20 Proven Strategies to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Are you struggling to drive traffic to your blog? You’re not alone. These strategies have been proven to help you gain more traffic to your blog.

Why the “right audience” matters

More traffic doesn’t always mean better.

Your goal should be to bring in targeted traffic that is relevant to your blog. There needs to be a reason for people to come to your blog. These people have something specific they are looking for. If you are not providing them with the answers that they are looking for, then they’re not going to stick around.

The “right audience” for your blog is the audience that becomes faithful readers. They sign up for your email list because they want to learn more from you. They quickly become your supporters. Learning the right people to target is the best way to drive traffic to your blog.

Strategies to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

1. Create audience profiles

Before you start creating content, you need to figure out who your target audience is going to be. Your content needs to focus on your targeted audience in order to drive more traffic to your blog.

Get a piece of paper and write down these questions:

– How old are they?
– What is their gender?
– Are they married?
– Where are they located?
– What are their occupations?
– What is their income level?
– What nterests and hobbies do they have?
– Do they use social media?
– How much time do they spend online each day?

The more details you know about your target audience, the more you will succeed within your niche. Your content will start bringing in the right audience and this will increase blog traffic.

2. Find your blog niche

Your blog niche is the topic all of your content will be focused on. It’s important to figure out your niche before you start your blog.

Finding your blog niche can be done in 2 simple steps:

1. First, make a list of everything you’re passionate about and want to share with others.
2. Then, narrow down that list to pick one or more topics you want to write about.

Be sure to read my post on how to find your blog niche to understand more about this topic.

You can find a list of the top 10 money-making blog niches here.

3. Research keywords

Keywords are very important when it comes to SEO. Doing keyword research will help you discover what others are actually looking for. Also, you will be able to find unique content ideas and you can learn from your competitors.

The best way to do keyword research is to use tools such as SEMRush. Once you get to the site, enter a keyword and your competitor’s blog URL (or your own) to find more keywords.

Learning SEO and how to correctly research keywords are very important at getting you ranked on the top pages of Google. When someone is searching for a keyword you’ve used, your post will come up. Getting your site ranked within the first 3 pages of Google is the quickest way to increase blog traffic. Social media and Pinterest aren’t always as reliable at bringing more traffic to your blog.

4. Plan traffic generating content

– Select the right topic

Before you sit down to write your first blog post, you need to think about the topic you’re going to write about. If you’re writing about a topic that nobody is interested in, then you’re not going to get any traffic at all.

Here are some ways to figure out what other people are interested in:

• Read lots of other blog posts
• Visit forums
• Visit Quora and see what questions are being asked the most
• Use Google Trends to see what search terms are most popular
• Use SEMRush to find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for in Google

It’s important to remember that the topics you are writing about stay within your niche. Your goal for increasing blog traffic is to bring in the “right audience” and answer their questions.

Recommended: 180 Blog Posts Ideas for Any Niche

– Choose a content type

• Certain types of content get more attention than others.
• Content that includes lists and infographics tends to get more shares than other types of content.
• For me personally, list posts seem to get shared more than any other post. They also generate the most traffic to my blog.

– Add value to your post

There are probably a lot of other articles out there that are very similar to what you’re writing about. The key is to stand out from those other writers. You need to figure out what makes your content different from all the rest.

Maybe you go with a different angle or go into more detail. Or perhaps your posts are much easier to read or include more depth.

The main idea of writing great content is to find the key that separates your content from all the others. If your content is the just the same thing someone has already read before, they’re not going to keep reading. Your posts need to be full of valuable content to bring in readers and drive traffic to your blog.

Recommended: 8 Steps You Need to Know to Write Captivating Blog Posts

5. Create attention-grabbing headlines

Headlines matter. They’re like the first impression of our posts. The goal of an attention-grabbing headline is to convince people to read what you’ve written. And what better way to increase blog traffic than to lure them in with an attention-grabbing headline.

