Fridays with Vicky 43
When starting out blogging, you might write for fun but you do want people to see what you write and get your message out.
You want people to visit your blog, right?
There are many different ways to get visitors and traffic to your blog or website.
In this article, we will talk about a few of them…
FYI – In the article, I will sometimes refer to the website and sometimes a blog, these traffic generating methods will work well with either one. I use WordPress but the traffic methods can be applied to any website platform.
16 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website or Blog
Before we get into the 16 ways more in depth, let’s take a look at a few of them in this infographic…
1. Target a Group of People/Niche and Write for Them
The first thing you want to do is focus in on a specific group of people, a niche that you want to write for. By doing that you will speak directly to them. Say that you have a blog about ”healthy habits for dogs” then you know that you are communicating with dog owners who cares about their dog’s health.
By targeting in on a specific group of people you can easily address topics that they find interesting. It also becomes easier for you to stay on topic and speak directly to your visitor.
Over time if you post helpful content on a regular basis, your blog will grow and hopefully become the “to go to” blog in your chosen niche.
Read more about niches here – Niche Site Case Study
2. Optimize Your Website for the Search Engines, So They Can Find It
Optimize the Site
Using a plugin like All in one SEO will help optimize your website for the search engines, like Google. Fill in the form, using relevant keywords to describe your site.
Optimize the Posts and Pages
Using keywords will help rank your posts and pages for specific words and phrases. There are many tools that you can use to check the search volume for a specific keyword.
You also want to check the competition, less competition the easier to rank for.
How to use keywords and keyword tools is a lesson of it self, for more info read my post – Keyword Research Explained.
Make It Easy for Web Crawlers
By using a plugin like xml sitemap you make it easy for the web crawlers to find your content when they come crawling your site.
3. Blogging / Organic Listings
Quality and Continuity – Submitting quality content on a regular basis will help grow your site. Now on a regular basis can mean ones a week, every day, what ever works for you.
Use Keywords – The more content you have out the more chances to rank for long tail keywords. I`m not saying to use keywords in every single post. But if you target specific keywords within some of your content you have a better chance of ranking for those in the search engines.
Length of content – Another factor to pay attention to is the length of your content. If your blog posts are short, say around 200 words, then the chances of ranking organically are very slim. When I write I aim for a minimum of 500 words, which is not very hard if it`s a topic you are passionate about. My posts are usually a lot longer than that.
Doesn`t mean you can`t have short posts, just know they will most likely have a hard time ranking in the search engines. These posts can have other purposes on your blog, though.
Blogging on a regular basis can increase traffic to your blog or website!
4. Use Catchy Headlines
When the post is ranked organically, make sure it gets clicked on. Take Google for example, there are 10 search results + the ads that potential visitors can click on after doing a search. Make sure you use catchy headlines so that they choose to click on your result. If you want more info on catchy headlines read this post .
5. Make It Easy for Your Visitors to Share Your Content
When you have your visitor on your post or page, make it easy for him or her to share the content.
Have social buttons available with a phrase like ”if you like it share it…” or something similar.
Having others share your content on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or some other social media can really boost your traffic.
6. Where Does Your Niche Hang Out – Create a Following
It`s impossible to be a master of all, find out where your audience is hanging out. Do they use Twitter, do they post pics on Instagram, do they hang out in forums and chats…
Find out where your crowd hangs out and go there. Network and engage on the platforms that your audience is using.
7. Social Media
Facebook
Now Facebook and Twitter can pretty much be used by any niche. Focus in on relevant potential visitors and connect with them. Through helpful content you can engage with your audience. You can also set up a Facebook group or do Twitter parties to engage with your niche.
Don`t be afraid to be personal and connect, that`s how you will create trust and a following.
Instagram and Pinterest might not suit all niches, but I`m sure you can find an interesting angle and participate.
Pinterest is perfect for DIY projects, parent blogs anything visually appealing. Instagram is another visual platform where you can share your photos with your audience.
Social media used correctly will increase traffic to your blog or website.
8. Social Sharing
Social sharing can be another way to get the message out about your blog or website. Here`s two good ones to use:
- Tumblr
9. Forums and Chats
This highly depends on your targeted visitor, which forums and chats to participate in and use. Some target groups might not use them at all. But, if your audience hangs out in a forum then, by all means, use them.
10. Paid Traffic
Using paid traffic, advertisement can be done through different platforms, Google Adwords is one example. Facebook ads is another example.
You create an ad, sign up for the program that you are interested in, put up the ad and pay for the clicks through to your site. This is a quick way to get traffic and it can be a highly effective BUT you need to know what works and converts on your site.
I find it best to use paid traffic AFTER I have figured out what works and what converts into sales on my site. If you don`t know what converts, you can spend a ton of money with out any return.
