How To Increase Blog Traffic Fast: September 2021 Blog Q&A

I know that blog traffic can be a sore subject for many bloggers. There is nothing more frustrating than putting all of your heart and soul into a blog post, getting it published on your site, and then getting nothing but crickets. I know how frustrating not getting blogger traffic can actually be! It sucks!

If you have too, wondered how to get blog traffic, you have come to the right place.

I am talking through my COMPLETE blogging strategy filled with tricks to increase blog traffic in this article. From how to increase blog traffic to WordPress blogs to even sharing a few blog traffic stats from my own blog when it comes to these strategies. From when I first started blogging, I am talking about 10 years of a system to grow your blog.

Social Media

When I first started my blog, I was pumping out content pretty regularly, like once a week, because I heard that that’s something that you should do. Be consistent with your content, and make sure you’re regularly publishing. I would post a piece of content. 

 I would publish content fairly regularly and see no traffic to it. So I researched ways to drive traffic and what I learned was that social media is what many bloggers use. Social media was proving to be a great way to get free blog traffic, and as a newbie blogger, free was the keyword here.

I signed up on all the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin (those were the only ones around at the time.

I signed up on all the social media channels and began social sharing the content I published.

I definitely noticed that after I published a blog post and published it on my social media channels, I saw a slight bump in traffic, although it wasn’t consistent. I would see a massive spike in my traffic on the day my article got published, and then it would die down throughout the rest of the week. So I started to think, “Okay, how do I get my article to last longer?” 

I started looking for tools to make it so that I could post on social automatically. I signed up for a tool called MeetEdgar, which was terrific because it allowed me to schedule different social media posts, and I could plan and save them.

The only thing is, it was kind of expensive. I can’t remember how expensive it was at the time, but I did end up making the switch to a tool called SocialBee instead. It does pretty much the same functions that MeetEdgar does.

For example, it allows you to create content for social media that you can use repeatedly and put on a rotation so that your content is getting regular traffic. So that was a massive win for me. 

Instagram 

Instagram is kind of separate from the rest because it’s just different. It’s a different platform. And while it is considered to be social media, it is very different compared to other social media where you can just share random content.

Instagram is a place where you create your own content. Now, there’s not a whole lot of sharing of other people’s content. It’s original.

That’s one of the beauties of it. That’s why many people like Instagram because you know you’re on there. You see original content from people. 

It has its quirks when it comes to Instagram because if I share an image, there’s not going to be a link where people can actually go to learn more about this product I’m trying to sell or sign up for my email list. There is only one place you can put a link, and that is a link in your bio. 

There are a lot of tools out there, such as LinkInbio and LinkInprofile. There’s another one called Linktree, and it is made solely for you to put that link in your Instagram account and have multiple links listed for you.

What it does is it’s a link that goes to a page that looks very similar to my Instagram grid, and anyone who clicks on the picture that they were just looking at, it takes them to a link now. So, it just makes it so that Instagram is now clickable for different connections. 

Now, what’s cool on Instagram is that it’s a nice mix between a social media platform, a blog, and maybe a newsletter. Because you have so much space to write as much as you want. In the caption, you can tell a story, describe how you felt that day, and talk about how delicious the food was that you ate that day. Whatever it is.

It really is an opportunity for you to build a relationship with your followers, just like sending out a newsletter. Instagram has had lasting power because of that. Because it seems like more of an intimate space for you to share your thoughts and not necessarily regurgitate information that someone else keeps sharing over and over again.

You can definitely still get a good amount of traffic from Instagram despite only being that one place where you can share. Since I’ve started, I know it’s added so many other platforms to it, which makes it easier for you to have links.

For example, they have Instagram stories where if you have 10,000 followers on Instagram, any account you share on Instagram stories can now be linked outside of Instagram.

So that’s a big plus for many people who are doing, let’s say, sponsored post campaigns for a brand. You have to have 10,000 followers to work with brands because they want to make sure that they can link your stories. 

