7 Ways to Increase Your Blog Post Traffic

Hey guys, it’s Anthony guest posting again. I figured today I’d give a few tips for a question Brittany gets asked quite frequently, how do you drive website traffic to your blog?

You may be discouraged if after a few published blog posts, you noticed that your website traffic hasn’t really increased… or maybe there is no significant traffic at all coming to your blog, especially if you just started out. Don’t get discouraged, but it does take a bit of work to let readers know you have a new post. You can’t just assume:

“If you write it…they will come.”

It may be one of the best written blog post of all time, but how would anyone know about it if you’re not promoting it? A few many stumble upon it from search engine results, but you’re selling yourself short to rely only on search engines.

So today I’m going show you 7 ways to help to increase your blog post traffic.

1. Social Media

This is huge and may seem like a no-brainer, but there are still bloggers out there not fully utilizing their social media channels.

When Brittany publishes a blog post, this is her typical posting schedule:

1-2 Instagram posts
1 Facebook post
2 Pinterest pins
2 Twitter tweets

We use CoSchedule for everything except for Instagram. It is such a timesaver and provides in depth analytics such as best posting times and number of social shares.

We also continue to promote posts from our Blogging Tips as they still have great content and may continue to add new visitors to the blog.

2. Email Blast

Sending a broadcast to your subscribers is a great way to increase traffic to your post. She typically likes to send hers in the morning because if you’re like me, my email is one of the first things I check when I wake up and continue to check throughout the day.

If you do not have an email list…get one…NOW! I cannot stress how important it is to have an email list. I currently use ConvertKit (created by a blogger for blogger).

Check out my previous posts below to get started: Email Marketing

3. Guest Post

Guest posting is when you create content to be promoted on someone else’s website.

Why would I want to write on another blog, don’t I want to increase traffic to my blog??

Yes, and that’s what it will do. You will be leveraging the other blog’s audience (hopefully bigger than yours) and allow you to share content with a brand new group of people. This content would typically have links going back to your blog. Obviously it will be in a similar niche, a fashion blogger wouldn’t be guest posting on an automotive blog.

Gather a good solid list of similar blogs and start reaching out by email. Don’t worry about being rejected because it will happen and it’s nothing personal, but there are blogs out there that accept submissions.

4. Commenting on other blogs

This used to be a bad practice among internet marketers to gain backlinks to their website to increase their SEO value. You may still see these spam comments today but they are typically picked off by your spam filter.

Genuine comments, however, provide a great way to promote your blog post on other popular blogs to gain new visitors. I would caution that you do it in moderation (one comment that contains one link per post) and on blog’s similar to your niche. There’s a better chance that someone who is reading a blog similar to yours, would like to see what you have to say.

5. Reach out to other influencers

Create a list of influencers (similar to your niche) that may be interested in your content. They may find your post valuable enough to share with their social media following.

I would start with Twitter and Facebook as it’s easier for a top influencer to share a link with their followers. It’s a little harder to find top influencers to share via Instagram because it requires a little more than just a simple ReTweet or link post.

6. Add video to blog posts

This is something that Brittany will be introducing once our travel schedule slows down a bit, but adding video to compliment a blog post is another great way to increase traffic.

Record a 30 second to 1 minute video introducing your blog post and upload to YouTube, Vimeo, etc. This works particularly well with tutorial/How-To posts. You will start to see traffic coming from these websites with visitors wanting to learn more.

7. Submit to content discovery websites

Websites such as Reddit, StumbleUpon and Digg have huge communities of people that love spending time on the internet sharing content.

Find categories similar to your blog post and share with those communities. Just make sure you read the rules first before posting a link to make sure you’re within their guidelines as this is their way to prevent spamming.

There you have it, 7 ways to increase your blog post traffic. Remember, the work doesn’t stop after you publish your post…always promote! It may seem like a lot, but we’ve seen great results from following these tips and I have a feeling you will too. Let me know in the comments below if you use any other methods to promote your blog post not mentioned above:

-Anthony