This post is by our regular Wednesday contributor, Erin.
I’m back with another round of awesome ways you can grow your blog this year! As I was writing the original post, I found I had a lot more to say than I initially thought.
If you missed that post, I encourage you to go check it out after reading through this one. I tried my best to compile all the useful lessons I’ve learned from blogging for over a year and a half into these two posts.
These tips are aimed at those who already have a blog and are feeling lost as to how to get more traffic.
If you want to build your blog into a business or start generating income from it, you need to get more visitors, and these tips will help you do just that.
1) Create a List of Your Favorite Resources
Chances are, as a blogger, you’ve come across some great resources you’d love to recommend to readers. Maybe you’ve mentioned them in a few articles throughout your site, but how easy is it to find them as a new visitor?
Having one page dedicated to listing all the resources you recommend makes it much easier for people to find them and use them. People might be more apt to bookmark your resources page and share it with others, too.
Not to mention that if you optimize your research page, you could rank high in search engine results for particular products (more on that below), leading to more visitors.
This also gives you a great opportunity to review products, which can then lead to affiliate income. If you are earning an income on any of your recommendations, make sure you note that! Be transparent.
Be sure the products or services you’re recommending fit in with your blog and audience. A craft/DIY blog trying to recommend credit cards is going to raise eyebrows.
It also goes without saying – don’t recommend products that you haven’t personally used, and don’t fabricate reviews. Only recommend products you would seriously recommend to friends.
Remember, you’re trying to help your readers, not hurt them. Never risk the trust of your audience for money.
2) Reach Out to Other Bloggers
Veteran bloggers are a wealth of information, and they’re generally happy to share it. We’ve all been new at one point or another! I personally love being able to answer questions or help fellow bloggers, and it’s a nice way to make connections.
Networking and blogging go together well. In order to grow your blog, you need to grow your network. You can’t expect people to magically find your blog.
Many bloggers start out commenting on other blogs in their niche. Get your name out there and give people a chance to know you exist! Commenting facilitates friendship and shows that you’re invested in the other blogger.
After you’ve formed friendships, turn to guest posting on other blogs. This gives you links back to your blog (great for SEO), it elevates your authority as it shows another blogger trusts your work, it could lead to collaboration opportunities down the road, and it should give you a bump in traffic.
You can also use guest posts strategically to promote products or services you’re selling.
Let’s say you wrote an ebook about getting out of student loan debt. You could ask fellow student loan debt bloggers if they would be open to hosting a guest post from you specifically on the topic of student loans.
Many guest posts offer the opportunity for a bio – in the bio, you can link back to your ebook.
This gets your post in front of a relevant audience who is already interested in the subject of your ebook, making it more likely they’ll buy it. Guest posting on an investment focused blog wouldn’t make sense here, would it?
One last idea – ask bloggers for their opinion on a certain topic, and then include all the quotes in one post on your blog. The bloggers included will very likely share that post on social media and their own blogs, giving you more links back to your blog.
3) Focus on Social Media
First, you need to make social media buttons prominent on your website. There are times when I can’t find these icons on a homepage, and I give up looking. It’s an easy way to get followers!
Next, you want to make sure to have a social sharing widget underneath your posts, or floating alongside them (Shareaholic and Flare are common ones). If people are excited about what you’re saying, you should give them an easy way to share your content!
But don’t focus solely on getting your content out there – share the content of others and engage with them on social media.
Many bloggers use Twitterfeed to automatically share updates from their favorite blogs. It’s a “set it and forget it” method of sharing.
If you want to make things more personal, try using Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule content out. When you come across an article you want to share, you can add it to your queue and edit the wording.
4) Make Use of SEO
SEO stands for “search engine optimization”, and by optimizing your blog for search engines, you will rank higher in search results. This is usually based on the keywords used in your articles.
SEO can sound scary or overwhelming at first, but it’s not if you stick to the basics.
Yoast is one of the best comprehensive (and free) SEO plugins out there. You can do as little or as much as possible with the plugin, but for basic use, it’s great.
In a nutshell, you can specify the keyword or phrase you’re looking to rank for, and Yoast will tell you whether or not that keyword is effective. It also makes suggestions on how to improve the SEO strength of an article.
Yoast allows you to take advantage of social metadata. What is that? It’s code that essentially controls how your blog posts look on social media when shared.
This is helpful because when working with social media clients, I’ve found that posts being shared on Facebook or Google+ often show up incorrectly. This article is a good primer on social metadata.
By using social metadata, your posts have a higher chance of being shared on social media. People want to share posts that are presented clearly!
5) Be Yourself
Authenticity is a big key to success with blogging. Your audience wants to hear from you. The worst thing you can do is be someone you’re not when blogging.
It can be easy to get caught up in following the latest post trends, or using questionable tactics to get traffic. Ultimately, this isn’t going to help your blog grow into a business.
If you’re selling products or services on your blog, people will be more inclined to purchase from you when you’re trustworthy and authentic. Anything less will turn people away.
I also know I’m not the only one who enjoys reading more personal posts from bloggers. I believe we all have a story to tell – you should tell yours instead of someone else’s.
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I hope these strategies help your blog grow! If you don’t see traffic increases right away, remember that it often takes a while to hit your stride. Blogging is far from a quick way to make money. You should be prepared to spend at least 20 hours a week on your blog, if not more!
Going back to the first post, remembering your “why” will help you when times get tough. Make sure it’s strong enough to withstand a few years!
