How To Increase Blog Traffic in 2020 - Fast
If you just started your blog and are wondering how to increase blog traffic fast, read on. Though there are a number of methods you can use for generating blog traffic, my advice is, it’s good to focus on one or two blog traffic methods. This approach is especially important if you are new to blogging and don’t have huge budget to use on paid advertising or a large team to work on SEO.
I needed a better approach
When I first started blogging, I used to have a simple approach. I would sit in front of my computer, pick a category from my blog – like SEO or blogging or affiliate marketing. Most of the time I would have no clue where to start. Sometimes I would wait for hours – struggling with writer’s block – for inspiration to strike me. It was a huge struggle to get even one blog post done on time.
Although I kept looking for answers to the question that always nagged me – how to increase blog traffic for free, my content never seemed to attract targeted visitors to my blog.
It wasn’t until I started looking into how some of the other bloggers were so successful, that I realized my mistake.
I wasn’t writing what people actually wanted to read. We all know how google works- at least on the surface. If you want an answer to a question, you ask Google. You do it by typing a word or a phrase or even a specific question into the search box and hit Enter. Simple.
The problem with my blog was, I was writing on topics that I loved or knew about. I never checked if people were interested in those topics or if anybody was searching for them at all. This meant that my blog posts were not getting found by readers on Google.
It was only when I started to understand more about SEO and the use of keywords that I started seeing results – both in terms of viewers and income.
Using Keywords to Increase Blog Traffic
Ask any experienced blogger, they will tell you that free, targeted organic traffic is the best form of traffic you can get. Why? Because apart from the obvious fact that it is free, there is an added benefit that the content you created once can get you traffic for years to come.
Now, the question is, what do you have to do to tap into this Google (or any other search engine) goldmine? To do that, you need to be able to rank high in search engine listings.
The first step is to find your keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that people use in order to search for information on the internet. For example, if you live in New York and were looking for a car mechanic, you could just open Google and type “car mechanic New York” or “the best car mechanic in New York” or “cheapest car mechanic in New York” or even “reliable car mechanic near me”. Google will then start displaying results as per the search terms you typed. These words or phrases are known as Keywords.
I mostly use Google Keyword tool to find my keywords. It’s simple and free.
Once you identify your keywords, it’s time to use these keywords in a blog post in a way that will help you quickly rank high in search engines and get tons of free targeted traffic to your blog.
Here’s what most people do once they have their keywords. Many of them go crazy with that keyword and stuff it everywhere in their blog post. Ultimately their blog post becomes something that cannot be understood or enjoyed by a human reader. You don’t want to make the same mistake. Remember, Google is getting smarter day by day and readability plays an important role in Google ranking.
Let’s look at the best way to use keywords to increase traffic to your blog.
Step one – Keyword Research
It's pretty obvious. To use keywords to drive a lot of traffic to your blog, you need to start at the right place- Keyword Research! Keyword research should tell you more what your main or focus keyword should be. Once you find out your focus keyword using Google Keyword Tool, the smart thing to do is to identify related long-tail keywords. Long tail keywords are usually phrases that help narrow down your search when you search for something on Google. In the above example, “cheapest car mechanic in New York” is a long-tail keyword. Long tail keywords usually yield lesser number of results. But the results usually are much more relevant.
Target Long-Tail Keywords
What this means for you as a blog writer or website owner is, you get more targeted readers when you use long-tail keywords. E.g.: People living in New York who might be actually interested in your service as a car mechanic.
Another smart way to get related long-tail keywords is to type your focus keyword in the Google search box. Google will immediately come up with its own related keyword suggestions in the search box. You can also see related search terms at the bottom of the search results page with heading ‘Searches related to ”.
Note all these related keywords down. First, I suggest you use a tool called Keywords Everywhere. It was free for a long time. But now they have made it a paid tool. But even as a paid tool, it’s quite inexpensive and the benefits are huge.
What it does is, whenever you search for any term on Google, it immediately gives you cool stats like Volume, Cost Per Click (CPC), Competition etc.
