15 Tips to Grow your Blog Traffic

Once you’ve published your perfectly hand-crafted blog posts, you want everyone to read them, don’t you? 

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Whether you’re just starting a blog or you’re an old hand at blogging, here are 15 ideas on how to spread the word about your blog, and get people reading your latest posts:

1. SEO

SEO is one of the most powerful ways to get your blog seen by loads of people.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and involves writing and presenting your blog post so that the search engines want to feature it high in their results.

The easiest way to make sure that your blog is optimised for search engines is to use an SEO plug-in (such as Yoast) which will guide you through the process.

Woman's hands holding up a tablet computer in a restaurant or bar. There is a Google search screen on the tablet.

Another way to make the search engines notice your blog is to build links from other websites.

Search engines like to see that a blog has lots of links from different places.

One way to build links is to contact other website owners, and ask them to link to you, explaining why the content on your blog will be of interest to their readers.

2. Promote your Blog in Relevant Places

You’ll want to attract people who are interested in your content – not just random people:  There’s no point in advertising your home-made craft blog in the karate groups on Facebook…

I suppose there might be one or two karate experts who make greetings cards, but it’s not common, so you’re unlikely to have much success.

So make sure that the methods you’re using to drive traffic and the people you’re targeting are aligned with the subject of your blog, otherwise you’ll be wasting time and money.

Woman with red hair wearing a karate outfit and a black belt doing karate.

3. Set up a Pinterest Business Account and Pin Regularly 

Pinterest is a social media platform that is actually a search engine in disguise! It’s a great way to drive traffic to your website, especially if your niche has lots of images and appeals mainly to women.

Unlike other social media platforms where your posts disappear after a few days or even hours, Pinterest pins stick around for months (or even years!) and continue to drive traffic to your blog.

Make good use of group boards, and sign up for Tailwind (or a similar Pinterest approved scheduler) so that you can schedule lots of pins at once.  You should also make use of  Tailwind Tribes which will help to expand your reach.

Set up your Pinterest business account and boards correctly, and use keywords and hash tags in your pin descriptions to get the most out of Pinterest.

A large number of red and white Pinterest logos

4. Use Facebook Posts and Groups

Facebook is great for finding your tribe or following – there are lots of Facebook Groups on all sorts of subjects.

If there isn’t a group on your niche, you can create one and invite like-minded people to join.  You can join (or set up) as many groups as you like, and often a group will have special promotional posts, where you can advertise your blog or services.

Be careful though – advertising your own blog or products in Facebook groups is usually frowned upon unless it’s in a designated thread.

If there is no designated promotional thread available, you can still chat with and help other people in your niche, and prove that you know your stuff!

A huge crowd of lego figurines.

Make sure that you join groups that are relevant to your blog, and are not too general – for example if your blog is about parenting, it will be better to participate in a “Moms who Blog” group rather than a general “Blogging” group.

5. Create Great Content that will go Viral

To help with your blog promotion efforts it’s important to make sure that the content you write is first class and relevant to the people you want to attract.

Your posts need to be so good that your readers want to share them with their friends.

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Your blog posts are more likely to go viral if you write timely and “on-trend” content that everyone in your niche is thinking about about at the moment.

6. Write Evergreen Content

It’s important to have “evergreen” content on your blog as well as the “on-trend” topics – posts that won’t go out of date, that answer questions or solve problems that many of your readers have.

For example, if you are writing a parenting blog, your readers will always want to know about potty training, or how to leave their kid on the first day of kindergarten so you could write posts like “7 tips to make potty training easier” or “How to prepare your little one for kindergarten” that will be popular year after year.

Illustration of a silhouette of a baby reaching for a potty.

Your evergreen content should be a complete discussion of the subject that will be a valuable resource for years to come – so don’t be afraid to go into detail.

7. Write Attractive Headlines that Make People Want to Click

There’s no point spending hours creating a brilliant post and then giving it a useless title. You need to give your new post a “clickable” title – one that will attract attention and make people want to click through.

A rack of newspapers showing headlines.