Did you learn anything new from these posts? What was the most helpful tip? What’s one area of your blog you struggle with growing?
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A resources page is an interesting idea! I hadn’t thought of creating one, but it makes sense. And, I completely agree with you on networking–it’s such a fun aspect of blogging and I really enjoy all of the friendships and connections I’ve made with fellow bloggers.
Also, being yourself is such great advice–I love reading about people’s personal experiences and I think a genuine voice is a wonderful attribute for a blog to have. Thanks for these, Erin!
These are more good suggestions! I hadn’t heard about Twitterfeed (I’d been wondering how people were so fast to post updates on others’ blogs to twitter!) and I also like the idea of a resources page; I need to revamp my “about” page too so maybe I’ll do them both together…. Thanks!
Bookmarked! You’re a great teacher, Erin! You answered some of the questions I didn’t even know I had. :D
I like the idea of a resources page. I had tossed the idea around earlier, but never really got around to it. Will definitely work on this now!
I’ve done all of these except the resources page. That and a “Start Here” page are on my to-do list. Great ideas Erin!
These are all great tips Erin! The networking and being yourself are huge in my opinion. I love networking because it helps you get to know the person behind the site even more and you never know what kind of opportunities might arise from it.
I think being yourself is a really smart idea. I think my writing improves when I am writing about something I am passionate about. I could definitely use a new about me and probably a resource page as well!
I’ve heard of yoast but have yet to take advantage of plugins like that so it’s on my (very long) to-do list of things I’m exploring to grow my blog. Sigh…I need to clone myself!
Mrs. Frugalwoods No problem! I find I gravitate toward the resources pages of bloggers I really respect, such as Pat Flynn. It’s an amazing way to grow affiliate income *and* help your readers out, provided you feature genuine reviews. You can always do roundup posts, too.
cthesingledollar Yep, that is likely Twitterfeed. =) You can also use IFTTT to finagle social media updates as well. It works great with Buffer. Good luck with the about page and resource page!
kay ~ lifestylevoices.com Haha, glad to hear it!
RetiredBy40 Definitely give it a try, especially if you can name 10 or so products off the top of your head that you would recommend. You can always add to it later!
pfjenna Awesome! They’re on mine as well. =) Connecting with other bloggers is definitely a lot of fun, especially at conferences!
FrugalRules Very true, John! While I love the commenting aspect of blogging, email is a better way to get to know people. I know a lot of bloggers have made great (sometimes “real life”) friendships that started from an email!
BudgetforMore Agreed, Liz. I only write from my own personal experiences on my blog, and I think that’s much more helpful.
Beachbudget Haha! If only we could all do that. =) It’s probably one of the best ways to increase your traffic, though, and it’s not complicated to set-up. The “blah” part comes in having to go back and optimize your older posts.
Great tips, Erin. You really do need to connect with other bloggers. It took me a few months to figure that out, unfortunately! :) But when I did, it made a huge difference. And I absolutely agree that you must be yourself. You are the reason people decide to visit again.
Erin, I love the idea of guest posting and linking it back to something you’re promoting! If you show your credentials in a meaningful and authentic way, people will naturally gravitate to your blog!
Definitely important to reaching out to other bloggers, which was probably the most useful tip! :)
One thing that I really struggled with was building an audience and knowing what it was that started to build the audience..
ShannonRyan It’s tough in the beginning! I think a majority of bloggers start off without a clue as to what they should be doing, but we do learn eventually! Likewise, it takes time to develop your voice, but it is the best asset your blog can have.
sunburntsaver Exactly – you always word things more eloquently than I do. =)
mycareercrusade Building an audience can certainly be a struggle, especially when you’re writing about something you’re passionate about, and it feels as though no one is listening. Getting help from other bloggers makes a world of difference.
Being yourself is definitely my biggest piece of advice. I never blogged for SEO and I never want to blog for SEO. It takes longer to build a blog audience; however, if you are yourself, I think you will get better more consistent results over time rather than just quick hits SEO traffic gets you.
blonde_finance Agreed. I’ve been seeing less about SEO and more about authenticity these days. Genuine stories resonate with people!
Great ideas again Erin! Adding social media buttons was huge for me. I’m surprised it took me so long to add them since it was quite easy to do. I’ll have to learn more about this social media metadata thing though, thats new for me.
Thomas at ineedmoneyASAP They’re a component that’s easy to overlook. When you first get started, setting your blog up can be overwhelming enough!
Great tips. I just added a resources page to my blog and I’m focusing on interacting with other bloggers right now. Social media buttons are also a great tool and I use Yoast as well, though I’m still learning about SEO>
skyvsworld Awesome! As long as the dot for Yoast is green, you’re doing well. =) SEO practices are always changing so I try not to worry about it beyond that.
I swear some of these are lifted right off of my own to-do list! Seriously though… creating a Resource page is on my “do-soon” list. Especially because I’ve been finding some other people’s very useful lately, while looking into microphones.
moneypropeller Resource pages are seriously great sources of information. There are so many products out there these days, it’s much easier to use someone else’s recommendations. I always check them out!
I like the idea of the resource list best. I love finding a good list and not having to comb the whole Internet for good resources on my own! Hopefully we can share one soon.
Thanks for the info Erin, I’ve recently started an investing blog of my own so the information will be very useful. Perhaps you’d even have me write a guest post of my own one day!
Keep up the good work.
Sam