You can also pay for advertisement on relevant, related, websites. Again let`s take the ”healthy habits for dogs” niche. You could find relevant dog sites that offer to advertise on their site and place an ad with them.
Each site is different, some you pay for a period of time, per month for example. For some, you pay per click. This can be a good way to reach your targeted market using other relevant websites. Paying for traffic can increase traffic to your website quickly.
11. Install Google Analytics and Analyze the Result
Using Google Analytics will give you a ton of helpful information. You will see who your audience is where they are from geographically.
How they interact with your site, what pages they visit, how long they stay. If they use a desktop, mobile or tablet visiting your site.
You can see if they come from social media and what platform, Twitter, Facebook, G+ or what ever platform it might be.
You can see what keywords brought them to your website.
If a specific post is popular and you know it converts, then you know to send more traffic to that post.
This is an invaluable tool to use, it will give you so much information, that you can take use of.
If you don`t have Google Analytics installed it can easily be done. Sign up for an account and use a plugin to install it on your site.
12. Refer to Your Own Content
If you use social media, for example, feel free to point and refer to your own content when suitable. If it`s relevant and helpful people will be happy that you did.
This doesn`t just go for social media, this could be anywhere. If it helps people, point them to your content.
13. Guest Blog
Another way to leverage traffic from other people`s blogs and websites is to do guest posts. Reach out to others working in the same niche and ask if you can do a guest post.
You might even be able to exchange posts.
By doing guest posts you will get your content in front of a new audience and you can direct them to your site by using a link in the writer bio.
For this, to work you need to provide quality, helpful content. You want to establish a relationship with the website owner and give him or her quality content in exchange for a link back to your site.
14. Build Your E-mail List and Redirect Them Back to Your Site
To be able to get back in contact with your visitors you should have an email subscription form on your website. To get people to sign up, give away something that they find helpful in exchange for their name and e-mail address.
You can then send out emails to your subscribers and re-redirect them back to your site.
Make sure you engage with the people on your list, send them helpful tips and advice.
One way to get them back on your site would be to create a ”top 10 healthy dog snacks” post on your blog. When you send out the email to your subscribers show them the first dog treat and send them back to your site to read the full post and get the full list of the ”top 10 healthy dog snacks”.
To submit a sign-up form, collect emails and to be able to send out the messages you will need an email provider. I have been working with Aweber for years and can highly recommend them if you are looking for one.
15 Backlinks
I`m talking about non-spammy links going back to your site. This is still away for search engines to decide if your website is important. If people enjoy your site they will talk about it and maybe also link to it.
There are things you can do actively to create more backlinks to your site. We already talked about several of them in this post, guest blogging, social media and referring to your own site different places on the internet.
A few other ways to get back links would be to give testimonials on other people`s sites, submit your site to directories, comment on other people`s blogs and sites, participate in website feedback sites, create infographics and share them.
16. Join a Blogging, Website or Entrepreneur Community
By joining a relevant community, you will get in contact with others doing the same thing you are doing. You can find invaluable resources and people to work with
These communities help with everything from networking to cross promotions but also feedback and support. Some of them have training programs as well.
I`ve been a part of ”my” community for almost 8 years and love it. There are tons of people that love blogging and websites. Entrepreneurs that create great businesses. They also have training, live chat, tools… I can go on and on lol. If you want to know more about it, you can read my review here!
There we have it, 16 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website or Blog.
Now it`s your turn, what`s your favorite way to get traffic to your website, feel free to share below,
Have a productive day,
Vicky
Hey Veronica,
I have been trying to create a forum within my website but I have no clue how to do that. Any tips? I understand that there’s 16 methods in here but I couldn’t possibly integrate them all. Any idea which ones are the best to actually execute within a short period of time?
Regards,
Zhi Wei
Hi,
For your forum, see if this Buddypress plugin is what you are looking for.
I suggest you read through the different methods and pick out a few that catches your interest. It`s all about testing to see what works for your site. Some of them you might be doing already…
You do want to stay focused as well, don`t take on too many in the beginning, master one or a couple, evaluate the result and decide if you should continue using that method or not. Then move on to master the next one.
Vicky
Very helpful article!
I’m going to put some of these tips into action straight away! One thing I can’t get the hang of is using my Google Analytics to analyse my traffic. I know how to see how much traffic I’m actually getting but I just don;t understand how to use this to my advantage. How can i use Google Analytics and Webmasters to see how to get more traffic on my website?
Thanks very much for this article. My website is relatively new but traffic is slowly increasing.
Hannah.
Hi Hannah,
The first thing to look at is the demographics. WHO is your visitor, you might have an idea, but with Google Analytics you will KNOW. You can can see age, gender, interest and more. Targeting the audience that is visiting your site already, can be customized with specific content for them. You can also use specific keywords to target and rank for in the search engines. Also when interacting on social media you know WHO to engage with.