Here are four tips to remember when writing your headline:

1. It should be unique

If your headline is just like everyone else’s, then you’re not going to stand out. Readers will think you’re just like all the rest and they won’t have any reason to keep reading.

Your headline should have a personality. It shouldn’t be boring and robotic.

2. Use numbers

People love numbers. Since list posts are so popular using numbers in your headline will almost always guarantee your writing will be read.

3. Be specific

Try to summarize your content’s main point into one sentence. Just keep it simple and write exactly what your main point is. Then you can polish it up and create a specific and attention-grabbing headline.

4. Use adjectives

Use adjectives in your headline that trigger emotions, such as:

• Excellent
• Simple
• Valuable
• Mind blowing
• Proven

Using emotion-evoking adjectives in your headline will grab readers’ attention and make them want to read more.

6. Update old content

You should always update old content if you want to drive traffic to your blog. When your content becomes outdated, it’s not as helpful to readers. Plus, outdated content will not rank as high in search engines. They like fresh content.

To see which blog posts you should update first, check your analytics. Find the posts that don’t get as much search traffic anymore. Update those posts first. Fill them with keywords and add or update images and graphics that help the reader understand your content better.

One rule of blogging is that you should always be writing. Either writing new content or updating existing content. Writing daily will improve your writing overall. Practice makes perfect! Once your writing improves and your content gets better, your blog traffic will increase because you’ll be ranking higher on Google.

7. Make your content visual

Visual content will almost always get shared more than text, therefore driving more traffic to your blog. People love seeing images and graphics and nowadays videos are more popular than reading.

Here are some ways to make your content more visual:

• Create a unique featured image
• Use graphs and charts to help readers visualize data
• Embed a video
• Include a shareable infographic
• Add screenshots
• Include a unique graphic
• Include a meme or cartoon

8. Make your content readable

Humans have a short attention span. We need to be able to glance at a site and easily scan the contents. If all the words are jammed together in one long paragraph, readers are not going to stick around.

To solve this problem, our content should be easy to read. Use smaller sentences and paragraphs to break up the content.

Also, consider using bullet points and lists in your posts. Use bold print to highlight your most important points. And don’t forget to include the visual aspects.

9. Mention influencers

In your next blog post, link to other posts written by influencers specific to your niche. However, you should only mention them if it adds value and helps your readers. Don’t just mention them because you want to increase blog traffic. That’s not going to work.

After you’ve mentioned them in your post, reach out to them and let them know that you did so. People love to share stuff about themselves so more than likely they’ll share your post with their audience.

A great way to mention an influential blogger on your blog is to interview them. Readers like to get another person’s perspective on certain topics.

Also, you can invite influential bloggers to contribute to your blog. This can be a great way to get more content and drive traffic to your blog.

10. Improve your site

• Redesign your site

Your site’s design really does matter. Having a clear site that readers can enjoy will keep them coming back.

You don’t even have to be a developer or designer to have an impressive site design. WordPress offers many free themes or you can choose a paid theme. Paid themes do get updated more often and tend to work longer than free themes.

• Remove distractions

Everything on your blog should have a purpose. If you have distracting ads or pop-up videos that can’t be closed, readers are not going to stick around. You want readers to stay on your site and browse around. Nothing makes me leave a site faster than videos popping up and ads slowing the site down. I’m there for one reason – to read their content and find out more. Not to wait 3 minutes to close an ad before I can read anything.

• Improve site speed

Page loading times are super important when it comes to your blog. If people come to your site and your page takes too long to load, they are going to leave.

Check your site’s speed with tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights. It will give you an idea of how to improve your pages’ load times.

– Add internal links

When you write a blog post, always include links to other relevant posts that you’ve written. This makes it easier for readers to find your best content and also keeps them on your site longer. It also makes it easier for search engines to index your content. Your number one goal is to drive traffic to your blog and your second goal is to keep them on your site longer.

