If you want more visitors to your blog, it’s not enough that you publish it and invite some friends to read what you’ve put out. Even if you have the most interesting and valuable content on a particular topic, you can’t expect traffic to automatically pour in. To make sure that you get the eyeballs you want for your content, consider doing the following strategies.
- Produce quality content and try to connect them with trending topics
This one’s a fundamental thing to do. You can’t expect visitors to frequent your blog if there’s nothing great or at least good to find in it. If you publish articles, make sure these offer something useful and interesting to readers. You don’t always have to publish articles. You may also occasionally post videos, pictures, or interactive elements like a casual embeddable game you recently discovered and you would like to share with your readers.
Also, be mindful of the idea of publishing content that relates to what’s being discussed on the blogosphere and social media at the moment. Most of the time, visitors go to blogs that offer content with fresh or current perspectives. If you want to write about something, avoid being generic. Forget about trying to produce those so-called “evergreen” content. If someone wants straight facts about something, there’s already Wikipedia and other “encyclopedic” content on high authority sites to cater to such need. Your blog can’t compete with these.
You need to offer a new perspective or a different approach in presenting something. For example, our company was able to capitalize on the popularity of the Minions, by posing the question of what language the Minions speak. As a languages company, we were able to turn this popular trend into something relevant to our business. The article received over 100k hits and shares on social media, driving traffic to our blog and website.
- Master the art of attention-grabbing headline writing and use images.
To attract traffic, it’s not enough that you have good or even great content. You need to make sure that that content is noticed. The foremost ways of grabbing attention are through enticing headlines and the use of eye-catching images. Your posts’ titles or headlines shouldn’t read just like news. They should present something interesting or should be something that calls for an action. They should be intriguing or something that teases. Take a unique angle or approach in presenting the topic. Exaggerate a bit or stir some controversy.
For example, instead of simply writing “Galaxy S8 also Does Super Slow Motion Videos,” it would be more attention grabbing to write something like “Galaxy S8 Copies Features in Xperia XZ Premium and LG G6” This headline would intrigue fans and bring in not just those interested in the Samsung flagship smartphone but also diehard Sony Xperia and LG fans. Sony fans, by the way, are known for their indefatigable brand loyalty so they will surely click on that headline.
Moreover, don’t forget to use attractive images. As much as possible, do your own graphics or photo manipulation to come up with something original and interesting. If the photo you use for the example above is a meme showing the Galaxy S8 being tagged as a copycat, there’s a greater chance for fans of the three brands to consider going over the post. Samsung’s fans will want to see the article to post a comment defending Samsung while Sony and LG fans will likely try to “troll around.”
- Publish content regularly and frequently.
It’s very important to regularly post new content on your blog. This is for two main reasons: Google’s preference for fresh content from authority pages and to keep returning visitors. Over the years, Google has updated its search algorithms such that most of the time, what appears on top of search results are those that come from high authority pages and/or pages with fresh content that relate to trending topics. If your blog has both high authority and fresh content, you will most likely rank well in search engine results.
On the other hand, it’s also important to publish content regularly and frequently to make sure that your captured audience has something to look forward to. Nobody wants to keep returning to a blog knowing that there’s rarely anything new to watch out for. It greatly helps to create among visitors the habit of checking back on your blog for new interesting or useful content.
- Promote on social media and hold contests or related promotions
Nowadays, it’s a fatal mistake to not make use of social media to promote something. I you have a blog or a website in general, you should always have accompanying social media accounts for it. These social media accounts include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram. You can start by promoting your content on your personal social media accounts and eventually create a Facebook page or a complementary Twitter account for your blog through which you can share the latest articles or media you publish.
Also, consider the idea of holding contests. Contests are a great way to get returning visitors. Be sure to invite your social media friends to your blog’s contest. You can offer a gift certificate, a voucher, or a free domain name registration (effective for those who are also into blogging). More often than not, after the contest, your visitors will return to your blog and keep checking a few more times for more contests.
- Use SEO techniques
You don’t have to do advanced SEO techniques. Using basic SEO methods is enough to help make a difference for your blog’s traffic. Some things you should do are the adding of target keywords in the title, content, and meta description; adding of inbound (to other pages of your blog) and outbound (to external authoritative sites); the use of an fast and well optimized blog template; creating a sitemap, adding of a comments section; and the use of a good permalink structure.
The goal of SEO is to help your blog or its specific pages or posts appear on top or at least on the first page of search engine results whenever someone uses a specific keyword. SEO is intended for search engines so some of the techniques involved may not make that much sense to you but they mean a lot to the search engines. To make your SEO efforts easier, it would be advisable to just install an SEO plugin in your blog’s content management system.
- Invite contributors, especially those who also run blogs
Having contributors post their articles or thoughts on your blog is a great way to get more traffic. This is based on the idea of establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with others who also want to increase their audience reach or those who just want to have an audience for their writings. By letting other bloggers or your ordinary readers write on your blog, you get to produce more content while at the same time attracting new visitors who could be drawn in because of the influence of your contributor. Consider the idea of networking with other blogs, even with those whose subjects are not within the same niche as yours.
- Appeal to readers who speak other languages
Ever heard of ”react videos” on YouTube? These are videos of random ordinary netizens who record themselves as they react to something. You may notice that many of these YouTubers eventually endear themselves to viewers from a particular country. Case in point: YouTubers who react to Filipino singers. These YouTubers didn’t necessarily plan to appeal to Filipino viewers. They just happened to attract them and have eventually connected to them.
Try doing this: go to YouTube and find “reaction YouTubers” who did videos for the performances of Filipino singer Morissette Amon (an impressive singer by the way!). You will notice that most of them (the reaction YouTubers) have eventually endeared themselves with the Filipino audience and have shown some solid connection by adopting the Filipino language. They don’t necessarily fluently speak the language but by simply trying to connect by throwing out a couple of Filipino words occasionally, they reap the benefit of having new Filipino subscribers who then become loyal viewers of the new reaction videos they post.
Something similar to this can work well with blogs. If you happen to attract a group of visitors from a particular country that speak a language other than English, endear your blog to this group and you are likely going to enjoy a regular stream of traffic especially if you regularly churn out new content that appeal to them.
These are some of the most practical but easy-to-do ways you can use to bring in more eyeballs to your blog. If you haven’t tried them yet, consider doing most if not all of them. Be surprised at how effective they are in increasing traffic to your blog.
Author Bio:
Bernadine Racoma is an experienced blogger and senior writer at translation services company, Day Translations. With a notable fondness for things related to technology, current affairs, and languages, she is also a mom to seven successful children.
