5 Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
You finally started the blog you’ve talked about for years. Personal websites can be a great source of income, once you get some eyes on your content. It doesn’t matter how great your content is if nobody is reading.
A few years ago, back in the glory days, building an audience for a blog was really easy. All you had to do was create a Facebook page, spend a little bit of money on ads, and spam your content in tons of groups. Those days are gone. Now, you really have to work to keep your readers engaged, but it’s completely feasible. We have a few tips to help you start attracting fans to your site.
1. Write Content You’re Passionate About
The first thing you should be doing is writing about topics that you care about. For example, if you are a nurse, you might want to discuss issues you see at work or tell others how they can get a DNP degree. If you are a nurse who is writing about what it’s like to be a teacher, your readers will see through that and know it’s not your specialty.
When you write about things you care about, you’ll do it with more enthusiasm. Also, your experience will boost your site’s credibility which helps drive traffic because other sites can use your blog as a source and link back to it.
Besides, creating content that you care about is much more enjoyable.
2. Optimize Your Content
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a great tool for blogs. It’s a way to drive traffic to your site by improving your content‘s ranking in the search results of Yahoo, Google, and other search engines.
If you are using WordPress, you can get a Yoast plugin for your site. There are others, but Yoast is very user-friendly. Then, you’ll want to get a subscription for an SEO keyword site.
When you write content, you’ll add the keywords to your article and follow the other Yoast prompts to optimize your writing.
When done correctly, you’ll begin to see your content move up the ranking in search engines. The goal is to get to the first search page.
3. Keep Up With Google Algorithm Changes
When you’re using SEO to help drive traffic to your site, be sure to pay close attention to Google’s algorithm changes.
The search engine giant will tweak its algorithm periodically, which means you’ll have to optimize your content again. If you notice your traffic is falling off, it may be an indication Google has made some changes. You can usually find out what they did with a quick internet search.
4. Use Social Media
Although it’s not as easy to use social media sites to drive traffic to your blog, it’s still possible. These days you just have to be creative.
Create a Facebook page for your website and start interacting with people. Make arrangements with other pages to cross share content, create fun videos, and if you want to, you can even go live. An audience that feels a connection to you will keep coming back. Remember, you can still buy ads, but you’ll need to ensure they are targeted ads.
5. Write Often
Make sure you are adding as much content to your website as possible. The more posts you write, the more opportunities you have to get your work in front of people. And when you finally get an audience, this will help keep people on your website and clicking ads. Good quality, abundant content is the most important part of building an audience.
Good Luck!
If you follow the steps above, you’ll be on your way to creating a loyal following. Consistent traffic is really important if you want to use your blog for income. Advertising companies look at traffic when deciding whether or not to place ads on your site. The better your ads, the more money you’ll make.
If the traffic doesn’t come immediately, don’t be discouraged. It takes some time to get it right. Just keep on blogging!