So, Instagram is a great tool. Here are a few tips when it comes to it. You can grow your Instagram account really quick if you are doing a few easy things. First, you want to make sure that you’re consistent when it comes to posting on Instagram.

Let’s say, at least once a day. If you can do more than that, that’s cool as long as you post at least once a day. As soon as you stop posting, you start losing those subscribers that you gain. So, post once a day. 

Another thing that you want to do is make sure that it looks nice. We go there for the beauty. It’s an excellent platform for artists or people who have something that they want to share about their photography.

It started as a platform for photographers. Like, literally, the logo for Instagram is a camera. So, make sure your images look beautiful.

Not only as an individual image with good lighting and colors that pop and in your primary grid. Many people make a pattern in their grid, whether it be like checkers, or they only use specific colors on their grid, or they make one big picture with it; whatever it is, it definitely appeals to people who like to see those patterns.

It gets more people to sign up and want to know what the following image will be. Right? So, that’s something else that you can do; just make sure that they’re pretty. 

You want to make sure that you’re thinking when it comes to whatever captions you’re adding. And on the same note, make sure that you are speaking to your audience. If you get comments from people, make sure you’re replying and saying, “Hey, thanks for commenting on this.” or just giving them answers. One of the good things about Instagram is it does allow you to talk to whomever you want. 

And then, I want to say one of the biggest tips that I like to do when it comes to finding my audience on Instagram is finding people that I like and following them. And the way it works is, if you follow 10 people, there’s a high likelihood that at least one of those 10 people will follow you back.

Right? So, be mindful of who you’re actually observing. So, that’s something that you can be aware of. Just being personable on Instagram and making sure that you’re building those connections with people. 

When it comes to following people, follow people you think would be a good fit for your audience. On your audience, you want to make sure that you are sharing something relevant to the people you are trying to target. The same thing goes when it comes to following others. I look for other bloggers on Instagram, and I follow them.

And then, I look at who their audience is because they will probably like my content too. So, I typically follow my competitors’ followers. I do this occasionally because it’s a good way for people to learn who I am, and I can get to know them too.

And then, if you’re going to follow someone, it’s good to go on their accounts and comments and see what their thoughts are when it comes to blogging and stuff like that. And start building that relationship early.

So, just an excellent platform to build relationships and to be creative, right? We get into blogging because we do have a little creative spark. Whether that be taking food photography or just enjoying writing. Instagram allows you to do both of those things, taking good pictures and being able to write. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategies

Despite all of the social media strategies I put together, I still saw this roller coaster of traffic to my content that was getting published.

I knew that I needed to look at more ways to grow blog traffic that would come in regularly, not just on the day I published my blog post. For example, I had heard that Search Engine Optimization was a great way to get more traffic. This is the traffic you get from search results from different search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Pinterest.

And if you are a blogger, {Pinterest is one of the more important search engines to be on since its whole creation was for blog content.

Pinterest

Pinterest is kind of in the family of social media. However, I consider it more of a search engine because when people go to Pinterest, they don’t just go and scroll their feed like they would on Facebook or Instagram. Instead, they go on there and search like they would on Google or YouTube. 

If you are a blogger, Pinterest is definitely a platform that you want to be on. So I got a Pinterest account and made sure that I created images to share on Pinterest for my blog posts.

The cool thing about Pinterest is you can add a Pinterest image to your article and use a sharing tool like Shareaholic. And what this does is if someone is reading your blog posts, and they say, “Oh, wow! This is exactly the content that I wanted to read, but I don’t have time to read it right now; I’m going to share it to my Pinterest board about blogging so that I can read it later.

So, they can click on your image in your blog posts, and share it to Pinterest so they can read it later on, which is fantastic. So, now, if they have a Pinterest board that’s public, their friends are going to see that post and share it as well on Pinterest. So, I love Pinterest for that reason. 

