The biggest struggle of a blogger is to get people on his blog. Every blogger, experienced or newbie, struggles to keep the traffic flowing. I’ve struggled that from last 7 years. But I’ve also learned some ways to get people to my blog.
Here is a list, quite big so make sure you grab a cup of coffee or something. You can also bookmark it (Press ctrl + D) You can also get a printable version from below.
1. Make People Signup via Email to Receive Blog Updates, You reach them anytime, there is no algorithm update, unlike in Social Media sites, that is going to ruin your following.
Learn How to Start Building an Email List on Your Blog
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2. Create Infographics and share them on Social Media sites. Specifiy your logo, url at the bottom, many people will be curios to check your blog.
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3. Create a teaser of your content by creating slides and posting on Slideshare. Visual content gets more attention, use to create curiosity among the viewer. Here is an example.
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4. Create Video version of your content and post it on YouTube. You can also use the slides and make a video out of it. Post it on YouTube, put the original post link in the description. Why leave a chance?.
Learn Getting Started with YouTube
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5. Create Audio version (Podcasts) of your content and post on SoundCloud and other Podcast Directories. Read your post out loud and record it, not good at it? hire someone over Fivver and get the job done. If it works, repeat with other posts.
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6. Comment on Blogs related to yours. Don’t leave ‘nice posts’ ‘thanks for sharing’ types. Leave an intelligent one, something that makes other readers curious to check your blog.
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7. Write Guest Posts on Blogs related to yours. They have same audience, if you write well, they can be your followers as well. It’s like getting the opportunity to be on a popular TV show where you can get a big loyal audience if you show your talent.
Learn Importance of Guest Posting.
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8. Be active on Twitter and Increase your following. Your potential readers are everywhere, intelligent ones are on Twitter. Help them, engage with them, not only they will be your followers, they will help you reach more people.
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9. Join Related Groups on Facebook and Google Plus, share your content there. It’s a forum that is easy to manage, and as people are already using it, they are logged in. It can produce super amazing results to your blog.
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10. Ask friends (in your niche) to share your content on Social Media, Because, sometimes your content just needs a kick start, friends can help you with it.
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11. Swap email lists, it is, email other’s content to your list, ask them to email yours to their list. It has been done since years, many great people get successful doing it. You can give it a try.
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12. Use your blog url in Email/Forum Signatures. I have found few nice blogs from the email and forum signatures, and they are now in my Feedly (RSS Feed Reading App) list. Yours can be in it as well.
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13. Create splash pages on sites like About.me and put your blog links. I get email updates about how many people have visited my page, and there are quite a lot of them. There are few potential visitors as well.
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14. Answer Questions on Yahoo Answers. I used to spend hours on it, and I am still reaping the benefits. Many other people, who search for something and land on those questions, read my answer and visit my blog.
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15. Answer Questions on related forums. Apply same thin in forums as well, find people asking questions whose answers you have already written as a blog post (or create a list of questions to answer).
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16. Create secondary blogs on Tumblr, WordPress.com etc and put a teaser of your content with a link back. Create a mini blog for your blog, fill it with more informal things, like behind the scenes etc and, sometimes, leave a link of your important blog posts with some excerpts from it.
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17. Mention your blog in every conversation possible. (Both Online and Offline). If you happen to meet a lot of people and they don’t know about your blog yet. Tell them, they should know.
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18. Post Jobs for your blog on different sites (Classifieds and Forums etc) mentioning your blog url. Not only the people who are looking for jobs will read it, some of them might even follow it. Or your blog will get some visibility at least, which is a good thing. Isn’t it?
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19. Post on Logo design competition sites (Freelancer, 99designs etc) mentioning your blog url. The above tip goes for this step as well. Your blog will get visibility.
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20. Print Shirts with your blog name and give them away. A bit expensive step, but totally worth it. Creates a lot of brand awareness. Shoemoney loves to features Free T-shirts on his blog.