If you spend some time studying the titles other bloggers use, you’ll soon come to recognise the popular forms of headline:

    • Ones with a number at the start e.g. “5 ways to dress your baby”.
    • Ones that are giving a How To guide “How To Feed Your Newborn”.
    • Ones that are promising great things “The Ultimate Guide to Working From Home”.

and so on.  These are typical headlines (like the ones you find in newspapers and magazines) but with an online twist.

It’s important to use your reader’s language.  For example, don’t use the word children if all your readers call them kids!

Also, try to use relevant keywords in your post titles – this will help with your SEO.

8. Inter-link your Posts

Linking your posts internally on your blog is important for two reasons:

First, it will help your readers find similar posts to the one they have just enjoyed, and they’ll stay on your blog to read more.

Crowd of people with umbrellas crossing a road at a zebra crossing.

The second reason is for SEO purposes – the interlinking will help the search engines to find all your pages, and help them understand the main themes of your blog.

For example, at the bottom of a post called “7 tips to make potty training easier” you could put links to other potty training posts, or posts that feature toddlers of a similar age.

Chances are they will already be in the same blog category, but this is another chance to show off the great content on your blog.

9. Add Social Share Buttons to your Posts

If you want people to share your blog with their friends (and you do), then it’s important to make it easy for them.

Illustration shows 9 Polaroyd-style photos of social media logos pinned to a white background with red pins.

The easiest way to do this is to add a social sharing plug-in to your blog, so that the buttons for your social media platforms automatically appear on each blog post.

Don’t overload your page with buttons – concentrate on the social networks that your readers use most.

10. Follow Other Bloggers and Comment on Relevant Blogs

You can keep up with what’s going on in your niche by following other people’s blogs and commenting on them when you have something relevant to say.

This will show that you know what you’re talking about, and are listening to other people.

Crowd of people walking up and down large flights of stone stairs. Picture is in black and white and people are blurred as they are moving.

Often when you comment on someone’s blog you can link to your own blog, so if you make a good impression (and don’t spam their blog with promotional messages), their readers may click through to read your blog posts.

11. Create an Email List

One of the most powerful ways to build traffic to your blog is to get people to sign up to an email list and send them a regular email newsletter.

That way people don’t forget who you are and you can remind them to visit your blog.

When you build an email list you’re building a valuable resource:  Imagine being able to contact hundreds of your biggest fans and let them know about your latest content and products, or ask for their feedback on your ideas.

Illustration showing yellow envelopes flying from a computer across a map signifying email.

12. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging means you write a high-quality blog post for someone else’s blog in return for a link back to your own blog.

This is a great way to get your name in front of a new audience, credentialize yourself and get traffic back to your blog.

Make sure that the blog you’re writing for is in the same or a similar niche to yours, so that their readers will want to click through to your own blog after reading the guest post you’ve written.

Aerial view of a large number of people crossing a road at a zebra crossing.

To get started, search for blogs in your niche that have a “Write for us…” section.
Failing that, send a proposal to the owner of a blog you would like to write for through their contact page.

13. Use Google Analytics to Check what’s Working

It’s important to keep track of where your blog traffic is coming from, so you know which of your promotional activities are working, and which are a waste of time.

Google Analytics is the best way to monitor your traffic. It can tell you the source of your traffic (Social Media, Organic (SEO) etc) and will tell you about the people who are visiting, such as how long they stay on your blog, and where in the world they live.

Illustration of a Google Analytics screen showing website traffic.

If you find that people from one source (e.g. Facebook) stay on your blog for much longer than people from other places, it’s probably worth concentrating extra effort on driving traffic from that source.

14. Build Different Sources of Traffic

Don’t rely on a single source of traffic to your blog – I think it’s important to build traffic from different sources so that you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

That way, if one traffic source stops working, you don’t lose all of your traffic, as you have readers coming from other sources too.

View of a road from above at night, showing the trails of car lights.

15. Try Different Things – If You Keep Doing the Same Thing You’ll Get the Same Results!

If things aren’t working and you aren’t getting enough traffic, keep trying new things to promote your blog.

It’s also worth making sure that you publish new content on your blog regularly – you never know which is the post that will go viral!

If you’ve found these tips helpful, or have any more of your own to add, please let me know in the comments below.

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