How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog In 2022
This topic may sound like a cliché, yet it is evergreen to anybody who is starting out an online business or wants to stay relevant in the online space.
Building a blog is not an overnight success thing. It requires time and effort and for some who are new to blogging, if you are not patient enough, you may end up quitting before the blog start turning out traffic. That is why in the post I will be showing you how you can leverage the existing traffic pools and build yours — you do not need to look for them anywhere else.
The success of every online business lies in traffic. This traffic could either come ‘organically’ or through ‘paid’ traffic sources.
In the end, this post will benefit you as a beginner who is starting an online business with little to nothing budget for ads or as a pro who needs to stay in business by increasing the blog traffic.
The steps and tactics that will help you increase your blog traffic which I will be discussing here are not magic, you have to build it. And building traffic takes time. And this time can be a few months away from the time you are reading this post. But I will mention 3 things that are key to having these traffic over and over again; they are “consistency,” “strategy,” and “time”.
“Website Traffic is like a treasure found online.”
You will have answers to what to do and how you can do it well to get the type of traffic you want.
What is Blog Traffic?
I doubt if you wouldn’t know what web or blog traffic is. But for the purpose of clarity and emphasis, website traffic is the average number of visitors coming to your blog every second — though the consideration is by daily and monthly visits. They could be returning visitors or people who are just coming to your site for the first time.
Blog traffic could either come organically or through ads.
Organic traffic is those who land on your web page through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing, and also the traffic that comes from social media through sharing of your website links.
Paid traffic is the traffic that comes from sponsored ads. You could run ads on Google, Bing, Facebook, or any social media platform to drive traffic to your site. It is worthy to note that not all ads will give you a quick result, especially f your content or ad purpose was not clear to you.
Traffics are niche targeted and people who visit you are coming with the purpose of having a solution to their particular need, once this need is met (value) they may eventually become visitors and from visitors to customers. Meaning a more visible blog has the potential of converting visitors to customers.
First Category of Web Traffic Sources:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization starts with everything you do on-page and off-page to get your content visible to your visitors through keyword targeting.
In plain explanation, a well-optimized site is that which competes favourably with certain keywords and pops up in the first pages of the search engine when a targeted keyword is used on the search box. And the emphasis is on the ‘first page’ of the search engine.
Think of it this way, would you be on the lookout for an item that you have seen three vendors willing to sell to you or you would keep searching until you find another lower price than the offer you have already?
I don’t know about you but my answer would be ‘no way’. Even if the seventh vendor has the best price offer, lower than my bargain, I wouldn’t bother to search further, considering the offers which I have secured already. That is because even with the good offer, he is not well-positioned for me to find him.
The same thing happens when we input those keywords in the search box of any of the search engines page and your site is nowhere to be found in at least the first three pages of those search engine pages.
However, SEO is broken down into two, on-page and off-page SEO. Researching and optimizing them both makes you get more organic visits.
2. Long-tail Keywords
Every word you use to make up your blog content is a keyword. But it ranks better if it is a long-tail keyword. Maybe my post or search focuses on ‘bed’. The word bed on its own is a keyword. But for it to be a long-tail keyword I will add something like this; “How to make my bed in the morning.”
Both ‘bed’ and ‘how to make my bed in the morning’ are all keywords but the second is a long-tail keyword because it further describes what aspect of the keyword I am talking about.
That is why when you type a particular keyword on the Google search box, it further brings up longer keywords suggestion related to the keyword you are searching for.
From your blog title to your blog contents. You will rank well on the search engines if they capture a long-tail keyword.
3. Target Medium to Low Competing Keywords
If you go to the Google keyword planner tool for example and any other good keyword planner tool, you would always see the average monthly search section and the competition section. Take note of these columns as they would benefit the next approach you need to take.
As a fresh blogger who is yet to become an authority in your blogging niche, it is always better to build content with those medium to the low competing keywords.
The reasons are as you guess.
· Your competition is lower in ranking than when you go with high competing keywords.
· Your chances of coming up on Google’s search pages (using it as the base of search engine) whenever you have content related to the keyword been searched. It is better to get a consistent few hundred visitors than a few tens every month.
Build up tons of content within your niche with these low keywords and aggregate your visitors. Then you will understand that it is all about visibility. Low to medium keywords makes your chances of visibility on the search pages higher.
4. Backlinking
Backlinks are when another site links to your website from their website. ‘Tech A’ blog links to your own website which is a ‘Tech B’ blog. This is known as ‘inbound’ or ‘incoming links’.
Backlinks to your website are proof to Google that your blog is an authority in its area of thought. When Google finds out that there are a lot of links from other blogs to your site, it signals to them that your website has valuable content.
This would cause you to be found readily on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
How your blog could be backlinked:
· Your blog can get backlinks through natural means, where the other owner of a blog finds your content interesting and educative and links to your blog.