I incorporated Pinterest into my strategy. Pinterest is its own beast because there are so many things you can do, like creating different boards on your Pinterest account and joining group boards. So that’s one strategy that a lot of people use when it comes to Pinterest.

I use a social media sharing tool called Tailwind, which I use to share on Pinterest. It’s separate from SocialBee because it’s a little bit more comprehensive than Pinterest. The one tool I absolutely love about Tailwind is their Tailwind communities feature.

Tailwind communities allow you to share content from other bloggers while sharing your own in a very organized and accountable way. So once I started incorporating Tailwind communities into my strategy, it was like a night and day difference. 

Google Search

SEO when it comes to Google Search is definitely something that you need to be doing. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s not essential. It is! That’s one thing I do want to reiterate when it comes to traffic.

You don’t want to get all your traffic from one place. Don’t put all your traffic dreams into one platform because it’s going to change, and when they do, it’s going to be the end of your traffic for that platform.

With all that being said, here are some things that you should incorporate when it comes to search engine optimization. The first is to make sure you have the Yoast SEO plugin.

It pretty much just makes it so that you are checking the bare minimum for your blog, such as having a meta description and having social media images that populate when you share on different social platforms.

The second is to make sure that your overall on-page SEO is competitive with people trying to rank for the exact keywords as you.

Now, I know that that is a mouthful. Right?

So, the big takeaways from what I just said are keywords. You want to ensure that you are building content around competitive keywords. I currently use two tools for this SEMrush and RankIQ, both of which are fantastic.
SEMRush is a very advanced SEO tool geared toward provincial Internet marketers and very useful for advanced bloggers. RankIQ is a powerful SEO toolset tailored just for bloggers, and it’s really easy to use.

You can do keyword research to determine what keywords are worth your time and effort to compete for top ranking in search engine results. SEMRush gives me a green check mark saying, “Okay, this keyword is perfect for you because it’s not super competitive, and it’s getting good traffic.” I usually do research that way regarding what keywords I should put in my article. 

SEMRush also has an SEO writing assistant plugin. I added this plugin to my site, picked the keywords that SEMrush told me I should include, and put it into this tool. It pulls up all the keywords they think I should add to my article based on the competition.

It looks all over the internet, and it says, “Okay, here are all the top articles that are trying to rank for the same keyword as you. Here are the keywords that they also put in their article. You should put this in your article as well.”

It is amazing! It has various different tools within the platform that you can use. 

And the cool part, too, is if you are doing keyword research for articles that are bringing an income for you, now, not only are you increasing your traffic, but you’re also increasing your income.

I talked a lot about this in a video about affiliate marketing and how I made over 4k in affiliate sales in one month.

Now on this month, that was the most affiliate income that I made. I want to say like 95% of the traffic that I got to that affiliate article was all organic. It all came from Google because I did proper keyword research and implemented it into my writing to get that organic traffic automatically to the report. So the article just happened to be a good one for me to make money. 

Organic traffic, by far, compared to all my other strategies, has been the best when it came to traffic. It is the most consistent traffic because instead of me getting these little spikes.

It’s just slowly increasing, and it just stays there. It plateaus. It’s awesome. When I say organic traffic, I mean SEO.

So, the traffic I’m getting from Google and Bing and stuff like that. But also Pinterest. I saw that lovely flow of traffic coming from Pinterest as well.

Because, again, Pinterest is more like a search engine. Those are my biggest traffic drivers – Pinterest and organic traffic. 

Tools to have in your SEO arsenal 

• Tailwind
• SEMrush
• Ahrefs 
• Google Keyword Tool
• Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is pretty much your little ticket into Google. If you have questions for Google or want to know how Google feels about your website, that’s what Google Search Console is for.

I created a free profile for my blog there. What Google Search Console does is crawl your site. And it says, “Here are all the keywords that you’re ranking for.