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21. Wear your printed shirts in events or places where your target audience hangout. Your shirt has the logo of your blog? It’s a great way to advertise your blog to the local people.
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22. Swap Ads, put banners on other blogs in return for putting their on your site. Find a related blog, which gets somewhat same traffic as yours and do it. It works.
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23. Accept Guest Posts and Ask the writers to share it on Social Media. You will get Free content, and you will also get free shares. Isn’t it a good deal?
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24. Interview famous people in your niche and ask them share it with their audience. Most of the time, they will be happy to do so, I have seen quite a few bloggers creating a special page on their blog to features their interviews.
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25. Post interesting content on a related SubReddit. Reddit is a community where engagement is very high. Pick your best ones that are extremely valuable or creative. Reddit users will love it.
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26. Sign up on Social Media sites other than Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus and Put your blog url in the description. These are not the only sites which your potential readers use. Find them, and bring them to your blog.
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27. Organize contests and giveaways, it creates a buzz in your niche, people will talk about it. Find sponsorship, if possible, it will help you in getting more exposure.
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28. List your contests and giveaways on websites that list giveaways from different websites. It gives more exposure to your Giveaways.
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29. Install SEO Plugin by Yoast and write keyword rich articles. I use this plugin on almost all my blogs, it helps maintain few SEO guidelines for on page SEO. Check out essential plugins page.
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30. Include Long Tail Keywords in your posts. Long tail keywords are said to be less competitive, hence you can easily rank for them in Search engines.
For example: Impressive features of xxxxx, Best xxxx for xxxx, How to make xxxx for xxxx.
The traffic to individual posts might be less, but too many such posts will add up on visitors. You can use the Long Tail Pro software for finding them.
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31. Sponsor Contests and Giveaways on other Blogs. Every time you do that, your blog name, logo is mentioned. If you are someone who is too busy creating and managing giveaways, you can definitely sponsor and get equally same benefits of getting exposure.
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32. Find related pages on Facebook and ask them to share your content in return of sharing theirs. Again, it’s really helpful if your existing visitors are coming from Facebook. You can expect good results from this step.
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33. Create a helpful guide on something in your niche and ask related sites to mention it on their resource page. A lot of people link the best resources on the web. Find them in your niche and pitch them your big resource page, built a resource page if you already haven’t. This is how a resource page looks like.
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34. Do review of a product (related to your niche) and ask them to share it on their social media profiles. The developers/founders of that product will be more than happy to do it. Who knows, you might get a sponsorship for your blog as well. Be positive.
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35. If you own a product, ask bloggers (from your niche) to review it in return of a Free Copy of the product. The above strategy is also helpful if you happen to be the founder of a product, ask other to review it for a free unit and see your blog’s name mentioned on other blogs.
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36. [This applies only if you’ve got some spare cash] Boost post in Facebook by using Facebook Ads. There are more than 1 billion people on Facebook, every one is looking to grab their attention, pay for it and get most of the attention. It is very effective if done properly.
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37. Write attention grabbing Headlines, It will help visitors click on your link to read it. For Example, 13 Reasons Why your blog posts fail, 3 Things you can do to get up early, you get the idea. Read the art of writing attention grabbing Headlines.
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38. Implement Schema Microdata, it let’s your content stand out in the Search engines. Plugin like All in One Schema.org Rich Snippet can make it easy to create rich snippet for your post. I looks nice and has more CTR (Click Through Rate)
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39. Make Your Blog Mobile Friendly. It’s a new ranking factor in Google search. Check out this amazing responsive theme if you are already not using a mobile responsive theme. Also check out a few more.
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40. Attend Conferences, talk to people about your blog, tell them how awesome it is. No harm in that.
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41. Host Webinars, it builds trust in your brand, people will come back to your site for more. If you are comfortable (and a little camera friendly as well), you can arrange Google Hangouts as well. It’s a great way to create more content.
