“There’s an art to increasing a blog’s traffic” Rand Fishkin, The Moz Blog
I have blogged in the past – travel blogs, interest articles and personal online journals – but I was never truly aware of the power of driven blog traffic.
I have realized, though, that it is all very well churning out high quality, human content on a daily basis, blogging about your passion – writing freely about that which makes you tick – if no one is around the read it.
Unfortunately, unless you know how to maximise traffic to your blog, you might as well be shouting from the top of Everest. No one is going to hear you!
If your blog posts are ever going to have an impact on the online community or generate any revenue, it’s vital that lots of people read it!
So, how do you do it?
The experts have proven that great writing and great content is at the heart of SEO.
SEO, done right, should never interfere with great writing – SEO 101, The Moz Blog
Great writing leads to lots of fans and followers who will then create a buzz through links, tweets and shares. None of this can be achieved without making your site accessible and choosing good keywords, and only all together can you achieve great SEO and a great blog site.
A Hard-Hitting Title
It all starts with a hard-hitting and SEO-rich title. It needs to be clear and instantly recognizable to get people to click on it.
The Right Keywords
Blog content that is well written, but also rich in keywords is very SEO friendly. Do your research as to what people are typing into Google and Bing search boxes and tailor your keyword placement accordingly.
The more you understand the habits and behaviors of searchers, the higher you will rank in search engines, and the more traffic your blog will receive. Google Adwords is a fantastic tool for finding out about people’s search habits.
Encourage Links
Search engines also look at who is talking about you and linking to your blog page. Blogs with other sites linking to it are considered more valuable to search engines than those who don’t. Carefully chosen “anchor text” carries the links in your content, allowing it to blend naturally into the text.
Advice from the experts is to not overdo it with links and keywords to keep your blog content organic.
Use Social Media
It’s time to spread the word! Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn are the best tools you have at your disposal for publicising your blog and its content. Choose one or two that best suit the feel and content of your blog and then go for it. Create an engaged, loyal community and interact with them at every opportunity.
Analytics
You have done all the ‘driving’ you can, and your blog is ‘out there’, but how do you know if it is working? It is important that you run constant analytics on your blog, in order to gauge its reach, which posts attract more traffic and where you are ranking in search engines. Try Google Analytics for a start.
So that concludes our journey to discover the basics of driving targeted traffic to your blog. Learning how to drive traffic is an integral and vital part of the blogging process. Just as important, if not more, than crafting brilliant prose.
Our guest blogger, James Roberts, is an avid blogger and a professional copywriter. He loves travelling and takes his laptop with him wherever he goes. Why not follow him on Twitter?