This is how much organic traffic you’re getting to your website. Here are all the keywords that people are clicking.” I mean, it’s incredible. 

If any articles on your site have not already been crawled by Google, they can manually put them in. So, I went through, I want to say, like a month of content on my site and just put the links in to see if Google found them. I found that 50% of the content that I was publishing was being picked up by Google. There was another 50% of content on my site that Google did not know existed, even though I posted content consistently on the same day. 

The moral of this story is to make sure that you submit your link to the content you publish to Google Search Console regularly. That is now a part of my process. For example, whenever I publish a new blog post, I go to Google Search Console and submit the link to them so they know to crawl that page and put it into their search engine. 

If people are looking for a topic related to my article, it will actually populate. If you’ve never had a Google Search Console account before, it’s free to sign up for one and log your blog into it. But suppose you have content already on your site.

In that case, I highly recommend after you create that account, go ahead and start submitting the links into Google Search Console for the blog posts you’ve already published to see which ones have actually been pulled by Google. You may be surprised.

As I said, only 50% of my content has been removed into Google, even though I was consistent about publishing regularly. So it’s just an excellent precaution to make sure you’re not missing any of that free organic traffic to your site. 

Driving traffic to my email list

Now, what I will say is my blog posts weren’t the only things that I wanted to get traffic to. I also wanted to give traffic to my email list. Your email list is one of the most critical assets that you can have.

Why? Because it’s an opportunity for you to really build a bond with your audience. You can tell them things about yourself and really get them to know who you are. You can ask them questions about themselves and get to know them as well, and really just build a relationship with them.

Not to mention that it is a lot easier to sell your products and affiliate products to an audience that knows and likes who you are. But you have to have people on your email list. So let’s talk through a couple of my favorite email marketing strategies.

Driving Traffic with Freebies

The best way to get people on your email list is to give them something. Everyone has a ton of people emailing them every single day. At this point, a lot of people are jaded about getting their email addresses out at all.

So, the best way to collect an email address is to give them something worthwhile. Of course, it’s good to have at least one freebie. But, if you have more than one to attract the audience you want, that’s even better.

Just make sure that whatever freebie you give away, it’s related to whatever content you’re going to be talking about. 

I started creating social media images for them on Pinterest, and Facebook, and Twitter. I started putting them into that regular rotation like I do for my blog posts. I was putting them on SocialBee so that every Wednesday, I have my freebie that is getting promoted on social media. And then, I also set it up so that the pages that they go to, to actually be able to download my freebie, can be found on Google. 

I want to get some organic traffic to those landing pages that I was creating to get people to sign up for my email list. So, I made sure I did keyword research and incorporated those keywords into the page. Then, I made sure it had a meta description and a meta title. And then, I also chose images that stood out and added alt tags to those images.

So, not only am I getting people who check out my social media to get my freebies but people who probably don’t even know who I am. And now they’re finding my freebies online or just through Google and downloading them from there. I just took those same strategies that I learned already regarding traffic and incorporated them into my email strategy. Overnight, I started to see way more people signing up for my email list on a day-to-day basis because of it. 

Newsletter

Sending an email to my list with the blog content that I published was another way to get traffic to my site. That is right – people on my email list. They’re fantastic because they know me.

They’ve been reading my newsletters. So, they know what I am talking about. So, when I publish a new blog for them, where I am teaching them this new strategy about traffic, for example, they’re going to check it out because, like, “Oh, Jasmine came up with something new.

I want to be there to read it first so I can incorporate this into my blog.” So, your newsletter, your email list, is also another great platform that you can use to get traffic to your blog. 

Whew, that was ALOT! I know. If you prefer to watch these lessons instead of reading them, well, you are in luck! You can watch the video instead here.

But for those of you who made it all the way through, great job! I hope you got some valuable tips on how to get more valuable traffic to your WordPress blog. Good luck with all of your new blog traffic. Still have questions? Ask them in the comments below, and I will get you an answer.