– Add social sharing buttons

You want to make it easier for readers to share your content with their audience. They might want to email your post to their family and friends or pin it to Pinterest for later reference. Pinterest is a great way to bring in traffic to your blog, too.

11. Build an email list

Having an email list is one of the most important things you can have for your blog. You can send a weekly email to your readers sharing the content you posted for the week. They’ll be able to easily access the links in your email, bringing them to your blog week after week.

Offer readers a reason to sign up for your emails. For example, offer a free printable checklist or worksheet relevant to your niche. If you write about blogging, offer a free blogging content calendar or a list of 100 blog post ideas. People need a reason to sign up for your email. If they feel it’s not worth it then they’ll never sign up. Drive traffic to your blog with free incentives for signing up for your email list.

A lot of bloggers use Convert Kit to build their email lists. You can sign up for a free account here.

12. Write a guest post on another blog

One of the easiest ways to increase blog traffic is to guest post for another blogger. By guest posting, you are getting yourself out there and making yourself known.

Ask a fellow blogger in your niche if you can write a guest post for their blog. If they say yes, return the favor and let them guest post for yours.

You can also add a “work with me” page on your blog letting others know you are willing to guest post for them.

13. Comment on other blog posts

Leaving helpful comments on other blogs is not only a nice way to meet other bloggers. It’s also a great way to get noticed. More than likely the blogger will visit your blog and return the favor.

However, don’t leave comments with your blog link requesting they read your blog. This is a turnoff and the comment will probably just get deleted or put in spam.

Focus your comments on being helpful and building relationships. These relationships will eventually open doors for you.

14. Pin your content daily

The majority of my blog’s traffic comes from Pinterest. I create and schedule 8-10 new pins every day. My pinning schedule runs from 8am to 10 pm with fresh pins being shared every 2 hours.

Some bloggers will tell you to pin way more, but I personally don’t feel like you need to do more than that. At least 5 pins a day is fine. It does take a little while for pins to get noticed and be shared, but it does happen.

Tailwind is a great scheduling tool to make Pin sharing so much easier. It can get rather overwhelming trying to manually pin those pins every day. Try Tailwind free here.

15. Learn SEO

Perfecting SEO is one of the best things you can do for your blog content. Good SEO makes your site more search engine friendly. I’m not going to get into SEO here, but there are tons of free advice step-by-step tutorials online.

Good SEO also gets you ranked higher in Google, which increases blog traffic.

A great site to learn more about SEO is wpbeginner.com. They have an excellent step-by-step SEO guide for beginners.

16. Watch social media

There are always questions being asked on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Use these questions to drive traffic to your blog. Jump right into these conversations by adding a link to your relevant content.

17. Track your keyword rankings

After you’ve created and promoted your content, you need to start tracking its performance. You can do this with Google’s free tool: Google Search Console.

This tool will give you a full view of all the keywords your website is ranking for. You can also view your top-performing keywords and see a list of potential keywords that will help you drive traffic to your blog.

You should seriously be using Google Search Console from the very beginning.

18. Track site traffic and user engagement

Google Analytics is another important tool you should be using for your blog. This tool tracks visitors to your site and lets you know where they are coming from. You can also see what they’re doing while on your site. This can be very helpful in knowing what’s working for your site and what’s not. Once you find out what people visiting your site are most interested in, you can start increasing traffic to your blog by writing more posts on that topic.

19. Be a podcast guest

Podcasts have become extremely popular over the years. There are tons of people that create podcasts on topics you write about. Seek them out and pitch to be a guest on one of their podcasts. Do a Google search for top podcasts in your niche and pick a few to pitch to.

20. Offer free stuff

Everyone loves getting something free. The right template given out for free can really drive traffic to your blog. Offer something related to your blog’s niche such as a checklist, a worksheet, an eBook, or even a free mini-course.

If your audience knows that you are offering free templates, they’ll stick around for more. And more than likely they’ll share that info with others, bringing them to your blog, too.

Do you have any proven tips to drive traffic to your blog? I’d love to know what works best for you!