A Cool Keyword Research Technique
Here’s a cool technique I use to drive a lot of traffic to my blogs. It involves ranking my blog posts quickly using a formula called Keyword Golden Ratio.
The Keyword Golden Ratio was created by Doug Cunnington. It is one of the best techniques I have used to drive tons of traffic to my websites. You can learn more about KGR here.
Combine it with the Keywords Everywhere tool and you will soon start driving huge amounts of traffic to your websites.
Once you come up with your focus and related keywords, it’s time to go to the next step.
Step 2: Content Creation
This is a very important step. Do this right and you can easily get targeted traffic for years to come.
There are a number of articles out there that will tell you about the importance of content - you know, The Content is King bit. When I started my blog, I used to struggle with the ‘How’ part – How to structure my content, How to write engaging content, How to used keywords effectively etc. I don’t know about you. But one thing I really hate is when someone tells me about a great technique that worked for them, without telling me how they actually did it.
So, let me break the content creation process down for you so that you know exactly what to do.
Operation Blog Traffic: The Approach
The first important component is your approach. If you want people to like your post, you’ve got to approach your blog post writing process as if you're about to create something amazing. A post that is much better than any other blog post that's out there.
When you start with that mindset, you are going to put in little more effort to create something that will stand out from the rest. The extra value you provide will make people want to share it with their friends and that will get Google rank to it higher.
Everyone knows that the approach is really important. But how do we get it right?
Well, first thing that I do is to put myself in the shoes of somebody who's about to read my post. To do that, I try to understand their pains and their problems and what solution I can offer them. I then try to create that transformation path through my blog post.
For more detailed step-by-step instruction on writing your blog post, check these articles:
6 Steps To Writing The Perfect Blog Post That Will Get You 1000s Of Visitors
So now that you know how to structure your blog post, let’s look at the next step to make your post Google friendly.
Ninja Tips For Increasing Blog Traffic
Create a Hook
One neat trick you can use to get your reader hooked is to have the person take some action. It can be getting them to do some exercise, or even think about a new idea. Maybe you could hint at a particular result they can expect once they read the whole post. Do this in the beginning of your post or at least somewhere in the 1st paragraph.
Another great way to start is with a small story. People love stories. One powerful psychological principle you can use here to make your stories hypnotic are 'Nested Loops'. You can read about various storytelling techniques here.
You can also share with your reader, the benefits of continuing to read your blog post. Share a little bit at the beginning. But don't give it all away until much later - maybe towards the end of the post.
All these tricks will help you craft your post in such a way that people will keep reading your post till the end.
Use Your Focus Keyword At the Beginning
As much as possible, use your focus keyword in the first sentence of your blog post. But make sure that you don't overdo it by starting the sentence with your keyword or phrase even if it doesn't make any sense. If you do that, your post could end up looking like a garbled mess out of a cheap alien flick.
Readability is a key ranking factor for Google. So, focus on your reader and make sure that you write posts that people will enjoy reading and sharing with their friends.
Sprinkle Your Keyphrases Throughout Your Post
The next step is to make sure that your relevant keywords or keyphrases appear throughout your post in such a way that search engines recognize the relevancy of your post in relation to your keywords.
This will give your posts better chances of appearing among the top results during a search.
Blog Traffic Tip: Create Paragraphs and Sub Headers
With Google search algorithms becoming smarter almost day by day, readability has become a very important factor in your blog post getting ranked in the search results. You cannot get away any more with keyword-stuffed posts that humans cannot understand or enjoy.
Write your posts for people, not bots. Make sure you break your content down into sections and paragraphs. This will give it easier for the human eye to scan your content without feeling overwhelmed.
Add sub headers (H3 & H4) for different sections within your blog post. The last thing you want is to write giant blocks of texts that will bore your readers to death.
It's not just you and me, our visitors too have lesser attention spans nowadays. There is so much going on and so little time. So what you want to do is to make it easier for people to scan through your content in a short time without getting lost in a lot of text.
Breaking your content into multiple sections with sub headers will make it easier for people to read.
