Struggling with low blog traffic? This guide is the ultimate strategy to supercharge your view count – even after the Helpful Content Updates.
What’s more, most of the suggestions here are inexpensive or free. Even though there is plenty of competition for views on the internet, following this guide won’t empty your bank account. (We promise!)
You will learn the following ways to increase blog traffic, including:
- Researching your audience properly
- Using effective content planning tools
- Leveraging link-building to drive more organic traffic to your site
- Optimizing your keywords for higher Google search rankings
Research Your Audience The Right Way
First, start with your audience.
You need to know the type of person who reads your blog if you want to attract them.
Don’t just guess or follow your gut. You need data.
If you run a business, these people will be similar to your “buyer persona” or the average person who buys from you. Therefore, any content should lean toward their requirements.
A three-step approach for discovering your audience goes like this:
- Identify your audience’s interests – What makes them want to click on your content?
- Analyze their demographics – Are they young professionals, single moms, or retirees?
- Tailor your writing – What content does your audience require and how can you set the foundation for more traffic in the future?
Implementing these basics will set you apart from 99% of bloggers. Most writers don’t think this way, giving you an immediate advantage.
Audience research tools, like Google Analytics, can also be helpful when defining your audience. These provide key data, like the behavioral information or demographics of people already visiting your site.
Optimize – Dont Stuff – Your Keywords
Next, optimize your keywords to increase blog traffic. This process is the backbone of SEO and driving organic post views.
However, how you do this depends on your topics and research.
Most bloggers use cheap or free on-site tools. The most popular programmatic options are Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMrush.
These services are useful for quick answers. However, they don’t always have depth because no human is in the loop.
For this reason, FATJOE offers a bespoke keyword research service. This service includes bespoke research and comes with recommended action reports.
You can order five topics with up to 5,000 keywords researched and get additional information, including keyword difficulty, search volume, search intent, and your current rank on Google. Extra topics (with 1,000 additional keywords each) are also available.
To use this service, send us your chosen topic. We then produce a report on that subject and give you actionable data to help you prioritize terms to include on your blog.
Here’s what it looks like in practice:
For beginner bloggers who want to increase blog traffic, we recommend focusing on long-tail keywords (phrases with three or more words). For example, a business blog seeking easy wins for “dog leash,” could include the following in their content:
- “Dog collars and leashes”
- “Puppy harness and leash”
- “Collar types for dogs”
Using Keywords Well
Once you have keywords for your blog, use them wisely. Don’t spam them but ensure they appear in relevant locations on your pages.
For example, focus on including target keywords in multiple locations on the page, including:
- The title or headline
- The subheading for the primary blog or subsections
- The image alt text (text describing the image’s content)
- The meta description (the text Google displays under the hyperlink in search results)
- The body content
The best-performing blogs are often quite formulaic. They stick rigidly to keyword recommendations while ensuring that pieces flow well and delight audiences.
Use Content Planning
Content planning is also essential to build blog traffic. Proper consideration can pique user interest and make some posts go viral.
Content planning matters because it ensures:
- You post regularly (a proper calendar keeps you motivated)
- You cover the topics your audience or customers want
- You align your posts with your business or blog goals
Create A Content Calendar
Your first task is to create a content calendar. Calendars let you organize your ideas and generate motivational deadlines.
Start by brainstorming ideas around your chosen topic. Then, weed out the weak concepts and consider potential titles.
Then, decide when you will schedule your posts. Most businesses post bi-weekly, but you could post weekly, monthly, or even daily if you have the time and energy.
Then, you can use tools to track your progress and recommend when to post. Trello is an option here.
Another approach is to use AI to do the content planning for you. It might feel like cheating, but it’s highly effective.
Optimo can help with this. It lets you create a content calendar for free. Just enter the keyword you want content for and it will do the rest for you.
Here’s an example of what happens for the keyword “dog leash:”
A final option is to use a paid content planning service. These deliver the best results, providing bespoke, keyword-optimized plans for your niche.
Now that’s what we’re talking about!🤩
FATJOE’s content planning service works by providing you with topical maps related to your keyword. These are essentially guides to the subjects and keywords you should cover going forward on your blog.
