Grow Your Blog Traffic Rapidly With These 7 Tips

So, you want to grow your website.

Welcome to the club, my friend! Blogging can be a rewarding job, and content creation is a powerful industry. More and more people are doing it these days, but  its growth as an industry has only just begun.

Starting your blog can be the hardest part of the process, and growing your blog may feel daunting sometimes. But I’ve got a secret for you: It’s something anyone can do as long as you’re strategic, smart, and diligent. Today’s post is all about proven ways and tactics to grow your blog traffic that are all those things and more!

While I’m by no means an expert and still am learning every single day, I have found that these tactics have driven steady growth over in my corner of the internet throughout the years. (Some of these tips, such as this one with Xfinity, may be unexpected!) The more I learn, the more I grow. I think it’s important to digest as much as you can, keep learning at the core of your mission, and practice trial-and-error as much as possible. Bookmark this page, refer back to it regularly, and let’s do this thang!

7 Ways To Rapidly Grow Your Blog Traffic

Understand your target audience

A blog is essentially a stream of content creation. To grow it, you will need to focus on creating great content first. The first step in that journey is to truly know who you are creating content for. If you don’t have a deep understanding of your audience, you can’t be effective in what you’re creating.

We’ll get into tactics for increasing page views to content next, but it’s important to start with this vital note: All efforts to increase traffic won’t work if the content you’re creating isn’t aligned to your ideal target audience. Furthermore, building an engaged audience (which is really where true value lies) will be impossible without defining and understanding exactly what type of audience you want to build.

It’s important to answer these questions: Who do you want reading your content? What’s their age and location? What are their interests? What problems do they face that you can help to solve? Or what are they looking for online? What aren’t they looking for? Where are they digesting online content? Try making a profile of the ideal visitor to your site – I did this, and it’s helpful to refer back to! When I brainstorm ideas, I’ll sometimes pull out my “Isn’t That Charming Ideal Reader” profile and think, “Would she want to read this?” If the answer is no, then move onto something else. The more you understand your target audience, the better your content will be for them. Your blog traffic will continue to grow if your site is engaging and relevant.

Focus on writing helpful content

Once you know your target audience, you should be hyper-focused on creating content that is useful for them. From my agency and corporate marketing days, I remember there being a lot of talk about what makes great content? And what makes something go viral? People much smarter than me dug into those questions, analyzing thousands of pieces of content. 

In fact, they were able to find the answer.

Want to know what it is? Here’s the secret: Great content – the kind that is more likely to go “viral” – effectively entertains, inspires, or informs. As you’re writing and creating your content, keep this at the top of your mind! What will entertain, inspire or inform your target audience? Not every piece of content will be a home run, which is okay! But if you focus on consistently showing up with content that touches on those important elements, then my bet is your site will grow. That’s because people will keep coming back for more. (Returning visitors is what’s truly at the heart of all growth.)

Be smart with SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge way to boost your blog traffic. In other words, if you’re not focusing a lot of time on building your site’s SEO, then you’re definitely doing it wrong. 

Every blog post should be optimized!

SEO helps blog posts continually drive traffic, even months or years after they’re published. For example, my post on VEJA sneakers from last year was optimized with the key phrase “VEJA Sneakers Review,” and it’s still one of my top traffic-driving posts nearly a year later. It’s also a big referral sale convertor! There are posts that I’ve written that continually drive income for me, months and years later, because of SEO.

This is a big reason why I focus a lot of time and effort on my blog over any social network. A social post may have a lifespan of a few days, maybe. Whereas a blog post can have a lifespan of years, with hundreds of thousands of views, and a lot of conversions. No matter what my following looks like. Powerful, right?!

There are so many SEO strategies that I won’t go into now, but my best advice is to dedicate a lot of time learning it.

Here are a few tools that I’ve found to be super helpful: 

• Yoast SEO: They have helpful tutorials, especially for beginners!
• Google Search Console: Good for the latest and greatest tips, straight from the source. 
• Search Engine Journal: Another great source of tips and tricks!

