Every blogger aims to reach a larger audience. Unfortunately, most new bloggers don’t know much about promoting a blog when they are getting started. Here are some tips…
Search Engine Traffic Takes Time
New blogs generally take several months before they gain enough trust from search engines to produce any type of significant traffic flow. If you are planning to focus on search engines as your primary source of traffic, you would be well advised to also focus on some other avenues, especially in the early months.
Building a blog that is search engine-friendly is critical if you want to maximize search traffic, so take care of that from the start: creating great content that others will talk about and link to.
Get started. Be heard. Promote you!
Not All Traffic Is Equal
No two sources of traffic are quite the same. Some people get a good percentage of the traffic via social media. Social media traffic is generally less responsive and less likely to stick around than visitors from other routes. Focusing on stats without looking at the true results can cause a bit of an illusion. Sure, visitors are great, but are they leaving after 30 seconds, never to return?
Search engine traffic is highly sought after—these visitors are actively looking for what you have to offer. Other types of traffic have strong points as well. Visitors who are referred from another blog will generally be more responsive since they have been recommended by someone they trust. Every source of traffic has pros and cons, so try to take these things into consideration when you are promoting your blog and analyzing the results.
Consistent Posting Is Necessary
You need to keep publishing new posts in order to keep traffic at a certain, persistent level. Some bloggers are able to generate large amounts of search engine traffic for older posts and the traffic will be fairly sustained without new posts—this is rare. New posts keep surfers coming back, they keep social media votes coming, and they keep adding new pages to search engine indices.
This doesn’t mean you have to post every day; it does mean that you need to publish content on a regular basis.
Consistent Traffic Is Almost Impossible
Although posting needs to be consistent to keep traffic levels up, this doesn’t mean it will keep traffic levels consistent. Every blog has ups and downs and the day’s results are rarely the same. This is a natural occurrence; it should be embraced or else it will become frustrating for you.
Repeat Visitors is the Goal
Okay, it’s great to see an impressive number of unique visitors hitting your blog, but how many of them will come back? Repeat visitors are the lifeblood of blogs. Subscribers, of course, are most likely to continue returning, so keep them “happy.”
Repeat visitors will not only help improve your overall traffic and stats, they will be your most responsive visitors for comments, social media votes, product sales, etc. As they keep coming back and reading your blog, you will earn their trust, they will recommend your blog to friends, and your network will grow.
Links Do Help
A priority for many successful bloggers is to build inbound links. They drive click-through traffic from other blogs, they increase your exposure around the blogosphere, and they help to boost your search engine rankings. Link building is often prioritized because of search engine rankings, but the other factors should not be overlooked. If you blog in a competitive niche, recognition and exposure will be critical in convincing visitors that they should pay attention to you. Getting a few links from respected blogs can help with search engine traffic, but the added credibility that you get can be just as important, especially for newer bloggers.
Balance Is Important
Diversity in traffic will help you to avoid losing a huge percentage of your visitors should something unforeseen occur. Search engine rankings are not permanent, especially with Google so ready and willing to penalize blogs they determine have violated their guidelines. If you rely too heavily on search engine traffic, you could find yourself losing a big portion of your traffic at any given time.
Keep in mind social media traffic is extremely inconsistent…even if you’ve been grabbing decent traffic doesn’t mean it will continue. The best approach: spread things out and work on growing traffic from several sources rather than just one.
Smaller Sources of Traffic Are Not Bad
Not all sources of traffic will send thousands of visitors; that doesn’t mean they are not valuable. For example, participating in forums is likely to drive some traffic to your blog, but not multitudes. And yet those visitors can be valuable because they have “met” you online via a forum; they are likely to subscribe and become a loyal reader.
Leaving comments on other blogs will bring some traffic, but it is rare that any one comment will bring a ton of visitors. Still, this traffic is valuable because many times they have clicked through due to something that you said, catching their attention and curiosity.
Don’t assume that traffic is measured only in counting numbers. Smaller sources of traffic have been instrumental in building many successful blogs.
Networking
All successful bloggers are surrounded by a strong network of other successful bloggers. This is networking. A strong network will provide you with friends and colleagues that can provide links to your blog; they can give you social media votes; they can be an inspiration and encouragement in the down times; and they can wind up being your partners in future projects.
Blog Traffic Can Be Bought for a Small Fee
If you are interested in getting some extra promotion or growing your blog quickly, there are a number of affordable advertising options that will drive real traffic to your blog. Pay Per Click ads can be very effective and inexpensive (depending on what words and phrases you bid on).
Services like Stumbleupon is where you can purchase their traffic for $0.05 per visitor. Even banner advertisements on other blogs can be somewhat cheap. Running an ad for a month or more will give you exposure to a new audience. If you were to calculate cost-per-click it, it may prove a good investment.