· Through guest blogging (will be discussed).
· Through online forums.
· Using the Money Robot Submitter Software (will be discussed).
5. Google Site Indexing
After a page is discovered, Google tries to understand what the page is about. This process is called indexing. Google analyses the content of the page, catalogs images and video files embedded on the page, and otherwise tries to understand the page. This information is stored in the Google index, a huge database stored in many computers.
To improve your page indexing:
· Create short, meaningful page titles.
· Use page headings that convey the subject of the page.
· Use text rather than images to convey content. Google can understand some images and videos, but not as well as it can understand the text. At a minimum, annotate your video and images with alt text and other attributes as appropriate.
When a user types a query, Google tries to find the most relevant answer from its index based on many factors.
Index your page with Google.
How to index and improve your ranking:
· Make your page fast to load, and mobile-friendly.
· Put useful content on your page and keep it up to date.
· Follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines, which help ensure a good user experience.
These first few steps that I discussed above will give you quality organic traffic; so much traffic when you do them well. In fact, it is a ‘must do’ in your blogging activity and a knowledge you must have. And to get the required skill to do them isn’t difficult. You can check out Google courses on Coursera.
Second Category of Web Traffic Sources:
6. Pinterest
If you have never heard of Pinterest before now (which I doubt) it is a social media platform where descriptive images are posted on boards. Those images are called pins.
Let me briefly explain what pins and boards on Pinterest are, just in case you are not familiar with the use of Pinterest.
Pinterest Pins
Pins are image tags that describe your headline on Pinterest. Hence the name “Pinterest”. The images are the pins with a bold heading.
Pinterest Boards
I will explain a Pinterest board using an illustration:
Imagine Pinterest to be a library of a collection of books (pins). These books are then sorted into different categories (boards).
When you post a pin on Pinterest, it is by default required that those pins are perfectly placed in the perfect sub-category which best describes the pin.
Your pins are the books in the library, while the boards are the subcategories in which these books (pins) are arranged.
Pinterest has almost 500 million active users every month, which makes it a cloud pull of traffic for your blog.
How then do you generate traffic from Pinterest?
· Create a Pinterest business account.
· Your account profile and name should be optimized to cover the topics which your pins and board convey.
· Before you design a pin, search for the keywords ideas of the pin you want to make and how the top appearances designed their pins.
Let’s say you want to search “How to make cake pops” look at the pins that pop up.
It will guide your design.
You can design your pins using Canva.
· There is a tool Pinterest introduced in December 2019 called, Pinterest trends (though it is just available in the US, UK, and Canada). You can search for the keywords you wish to make a post on and see how it has been performing over time.
· Use appropriate keywords for your pin heading. You can also add a brief description, even though this would not matter as the head as I have seen pins with just heading ‘pop up’ on Google search.
· Lastly, and most importantly, add your blog link to your pin.
Do not add affiliate links direct to your pins, Pinterest will not allow that, and your link would be seen as spam. Direct them to a blog post or a landing page.
You can add social media plugins such as Social Welfare, GS pins for Pinterest, and others to your blog for ease of pinning.
From observations, Pinterest will give quite a good traffic if you are in the weight loss niche, furniture, home niche, wears, and generally women product or service type of niches. That doesn’t mean you cannot build authority with Pinterest. And the exceptional thing with Pinterest is that a lot of people go there for an idea of what to purchase next.
7. Quora
Quora is a well-known ‘question and answer’ platform; where people come to ask questions across everything about life. So it is a platform for intellectuals. And more to being where you get answers to a lot of things. You use the platform as an opportunity to drive traffic to your space.
There is no way you tend to answer a lot of ask or answer as many questions as possible that you wouldn’t get traffic from Quora.
But this is how you will do it.
· Develop a good profile on Quora, using your headshot photograph. Describe your interests and what you do so well, then add links in your bio (here you can add your blog link or links to it). This is because over time when your engagements increase and your visitors will visit your bio and probably visit your blog if the links are in your bio.
· Provide values in your answers, do at least an answer with up to 150 words and suggest the person you are responding to his/her question visit the link to understand further.
Do not spam links everywhere on your answers but put it as you would do when backlinking to a site. Do not start out by adding links to the answers when you start on Quora. Answer a good number of questions without links, before you start adding links to your answers.
Spamming your posts with links on Quora can get you suspended.
Affiliate links as well on Quora will get you suspended, you should direct them to a landing page instead.
· Create Quora Space(s) and build an audience from there.
One thing is sure with Quora if you provide value and you are consistent. You must mock-up traffic over time.
8. Reddit
If you can use Quora, then you can use Reddit too. Though their interfaces are different.
But you can ask a question and answer it yourself on Reddit.
There are spaces on Reddit but these spaces are called subreddits. These subreddits are the opinion centers of Reddit. People come to subreddits to share ideas.
All you have to do is to target those subreddits around your niche and share your ideas, you can always link them back to your blog.
