8 Ways to Get More Blog Traffic (Without Paid Ads)

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Below I share some ideas on how to get more blog traffic (that have worked for me). I see few online business owners stick with blogging long enough to see massive growth, because of the diligence, dedication, and consistency it requires. Although it’s tedious and challenging in many ways, it will prove to consistently increase traffic to your website and blog. Dedicate yourself to these strategies below and I can assure you within 3 months you will see the difference in your analytics!

get more blog traffic

Take (or source) better photos.

Fact: internet users are more apt to click on pretty, high-quality photos. Perhaps we are a superficial society, or perhaps the quality of the photo helps the user decipher the quality of the content. I shared my one and only photography rule that has helped me more than anything make a living online. In an environment with so much information to search through, lovely photography will certainly allow you to stand out in a crowd. No patience for snapping and editing photos? 

Also, if you are looking for consistency in your brand photos, I recommend finding a preset (or filter as we call them on Instagram) over at 123 Presets. They make your photos POP, come at an affordable price, and you get several bundled presets in one package. If you use the same preset on all your photos, you will develop consistency around your brand photography, which will help people instantly recognize your business.

Establish a unique voice.

There is A LOT of the same, boring content out there that sounds like it was written by a robot. Be yourself, establish a distinct style, and users will enjoy reading your fresh, original content–and keep coming back for more. Your blog shouldn’t sound like an English 101 paper…it should sound like you! It’s the best way (in addition to good photography), users will get to know you and your business.

Re-share past content.

It’s not necessary to create fresh content every day, or multiple times a day to get more traffic to your blog. Share what you’ve got. We invest a lot of time creating unique and inspiring content, and oddly we don’t take nearly enough time to promote it or repurpose it. Then the post seems to fade away into a black blog hole within a few days. Why not revisit your archives? If it was worth creating the content, to begin with, it’s undoubtedly still valuable to your readers. Try turning a blog post into a podcast, or the main points of a post into an Idea Pin on Pinterest.

Give something valuable away for free.

If I’ve learned one thing, internet folks want free (but valuable!) stuff. Create something want-worthy, and announce everywhere you possibly can that you are giving it away for free. Create a blog post for it, and/or a landing page. Link it to your homepage announcement bar. I guarantee you’ll get more traffic to your blog. The first freebie I ever offered helped me gain 20,000+ email subscribers. (I repeat, it has to have value–not necessarily monetary value, think about giving away something that will help make someone’s life easier.)

Improve your SEO.

There are many WordPress plugins that make this pretty simple. I use the Yoast SEO plugin for blog posts and it makes it so easy! Once I write a post, Yoast has a list of suggestions to make to optimize the post. It’s so satisfying to publish a post and know that I’ve made all the recommendations for google to rank it well. Think about it, if your SEO is in top shape, you’ll generate more traffic to your blog even while you’re sleeping! Doesn’t get much better than that, folks.

Pin it.

You are cray if you aren’t using Pinterest (and cray if you aren’t studying how to make it your top growth strategy). Pinterest is a place where people are going to curate knowledge, visuals, inspiration. Basically, I see Pinterest as the place users go to find you, click on you, share you, save you. Yes, you.

Here’s how I see it:

Facebook is where users connect with personal connections (friends, family, old high school/college friends etc).

Instagram is where users seek like-minded individuals (health/fitness nuts, fashion-crazed, pimple popper-obsessed etc).

Twitter is where users stalk the ridiculous things celebrities have to say.

And Pinterest…where users go to learn, find, click, read, buy, curate, bookmark. (Psssst, 84% of my traffic comes from the good old P, and it’s directly how I grew my email list to 20,000+ subscribers.)

In short, get your booty over to Pinterest if you want to get more traffic to your blog.

Send a newsletter.

Make yourself a cup of tea, sit your fanny down, and schedule your emails for the next month. If you schedule an email every week, and let’s say you get 200 hits to your site each time you send a newsletter. 200 X 4 = 1000 additional visits to your site that month! It adds up quickly and creates a consistent boost of traffic to your blog. Here are some ideas of what to send:

  • a sale or coupon code
  • announce a new product or service
  • share something inspiring (words, image, share a blog post)
  • what you’re working on
  • a sneak peek of something coming soon
  • behind the scenes moment
  • check in with your subscribers
  • ask a question

Create content that helps.

Since moving my work online in 2008, I’ve thrown a lot against the (internet) wall. Let me tell you, not everything sticks. It’s worth mentioning the content that seems to always “win” (generate traffic, engage likes/comments, sign up new subscribers) is 99.9999% of the time content that helps, serves, teaches, demonstrates and just overall generally makes someone’s day a little bit better.

I hope these ideas are helpful to you and help you get more blog traffic! Let me know what’s working for you in the comments.

Pin this to Pinterest so you can reference!

8 ways to get more blog traffic

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