With Google Analytics you can also see WHERE your traffic is coming from. Is it organically from the search engines, is it from social media, is it direct links… If you see a lot of traffic from social media, then you know that what you do there works. You might even want to kick it up a notch to get even more visitors from there.
With Google Analytics you can also see important data like which pages are being visited. If you know what pages are popular, make sure you have clear call to action on those, to tell your visitor what to do… sign up for a newsletter, click a link… what ever it might be. Knowing what`s popular on your site will allow you to create more content related to that.
Keywords, you can see what keywords bring visitors to your site. This can be used to create content targeting similar or related keywords.
These are just a few of the benefits using Google Analytics. You inspired me to create a full article on this topic, so that is in the making 🙂
Hope you found this helpful,
Vicky
Hi Vicky, these are some great tips and I’m already implementing a few of them. There are a few that I’m having difficulty with, though.
1) I have installed the google sitemap xml generator plugin you recommend. Does it auto update the sitemap when I make a new post or is there a manual step involved with that? Also, do I need to submit my sitemap or do they just find it automatically?
2) I find myself horrifically lost with social media. I’m trying to find non-spammy feeling ways to promote on facebook and twitter but no matter what I do, it feels like a cheap 2:00 AM infomercial to me. Do you have any recomendations on how to do this organically without my facebook friends or twitter followers feeling like I’ve joined some cult?
Hi Christian,
Sitemap – It will automatically update your sitemap when you submit content. You can actually check it by going to yoursite/sitemap.xml, your sitemap should be displayed. I like to submit my sitemap to Google Webmaster tools and to Bing webmaster tools.
Social media – It is all about engagement, forget the selling and promoting. It is all about helping people. This is how I enjoy engaging on Twitter, and how I get people thanking me when sending them my links:
1. Connect with people that could find your content helpful.
2. Reach out to them with a question, ask them something about them or their site for example.
3. See how the conversation is going… In some cases I get people saying, I`m struggling with monetizing… I then point them to one of my articles that can help with that.
Sometimes the conversation goes in a totally different direction and sending them a link would not be appropriate and that`s ok too.
My best advice is to engage and help, when it comes to social media.
Vicky
hi Vicky,
those are great ways to increase traffic to your website! I am happy to see that I am already doing a lot of them! I personally use social media a lot. My site’s FB page is very active and I post multiple times a day. Including all my new and related articles on my site. I have paid for ads on FB too to build an audience and have found that they work very well. I now have over 13 000 followers and it has increased my website traffic. I also look at Google Analytics and have recently taken a closer look at which pages are popular. I have then reworked those and added affiliate links in them. However, I am having a hard time translating all of this into sales. Not sure what I could be doing wrong. Maybe it is just a matter of time at this point.
Hi Emily,
That`s great that you have put most of these sources to use already.
13 K visitors on Facebook is impressive, well done with that. Sounds like you are very engaged and involved with the FB group. By doing that you set yourself up as the “to go to” person in your niche.
Also like you did take use of Google Analytics and use clear call to actions, is a great way to get conversions.
Conversions into sales, trust is always a big factor. Do you have anybody that bought something from you that could give you a testimonial? That will give that trust factor, that somebody has successfully purchased before them.
Also since you have it set up as a shop I would probably add my phone number, that would again add to the trust.
Hope that helps,
Vicky
Excellent Article first off. While these things may seem basic, they are the cornerstones to success. I am always reviewing articles like this to help remind myself of the things that I need to be doing. Catchy headlines and Guest Blogging have done very well for me!
Thanks for stopping by James. Glad that the “catchy headlines” and guest blogging has worked out well for you.
Hey Veronica, I’m Veronica and I really enjoyed reading your post! It has a lot of information that I will definitely want to use to help my blog traffic. I love the idea of a guest blogger and I’m totally going to use it. You have given me some fresh ideas. Thanks for this!
Glad you could find some good ideas in this article!
Let me know if you are interested in writing a guest post about your website journey… 🙂
Vicky
Great site, Vicky, and lots of helpful information.
It’s clear that you know what you’re doling and how to do it successfully. I’m going to click on your other links now because they attracted my attention, so you are writing in a way that people become interested to respond.
Actually you gave more than 16 tips – you over delivered!
Glad you like the site PJ,
I looked at your site and you might enjoy this amazon post.
Vicky
Vicky,
I use most of your ways to increase traffic to my website. I need to follow some forums and groups on social sites. I found using GA that I had some very spammy back links from a Reddit person. I am also going to start on this list building soon, how much traffic do you need to start this process.
John
Hi John,
There are ways that you can block these spammers in Google Analytics so it`s not included in the stats. Working on a post for that.
The list building you can start right away, you don`t need a certain amount of visitors for that.