But before you attach links to your posts, read the group rules and regulations because some groups will not approve your posts with links in them.
Same advice as I gave you in quora, do not post affiliate links. Take them to a landing page.
You can create your own subreddit and build an audience.
9. YouTube
YouTube is a great way to attract traffic to your site. I know you may ask “YouTube?!” YouTube is a video platform, but the dynamic thing with YouTube is that you can create and upload faceless videos.
You can make your blog posts into short YouTube videos and ask your viewers to click on the description below to know more, there you would paste your site URL.
The truth is, people, would want to watch more videos than they would read. This is why you have to engage them with the video content of your posts, then direct them to the post.
10. Medium
Medium is a great place you can build traffic from, that is if you can write to get the attention of Medium algorithm. But it is a great space to build an audience.
Medium has over 30 million engaged users every month. Making it a great space to build your audience from.
Besides, Medium has added a feature where your audience can put their e-mail and follow your stories.
You can do a backlink to your blog through your medium posts.
You can support my posts on medium here.
11. Build an e-mail List
E-mail lists are one of the best ways to build a consistent flow of traffic to your website.
You can add a future to your blog asking your readers to subscribe to your blog and you can do this from your blog template or download an e-mail building plugin to your blog.
It could be a pop-up form or a form in-between your content or at the bottom of your content.
One of the greatest ways to build an e-mail list is to give value in exchange for their e-mail. It can be to download an e-book, to get a coupon or any other thing you think may please your audience.
The goal is to give an offer which will make them exchange their e-mails for it.
12. Guest Posting
Guest posting is when you publish content on another blog that isn’t yours. Oftentimes, these blogs are usually more popular and attract more traffic than yours.
How do you get traffic through guest posting? While you create content, you make reference to what you are saying using a link to your blog. Aside from the fact that you will get people to click the link and visit your site, you are also building domain authority.
My tips to get you to Guest Post
· The site you want to be a guest publisher to should be a site you must have been following and seeing how they write their posts.
· You must have been engaging in their publications.
· Often times, backlink from your site to theirs.
· Then reach out to the owner of the blog stating your intentions to publish on his/her blog. Mention how you have been a great follower of their work and also send in the links to the posts where you have backlinked to them, he can also help you share these links on his/her social media handles.
13. Money Robot Submitter
Money Robot Submitter is a high-quality automated link-building software that creates very good quality links from authority sites with good metrics and is also an effective SEO tool. The software is also the only blogs creator software that is able to create and manage an unlimited number of blogs which is great for running the largest of SEO campaigns.
Using Money Robot Submitter automates SEO as the software is able to give you quality content and backlinks.
It has a simple easy to use interface.
The Money Robot Software has a 7-day free trial after download and installation. Within this 7 days trial period, it will be enough for you to decide if the software is worth investing in.
The price goes for a $67 monthly subscription and a $497 one-off purchase.
I would recommend a one-time purchase if you find the software worth investing in within your first week of trying it.
Special offer for you when you get the Money Robot Submitter here.
14. Fiverr
Fiverr is a global marketplace of people who can offer different types of (digital) services. You are either going to buy the service or offer a service in the marketplace, and quality website traffic is one thing you can buy from Fiverr.
When you get to the Fiverr homepage, you type the keyword ‘website Traffic’ and see the different vendors and their services. Choose the one that will suit your need.
Before you start negotiating with any vendor, look at their reviews before you decide to use any of their services.
15. Sponsored Ads
For every social media platform mentioned here, and any other not mentioned, you can create a sponsored advert.
You can create adverts on Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Quora, and any other social media platform.
What you should know before creating ads:
· Look at the terms and conditions page.
· Have a good copy that can convert
· Define your ads objective
· Set your budget accordingly
· Your landing page should be simple and optimizable for mobile devices.
You can check Google Skillshop to learn everything about Google ads or Meta Blueprint to learn more about Facebook ads.
16. Influencer marketing
In influencer marketing, you reach out to people who have an audience for the type of content and products your blog promotes and you ask them to use their platform(s) to promote your blog or website.
For them to do that for you, you will have to negotiate something in exchange. It depends on your bargaining power and offers.
Influencer marketing is one way to rocket your traffic overnight if you can afford it. Influencer marketing can be a great way to increase ROI.
Another type of influencer marketing is to create a challenge in which you will encourage your followers to join you or use brand influencers for such challenges. You may ask them to perform certain tasks which will guarantee them to win certain gifts or use hashtags.
In this way, you do not have one person talking about your blog and you are going viral without spending so much.
You have been exposed to many ways to increase your blog traffic, you do not have to try all. You can explore until you get the platform and method that will suit your need and niche. After all, what matters most and will give you results is consistency.
Above all, remember that a well-optimized page and content make the work easier for you over time.
Note: There are some affiliate links in the post, purchasing through them will mean that I may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.