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42. Make Your blog load fast. Users love fast websites, they will visit two pages instead of one.
Learn How I Increased My Blog Loading Speed by 500%.
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43. Submit Your Content to Social Bookmarking Sites, like Digg, Stumbleupon etc. As I said earlier, more exposure.
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44. Review Google Analytics and find which kind of content is popular among visitors, write more such content. Google Analytics gives great insights regarding your blog, take a look at top referral sites, top pages and you can create more such content that gets attention.
Learn how to use Google Analytics properly.
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45. Increase Post frequency. More posts increase traffic as well. It’s universal fact. Everyone reports an increase in traffic when their post frequency increases, this is the reason top blogs tend to publish more content.
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46. Become a regular contributor/columnist to a bigger content website. It gives an opportunity to introduce your site to thousands of readers of that bigger site. Put your blog link in the author bio and you are good go to.
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47. Add your blog url to Images used in posts, they will appear in image searches and bring visitors to your blog. Many people look for photos via Google image search, if yours is a blog about visual content, (think Fashion, Food blog etc) there is a huge opportunity to get people on your blog, add your blog url as a watermark.
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48. Join Communities like Tribbr, Problogger.com etc. and make connections with other like minded bloggers. this will help you in many ways, one of it is, learning from their activities, how they are promoting their content, presentation of their blog etc. You can also make friends who can share your content. (remember point number 10)
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49. Write a response post of a popular post from a popular blog and tag them in your Tweet/Facebook post. It could be controversial, an expansion of their post or simply be a disagreement, if it grabs the attention of the visitors on that popular blog, you’ll be famous, among their readers.
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50. Write List Posts, They tend to get more eyeballs and work well in search engines as well. (remember the examples I gave in point number 37). The headline of this post is an example, Numbers in a headline tend to attract more visitors.
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51. Update your old posts with new information and tweet/share them at a relevant time. When you write about something once, it is good, but when you come back to it and make changes to it by adding and subtracting a few things, it becomes excellent. Pick up an old post randomly, improve it and share it.
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52. Take advantage of the Trending #Hashtags on Twitter related to your niche and Tweet relevant posts using the #hashtag. Head over to the Discover tab in Twitter, find what things (related to your niche) are trending, Tweet a few things using the hashtag (remember not to spam), the motive it to get attention of potential visitors.
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53. Use HARO (Help A Reporter Out), it’s a website where reporters are looking for stories, send them PRs, respond to their queries, you can be in their next story they write.
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54. Create a Forum on Your Website where visitors can communicate with each other. It gives a place for your readers to talk to each and learn.
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55. Create a Facebook group if creating a forum seems complicated. Facebook groups are easy to create and super easy to manage.
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56. Create a community around your blog, it could be a forum, a Facebook group or simply an Instagram Account to share some behind the scene moments. It is important for brand to show itself from an angle everybody can relate to, behind the scenes works for that.
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57. Make your webpages less cluttered, Put lesser ads, remove annoying ones. Make it easy to read. You won’t make all the money in the world by using more banners, try doing less banner and work for more visitors. Less distractions will make people recommend your blog to others.
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58. Keep your content organized with Categories and Tags. Make the content discovery easy for visitors. Tons of great content gets hidden under the archives, don’t forget about them. Make the best use of Categories and tags so that you can navigate the visitors to these old gems.
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59. Write Blog series, it makes the visitors come back for the next installments of the series. If you like some of it, you’ll like more of it. Won’t you?
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60. Keep it high quality, everything from Posts, Images, Design to Tweets, Facebook shares and shares, don’t do anything in a hurry that affects your brand. No matter how much time it takes, do one instead of two, but do quality.
So, this it, I hope I’ve covered all the things I know about getting visitors to a blog. If you have enjoyed this post, feel free to share it with friends who can benefit from it. Meanwhile you can stay in touch with us via Email, Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook (from the Subscription box on the top right).
