know that sharing the same content multiple times in the same social network can lead to massive gains in traffic. However, most bloggers are afraid that such a tactic is too spammy and will trigger a negative reaction in the social community. However, case studies like this one by KISSmetrics prove otherwise. All you need is a sharing strategy that focuses on your followers, being helpful, and providing value. For maximum results, you can use a tool like CoSchedule to manage and automate your social media sharing activities.
3. Increase Click-Throughs in Your Tweets
About the strategy above, remember that Twitter is the social media network where you’ll be sharing a lot. However, a lot of new bloggers make the mistake of using uninspiring words in their tweets. Remember that, according to statistics; the most effective tweet format is the post title, the URL, and your blog’s Twitter handle. It should look something like:
“6 Surefire Ways to Increase Blog Traffic – http://www.yoursite.com/blog/6-surefire-ways-to-increase-blog-traffic/ via @ YourSite.”
Just remember that you need to write multiple versions of the same tweet by replacing the post title with something different yet relevant. This practice will prevent your tweets from being too spammy. About the example above, a new tweet could look like:
“Need to increase blog traffic? – http://www.yoursite.com/blog/6-surefire-ways-to-increase-blog-traffic/ via @ YourSite”
4. Learn to Reuse Content
To make the most out of your content, you can repurpose them and offer them to the online audience in a new format. For example, a 2-year old content with evergreen value can be used to make a brand new infographic, slideshow, or podcast. Doing so will allow you to maximize your traffic gains with a single topic idea.
Just remember that certain content formats appeal to a different kind of audience. For example, visual content like images and infographics appeal well on Instagram and Pinterest while slideshows are better for the professional community. Aside from this, you can refer to online guides to learn the best practices for repurposing content.
5. Be Search Engine Optimized
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is probably not something you were aware of before you thought about blogging. It involves the practices of increasing the visibility of a site in search engine results. With proper SEO, you can expose your blog to the millions of search engine users and increase readership.
Keep in mind that SEO is not for bloggers who want overnight results. In fact, it can take you several weeks or months before you see substantial results. But once you succeed, you can attract tons of free, organic traffic and solidify your authority. A good start would be to use a tool such as Yoast SEO to help optimize the on-page SEO factors in your blog.
6. Remember that Blogging is Work
Ultimately, marketing your blog is a very tedious process that can suck all the fun out of writing. That’s why you should change the mentality that blogging is just a hobby. Instead, you should consider it as a business that takes dedication, time, and some money. And just like any business, it takes time before you see results with your investments.
Remember that a change of mindset can go a long way. Now that you see blogging as a business, you should continue to develop solid plans and identify tangible goals for the months to come. Stick to a plan of action with activities that build readership for your blog and be sure to track your progress until you get there.
Conclusion
Being a successful blogger requires you to take on several responsibilities beyond writing the actual content. While you need to focus on one thing at a time, you need all of the strategies mentioned above if you truly want your readership to grow.
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