Vicky
Hi Vicky, what do you think about link party? it seems that a lot of mom bloggers do that.
And also, have you tried pinterest group board? Do you think it will help in increasing traffic?
Hi Rina,
I think that Pinterest is a great platform for many niches, like DIY, crafts, mom blogs, food blogs anything that does well visually I think works great with Pinterest. Yes, I do think Pinterest is a good way to drive traffic for many blogs and websites.
To be honest I`m not too familiar with link parties… I do think if you have a specific offer that it will probably work well. I would love to hear from somebody that use link parties for their take on it.
Vicky
Lots of good ideas here to increase traffic! I agree with you: it’s very important to be social and connect with people. Social media is often the first traffic source for a new blog, before people arrive through search engines. Congratulations for your site, full of informations yet very easy to navigate.
Thanks David! Glad you enjoyed the different ways to increase traffic.
Vicky
On the topic of forums; I really never sign up for any forums because it’s time consuming to sign up for a forum, and constantly answer questions. However, I do use forums to get good ideas to find out exactly what people are wanting to know. I typically do a lot of research on forums and than craft a well written article or how-to series answering all types of related problems.
I am about to start reading up on Pinterest because I do have a leopard gecko niche that I know would spread like wildfire. I want to get very creative and make some crazy pictures with geckos which could go viral if done correctly. Do you have any Pinterest tips?
Also, on the topic of social media; knowing which social media to use can be a either great or a horrible idea. For instance, if you have a site that is really serious about business or something that people typically don’t share on Facebook it might be better to use LinkedIn.
Hi Garen,
Thanks for your feedback.
Forums can be time consuming but if you position yourself to be the “to go to” person for a specific niche, then it can really benefit you. Also like you say they are filled with tons of real life experience that we can take use of.
With social media the key is knowing where your audience hangs out, it might be LinkedIn, it might be Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter…
For your gecko niche I would use Pinterest but also Instagram. As always with social media, engagement and interaction with your followers will determine how successful you are.
Thanks Garen,
Vicky
Hey, wonderful content here! I bookmarked this page for future reference! I have been part of the WA community for several months now, and this is helpful information to get me motivated again in my endeavors!
Caleb
Hi Caleb,
Glad you enjoyed the traffic increase tips in the post.
Vicky
I love this!
No nonsense, no fluff just value!
I have a personal development blog too.
I’d love to chat to you about guest posting.
Again, great post.
Hi Stephen,
Glad you like the content! I am always open for a discussion about guest blogging 🙂
Feel free to contact me through the contact form or via twitter @FridaysWVicky
Look forward talking to you,
Vicky
Awesome post Vicky. This is exactly what I need as I’ve just recently setup my blog.
However, I’ve not started publishing. I need to put together 10 or a dozen blog posts before I start publishing. So the information you have here on your blog is pretty useful to me. I’ll have to implement them so as to enable me get more traffic to my blog.
I also read your December case study where you mentioned that you do outsourcing for your contents.
I know there are very many places where one can outsource content. But could you please recommend for me
Thanks
Moses.
Glad you like the post Moses.
It’s always good to have some good content in place before publishing.
As far as outsourcing I have found great people to work with through Upwork former odesk.
They’ve been by far the best place to find great reliable writers.
Here’s an article on outsourcing your writing that might help.
Thanks for stopping by Moses,
Vicky
Great tips on getting traffic. Thanks for the information look forward to seeing more
Glad you liked the post Tyler!
Great post, Vicky. I just tweeted this, Awesome guide on getting website traffic! I use twitter and have great success recently. Mari Smith has a twitter following of over 460,000 raving fans and I got her to tweet one of my new blog post. Her tweet immediately skyrocketed my blog traffic by 330%. Didn’t have connection with Mari, and I just sent her 1-2 cold emails. Twitter is powerful…if you have the right process 😉
Thank you Verena!
I must say I have learned to love Twitter as well.
That is great, 330% increase wow! Just retweeted your post about it 🙂
Vicky
Great post! I find that these are very effective ways in increasing traffic. Keep up the good work and I wish you all the best.-Chris Thompson
Thank you Chris,
They are very effective is done on a consistent basis. Master one method then take on another one 🙂
Vicky
I am searching forums for parenting blogs and some information on Pinterest. I need to start maillist too.thanks Vicky, found this very interesting
Hi Menaka,
Glad you found it helpful! That sounds like great places to start!
Vicky
Hi vicky,
very interesting article. I’m a follower of your blog and tips and I wanted to stop here for a minute just to say thank you.
As regards the post, I must agree with all of what you stated. In my case, I haven’t tried Tumblr, so I will give it a try.
The most difficult thing is to get backlinks in my opinion but I will work hard on this.
hope to see some results!
all the best
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Glad you enjoy my blog!
The backlinks will grow naturally over time I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Vicky