SEO is honestly my biggest secret. I used to put up a lot of posts that were more along the lines of, “Here’s what I did this weekend and here’s what I wore!” When I switched to thoughtful, strategic content that is optimized for search, my efforts pay out ten fold. Not only that, but my web traffic steadily increases over time, which also drives a lot of new eyes and followers!

Cross-promote on social channels

My main goal for this website is the growth of my traffic. Social media channels are important, but I firmly believe in the power of maintaining a foundation that YOU own and control. 

The reality is that social channels will come and go. (I’m looking at you, Vine! And who else is nervous about Tik Tok right now?! I’m just happy I didn’t invest more time into it…) ,Another key factor is that you don’t have much control over how your content is leveraged within individual networks. In other words, your reach for a single post may vary wildly. This post on Instagram, for example, was only shown to a few thousand, whereas this post was shown to nearly 10,000. Crazy, right?! As a whole, a social post is short-lived, while a well-written and optimized blog post can last years. Attracting visitors to your website is so much more valuable in my eyes.

That said, social channels are super important, because they help drive readers to your blog.

The power of linking to my site from platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest can’t be overstated. Social channels are a huge piece of the puzzle, and while they’re not my main focus, they’re still a key factor in growing your blog traffic. Each social platform has nuances to consider and different approaches to take, but for the purposes of this post, I think it’s worth noting that cross promotion is a key strategy to consider! By cross promotion, I mean things like leveraging the “Swipe up” feature on Instagram Stories, putting your website link in your bio, and pinning Pinterest-optimized imagery (vertical images that have a catchy title). The list goes on and on, but the goal is to keep driving users back to your site in as many ways as possible.

Leverage growth tools

There are lots of tools out there that you can use to your advantage! Some of my personal favorites, and the ones I’ve found to be most effective in increasing blog traffic, include:

Tailwind:

With Tailwind, you can pre-schedule posts for Pinterest, which is hugely helpful! You can also join Tailwind “Tribes,” which are groups of similar people, such as fellow bloggers, who are looking to pin great content to their boards. The combination of pre-scheduling posts (which makes my content show up way more consistently) and having other Pinterest “Tribe” users pinning my content has been a game-changer for me. Tailwind is honestly one of my favorite tools today!

Mailchimp: 

Mailchimp helps you manage email marketing effectively. It’s what powers a pop-up on my site that collects email addresses from visitors who want to join my email list. Every week, my list grows because of that pop up, which means more repeat visitors! The people on my mailing list get weekly emails with all my latest posts. (Shameless plug: If you haven’t signed up yet, please do! It’s the best way to stay in the know!)

Google Keyword Planner:

As I mentioned before, SEO is incredibly important! A big part of effective SEO is picking the right keywords. That can be surprisingly tricky: You need keywords that people are searching for, but ones that don’t have too much competition. The Google Keyword Planner helps make it easier! Fun tip: The Google search bar is also a great tool. If you type in a phrase and scroll to the bottom of the first-page search results, Google provides “Related search terms.” They offer a slew of amazing suggestions for your keyword planning.

Another tool that I find absolutely vital? Having reliable and secure internet.

How are you supposed to generate quality content and promote your site consistently if you’re always struggling with your internet connection? You can’t. It’s important, friends. As you know from prior posts, we use Xfinity for our in-home WiFi. But let’s dive into a topic that may be new to you, which is security. The unfortunate reality of today is that the crazy and vast digi-world is filled with all sorts of scary stuff.

Xfinity xFi Advantage gives you an added layer of protection for your home WiFi network. It’s essentially a built-in security network.

What does that mean? (I literally asked that question out loud to Doug when we signed up!) Basically, Xfinity xFi  monitors all your connected devices — including speakers, printers, and gaming systems — in real-time. It alerts you when your WiFi network is experiencing a potential threat. It also blocks unknown or dangerous sources from remotely accessing your smart devices, including home cameras or smart door locks.AND it adapts to your home WiFi network, getting smarter over time to protect against any new threats. Smart, smart cookies! (Get it? Cookies?! Internet nerd joke.) Long story short, Xfinity xFi gives you the speed, coverage, control, and security you need for the ultimate in-home WiFi experience.