We optimize the planned content for writers so it’s ready to go, complete with titles, structures, and information on content for them to include.
This high-quality manual approach provides:
- SEO-optimized titles and subtitles
- Data on topic volume
- Semantic secondary keywords (for writers to include)
- Ready-to-write plans
- Content briefs
- SERP difficulty data (Pro)
- Suggested word count (Pro)
- Credit for FATJOE content
What’s great about this form of agency-based content planning is how deep it goes. FATJOE’s manual service leaves no stone unturned in broader keyword research analysis. As such, you are more likely to find long-tail keywords and content formats with untapped potential. 🎉
Decide On Your Content Type
Once you have your content calendar, the next step is to consider the type of content that will drive traffic.
For example, you could include how-to guides for using your products, advice listicles (e.g. “10 Signs You’ve Found A High-Quality Dog Leash Brand”), or case studies (relevant for some businesses). You could also invest in infographics (another FATJOE service), to give your audiences more visuals.
Here’s an example:
Finally, you could repurpose old content. This approach involves turning existing social media or website content into something new or “evergreen.”
This method works best for businesses with mountains of informative and unique but low-performing content. Re-using or updating it can be a cheap and quick way to increase blog traffic.
It’s also handy for bloggers transitioning to business. Updating content to make it more audience-focused can boost traffic.
Start Link Building
Link building is another powerful technique for increasing blog traffic. Yes, it isn’t always free, but it can be highly effective.
The more high-quality backlinks to your website, the higher it will appear in search results.
Many bloggers begin with guest posting. Here, you find opportunities on niche-relevant third-party sites that link to yours. Most of these have a “Write for us” section where you can read about the content types they want to produce.
If you’re starting out blogging as an income stream or side hustle, then you might be able to put more time into it or even join blogging groups where bloggers help each other out—especially if your blog is struggling, as it often is these days with Google updates causing chaos and drops in clicks.
You could also pitch to media or publishers with high-quality content or if you have an interesting story. These link-building efforts can be highly effective, but you need to really have a good story to catch the eye. Not many bloggers can go down the full digital PR route, but it can be considered if you’re running a B2B blog that needs more traffic.
The problem, of course, is that these approaches take time. Manually contacting site hosts requires patience and effort, and often, the rewards aren’t worth the input.
That’s where FATJOE can help.
Our blogger outreach service automates guest posting for you. We tap into our massive network of relevant blog sites to make guest posting easy. Simply tell us how many links you want and what pages you want us to point to – we’ll handle the rest.
We look to mimic natural link acquisition by doing all the same organic tactics you could be using – but done for you to save you time and effort.
Bonus Traffic-Boosting Tips
What else can you do to increase blog traffic? 🤔
Here are some bonus options to mull over if you’re still stuck:
Optimize For Mobile
Most website builders these days automatically optimize for mobile out of the box, but if you’re working on expanding your business’s blog, you need to double-check that the blog content renders well on mobile.
Even if you’re producing B2B content there’s a fair chance you’ll get mobile traffic as people conduct research out of office hours, or while on the go.
Don’t risk giving them an adverse first impression of your brand because you’ve neglected mobile.
Use Social Media Effectively
You can also use social media to drive traffic to your blog. Don’t just reshare the content – repurpose it.
Turn full blog posts into engaging carousels for Instagram, or threads for X or, well, threads.
Carousels also do great on LinkedIn if you’re running a B2B blog!
Monitor With Analytics
Finally, you can increase blog traffic using analytics tools. These tell you:
- Where your site visitors are coming from
- The content they want to consume
- Why they might be leaving quickly (high bounce rate)
They might appear quite technical, but the basics are all you really need early on.
User locations can help you plan content relevant to those areas, active times can help you plan when to post, and traffic stats can help you determine what went well and what didn’t.
As you advance, you can use analytics to diagnose other issues (like site performance, user acquisition paths and more,) but you don’t need to dive into all of that right away.
Now You Know How To Increase Blog Traffic
The most effective methods are often the simplest: a realistic plan, link-building, and great content that speaks to your audience.
Some killer free tactics, plus a little investment in some planning, and you’re off to the races!
With these, you’ll be rocking and rolling before you know it.
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