How Adding Images and Videos Can Help Drive More Traffic
Images and videos not only help break up the text, they also make your blog post a lot more interesting and fun to go through. Relevant images like graphs, infographics and even cartoons add a lot of value to your posts.
They will also make your content a lot more shareable - hopefully helping it to go viral. Just remember to add your keywords in the Alt Image data and descriptions for better SEO results. You can learn how to do it here on the MOZ website.If you are on WordPress, you can learn how to update Alt text and description here.
Alt text is the text that shows up if your image didn't load. Google also looks at it to see what that image is about.
It also your image to be found in Google Images search. So whenever you include an image, make sure that you add Alt text that is relevant to the section and the image in your blog post.
These may look like small things. But they stack up and help your blog post rank better on Google and get better traffic.
You don't need to pay an SEO expert to pay for all this. You can easily learn and do it yourself. Checkout this Google Guide on SEO.
Write Killer Headlines and Meta Descriptions to increase your blog traffic
Your headline (or post title) is what people see first. If you're not able to create interest and curiosity through your headline, you've already lost the battle. Think about it. When you are searching for something on Google, What would you do? Would you click on a boring lifeless headline hoping that maybe the actual content is better? Or, would you go straight to a result which has an interesting relevant headline? I am sure you understand how important headlines are. Read more on how you can craft a killer headline here.
The next important part is to add a great Meta Description. Meta description tells potential readers more about your post when your post shows up on Google search. It's important to give a relevant description so that people feel like clicking on your post or page. Make sure that you add your focus keyword in your meta description as well so that both Google and the people who are searching know what your post is about.
Be sure to add your focus keywords in your meta description
If all this seems too complicated, don't worry. There is a free WordPress plugin that can make doing SEO a breeze. It's called Yoast SEO. Install and activate it on your WordPress blog and it will take care of everything. There is a step-by-step guided tour that will guide you through the right steps.
Using Videos To Increase Blog Traffic
Another powerful way to increase blog traffic is to convert your blog post into a video and upload on YouTube. Then, embed the video in your blog post. Make sure that you add your keywords in the YouTube video title, descriptions and tags. Then in the video description, provide a link to your blog post.
When I started off, I knew next to nothing about making videos. Also, I hated coming on camera and doing voice overs. I was good at writing. But I was scared of talking in front of cameras. I discovered a very powerful tool that helped me overcome all these issues. In my experience, this is one of the best tools out there for creating viral videos with the click of a button. It's called the Content Samurai. You can quickly turn any article into great looking videos. The text to speech feature ensures that you don't have to speak a word. It's super simple to use and gives you access to tons of free images and videos that you can use to create your own video. You can try out Content Samurai here for FREE here.
click here to Try it for free
These are the basic steps that can help your blog rank higher and also increase your blog traffic. Check out my other blog posts to get a deeper understanding about Bog SEO.
Increasing Blog Traffic Needn't Be Complicated
The best way to start is to start simple. Don't take up too many things and get overwhelmed. Just get started and tweak as you go.
Make it a habit to go through this guide every time you create a new blog post until it becomes a habit. Doing all these will quickly stack things in your favor and you will have the best chance to rank and get a lot of organic traffic coming to your blog.
If you want to become really successful as a blogger, one key quality you will need to develop is to become better organized. Do your keyword research in advance and decide on what you are going to write about. That way you won't have to struggle when it comes to content creation. All you need to do is to focus on creating the best content that you can.
One way to get really organized is to use checklists. SEO can be confusing if you don't take a step-by-step approach. I have a set of detailed checklists that I use that cover all the key aspects of SEO when it comes to creating my content.
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The Next Steps
By now, you should have a good idea about Content Creation and On-page SEO. The best way to get better at blogging is to dive right in and keep developing your skills as you go ahead.
Now you know how to increase blog traffic in 2020. The next step is to start making money from your blog posts. Check out this post to understand how you can make huge affiliate commissions from your blog. I have listed down some of the best affiliate programs that will help you earn a solid passive income in 2020.
https://sajithtm.com/2019/12/07/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-in-2020/
