There are many reasons why people create their own blogs. Some do it so they can share their thoughts and opinions with the world.
Others create a blog so they can earn extra money. Check out our tips on how to monetize your blog for advice on this.
And some people blog so they can make their days more productive, such as stay-at-home parents who want an outlet for their creative passions.
If you have your own blog, you will have your own reasons for unleashing it onto the world. Whatever your reason, we hope it brings you great joy and success.
But if you aren’t getting very many visitors to your blog, you might be a little disheartened. You might also be tempted to give up on it. This would be a shame, of course, so don’t give up! It’s possible to attract more people to your blog and in this post, we will give you a few tips on how to do just that.
1: Provide great content
If people don’t find the content on your blog interesting, they are unlikely to return. And once people stop coming to your blog, the higher the likelihood your blog will drop down on search engine rankings.
But what is great content? Well, for one thing, your posts should be relatable to your readers. If you have a themed blog – such as a travel blog – but it doesn’t contain many travel posts, people are hardly likely to bookmark your page for future visits. They will also be less inclined to share links to your blog with others, which is another reason why fewer people will pay your blog a visit.
Your content should be well-written too. This means no grammar or spelling mistakes that could prove off-putting to your readers. Use Grammarly or a similar tool to correct any errors before your blog posts go live.
You should also take steps to make your posts more interesting. You can do this with personal anecdotes, humorous stories, eye-catching photos, and infographics that simplify the key points you make in your blog posts. Here’s how to make a travel blog more interesting, for example.
Great content is key to getting people to your site so consider our suggestions and continue to research the subject of ‘making great content’ online.
2: Communicate with your readers
If your posts are interesting, people will want to let you know how they feel about them, which is why you should always provide an option for people to comment on your blog pages.
They might have suggestions of their own too. So, if you write a blog post on ways to manage stress, for example, your readers might want to share other helpful tips based on their own experiences.
Your readers might also want to ask you questions about something you have written. They might ask you for advice, for example, if they see you as an expert in a particular field.
So, don’t ignore your readers. Respond to their comments on your blog posts and if they contact you on social media, reply to whatever they have written. You could also engage with your readers in real time if you incorporate live chat onto your website using web chat software. If you’re not available to chat, an AI chatbot may be able to answer your reader’s queries.
When you communicate with your readers, you will build a relationship with them. As a consequence of this, you will benefit from their return visits and visits from new readers when your loyal followers start to share links to your blog posts on their blogs or social media pages.
3: Optimise your website for search engines
If your blog isn’t ranking highly on search engine pages, it might be because your website is new and so hasn’t had time to make an impression on the outside world. It might also be because your blog is up against fierce competition from competing bloggers who are trying to rank for the same keywords that you are.
Low-quality content can also be an issue, as we suggested earlier, and there are many other reasons why your blog will fail to rank very highly.
To improve the chances of your blog appearing on page 1 of Google and not page 101, you should improve your content and communicate with your readers, as we have already mentioned. You will attract more people to your blog this way and once the numbers rise, you will start to outrank those blogs that are less popular.
Another way to improve your ranking is to optimise your blog for search engines. You can do this by choosing the keywords that people are more likely to search for when looking for blogs such as yours, and by including internal and outbound links that link to your own content and other websites respectively.
There is much more to SEO than keyword research and internal/outbound linking and we would need to create another blog post to go into this subject more thoroughly. But there is a lot of information online on how to optimise your website for search engines, such as this SEO post for anybody using WordPress, so continue to do your research.
When your blog does rank higher on search engines, it will naturally become more visible to search engine users who are looking for content like yours. But when this happens, don’t become complacent. Continue to improve your website with great content to ensure your competitors don’t sneak up behind you and outrank your site!
4: Promote your content
Getting your blog on page 1 of Google is one way to ensure visibility for your site. However, there are other ways to make sure people know that your blog exists. In this regard, you need to be proactive by promoting your blog as much as possible.
One way to let other people know about your blog is to share links to your posts on social media. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are just some of the sites you might be using already but you might want to create accounts on other social media platforms that your potential readers may be using.
Visit online forums that are associated with your content too. You don’t want to spam these with links to your content as this will be your one-way ticket to getting banned. But the occasional link or mention of your site won’t hurt when it is appropriate to do so.
Another way to promote your content is to encourage your readers to share it with people they have contact with. This circles back to what we were saying earlier. If you produce good quality content and build relationships with your readers, the more likely they are to share links to your posts on their websites and social media pages.
Check out the following article which goes into further detail on where to promote your content.
5: Update your blog with new content
So, you have written a few great blog posts. Well done! Hopefully, your readers will enjoy and benefit from them when they visit your site.
But once they have read those blog posts, what do they do next? If you don’t update your blog regularly with new posts, they will remove your website from their bookmark list and move on elsewhere. This isn’t because they are fickle (although they might be) but in their search for great content, they are hardly likely to return to your site if you have nothing new to offer them.
Experts agree that 2-4 blog posts a week is the right way to increase traction so aim for this within your publishing schedule. If you think there may be weeks when you’re too busy to write something new, use these tips on getting contributors for your blog or write a bunch of content when you do have time, and schedule them to be published at a later date.
6: Encourage people to subscribe to your blog
Once people subscribe to your blog, you will have their email addresses for which to promote your latest blog posts. The website platform you are using will likely have an option to include a ‘subscribe’ button so make sure this is easy to find on your blog.
Of course, people won’t subscribe to your blog if your content isn’t very good, so make this your focus to ensure return visitors. You might also want to offer people an incentive for subscribing, such as a discount on any products you might be selling or exclusive content that is only available to people who hit that subscribe button!
Finally
By following these suggestions, the number of visitors to your site will hopefully increase as will the number of returning readers. Your blog will begin to rise up Google’s search pages and if you’re monetising your blog, the income you make from this should also increase.
There is always more you can do to drive traffic to your blog, so read any related articles on our website and then continue your research online by visiting those sites that are written by website experts.
We wish you every success with your blog going forward!
Last Updated on 1 year by Lavania Oluban