Show Up Consistently

I’ve been blogging for nearly eight years! (How crazy is that?!) That means I’ve blogged through many stages of life. For the majority of my career, I worked full time at my day job, so blogging was very much a side hobby. I got married, and then we had kids, and it increasingly became something I did on the side. 

Most years, I put up as many posts the entire year as many bloggers do in a month. Which was fine! It wasn’t my main priority, and that was all I had time for. My blog grew little by little, sure, but nothing major.

Flash forward to our big move to Detroit. I quit my corporate job to focus on entrepreneurship, and my priorities radically shifted. I want this blog to grow bigger — much bigger! And I’ve got to tell you that over the past year, I’ve seen a direct correlation with my consistency in posting and traffic.

Logically, it makes so much sense! The more you post, the more content you have that brings in traffic — both from an SEO standpoint and from your audience’s perspective. When people can rely on you to be a consistent part of their day or week, they’ll keep returning. (That’s assuming content is a valuable part of their day, which I hope my site is for you!). 

As I mentioned before, return visitors are at the heart of true traffic growth.

There’s a saying in sales that it’s easier to convert a repeat customer than bring in a new one. This is true for digital/content as well!

I do want to note that many people post every single day, which is absolutely a proven strategy for increasing page views. However, I don’t think you have to do that in order to be successful. My goal is to post three to five times a week. More if I’m able. I’d rather get up a quality post than to throw one up quickly, if that makes sense. (Side note: Life in the era of COVID has made my reality much different lately, and I’ve been a lot slower in terms of quantity. It’s been very hard to keep up with it all, while having all 3 kiddos full time with no help! I’m trying to get into a better groove, but also trying not to put too much pressure on myself as this season is a pretty crazy one.)

There’s really no right way to be “consistent” — just as long as you are consistent. There are major blogs that post multiple times a day. Others post just once a week, but they offer massive posts that are super in-depth. It’s all a matter of your audience and your content goals.

The point is that being consistent — no matter how you define it — is the foundation of most bloggers’ success. It’s extremely important for your audience to know what to expect!

Invest in the power of networking

I did an Instagram survey a while back, and in it I asked followers how they found my account. The good majority named other bloggers who had linked to me, either on social or on their blogs. This is a great example of how collaboration and cross-promotion with others is so important! (Especially on social outlets like Instagram, where it’s so darn hard to grow right now particularly with all the algorithm changes!)

While this example is specific to Instagram, I have personally found that it’s true of my site, too. When it comes down to it, the basis of natural user behavior doesn’t change from platform to platform – people love finding others to follow based on word-of-mouth recommendations. To which networking and cross-linking to one another is a huge component!

On blogs specifically, a very tactical benefit to cross-linking (beyond new people finding your site) is that it helps to create a backlink, which boosts your SEO.

A backlink is essentially an incoming link to a page. The more backlinks a page has, the more search engines consider that page relevant, and will serve it up more on search. I love to give backlinks to others (My “The Charming Roundup” posts and “That Charming Woman” features are perfect examples of this!) and of course it’s so appreciated when others do the same for me.

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Gosh, I realized as I’m writing this that there is SO MUCH MORE to say about the topic of how to grow your blog traffic. I’m still learning and practicing many tactics myself! Would you be interested in a Round II with more tips? Let me know!

As someone who lives and breathes this stuff, it’s really fascinating to me. I find it amazing that this industry — blogging — is so young. We’re just at the beginning. Can you imagine what it’ll look like in five, 10, and even 20 years?! So crazy to think about. It’s a great time to start, my friends.In the meantime, remember that quality content should always be your top priority, and understand the importance of always maintainin your security! (Be sure to swing by Xfinity Xfi to learn more!)

What other tips do you have to grow your blog traffic? I’m constantly learning and love finding new tactics, so please do share in the comments below!

PS – My First Year of Entrepreneurship: 8 Lessons Learned + 10 Reasons Why Blogging Has Been A Great Career Choice For Me

This post was sponsored by XFinity, however as always, all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that partner with Isn’t That Charming!