Let’s say you have a new site for your small business and as per a friend suggestion, you threw a blog in there. You overheard someone talking about how content is king and you thought it’d be cool if you could crown your own king. Then, you work hard for your first blog posts – you researched, wrote, linked and picked all the images. You publish and admire it – it’s perfect.
But what happens after you do this over and over again without any results? Why people aren’t rushing to your blog or subscribing eagerly to your RSS? Wasn’t a blog the essential ingredient for a well-cooked SEO strategy? Well, the blog is essential, alright. But a blog in and by itself doesn’t mean more traffic, not instantly and not in the long run. And that isn’t the most important thing you can worry about your new shiny blog, because having one isn’t about traffic but some other reason altogether – visibility, conversions, branding.
Of course, you can’t get those things without traffic. But traffic is the mean to get it, not the goal. And not all traffic will serve the goal you’re after. You can get thousands of visitors to your blog every day and still don’t achieve anything, simply because the wrong crowd is hearing. So, it’s not only a matter of attracting traffic – any traffic – after all. Writing a blog is more like a craft that looks to wow the right people to achieve a higher goal.
Keep that in mind before starting to perfect that craft. Blogging just for the sake of it doesn’t work for anyone. Getting traffic doesn’t mean you are doing great. You have to go beyond. But we’ll worry about that later. First, you have to think about what can you do to get that right kind of traffic your blog isn’t getting. So, what should you think about? These tips can help.
1 – Share, link and even scream from a rooftop about your blog
Have you ever heard that ridiculous “Web 2.0” thing? That’s the stupid name people use to talk about the rise of social networking and its dominance over the Internet. In plain terms, it refers to how people love to share, link and comment about anything and everything on the Web. What’s the take from this? If you aren’t promoting your content via social networks, then you might as well hang the Closed sign on your blog.
People won’t find your blog just because. There are tons of other blogs out there and yours is just a speck of dust among them. How is your audience going to find you? Betting on a SEO strategy? Well, we have news for you Mr./Ms. – modern SEO is nothing without social networking. The answer here is pretty obvious: spread your content on social media, add sharing buttons on your articles, engage in conversations with your audience, link your articles whenever and wherever you can.
2 – Find out the actual focus of your blog
Let’s say you’re in construction – you build and remodel homes in your home state. When thinking about your blog, you’ll most likely say that its main focus is construction, right? Sounds coherent and a no-brainer. But how is that translating into your blog? If your answer is “on the things about which I write, duh”, then you might be missing the point. Obviously, you’ll write about construction. But which things about it, specifically? Do you have your main topics and, most importantly, the keywords with which you want your blog to be associated with?
Picking topics and having a blog calendar is a fine way of organizing your work but it won’t go anywhere if you don’t do your homework and start researching keywords. You have to find the terms that work best for you and your goals. For that to happen, the keywords have to match your brand’s image as well as be interesting to your target audience. Once you’ve found them, it’ll be time to use them in your articles, pages and titles to increase the possibilities of visitors finding your blog through a simple engine search. SEO might have changed a lot, but that still is a inescapable truth.
3 – Stop boring people out of their minds
You know how you use the Internet. And even though we haven’t met, we can assure you it’s the same way we and most people use it. How’s that? We search, scan and click on what grabs our attention – and click away when we get bored. Boredom is the bane of all existence, so why that would be different on the Internet? We use the Web mostly to entertain us so any boring people on there becomes our enemy.
Don’t turn to the enemy’s side, then. You might not be getting the traffic you want simply because your content is painfully unreadable. It’s hard to say how to point that out but boring content often have some things in common – it’s too complex, sentences are too long, it doesn’t answer any doubt, it takes itself too seriously, it takes about you all the time, it doesn’t use images, videos or gifs and a long etc. Cut, adjust and edit anything you can – or find new people to do it for you.
4 – Make it shine!
People get away in horror from blogs with horrible/outdated designs, in the same way most people would stay the hell away from a suspender-wearing hipster with a bizarre moustache. If you feel like your blog can be named either of that, then it’s time to make your blog shine with a renewed look and feel. Don’t know how to do that? Time to get help from a professional web design agency. Just don’t push the issue aside, as it won’t go away and will drag your Internet presence to the bottom.
User experience is crucial for any blog. If your site isn’t responsive, still have that long Flash intro you devised in 2006 and uses Comic Sans, then you are as good as dead. People on the Internet is shallow and cares a lot about the looks, so you better take your comb out and start grooming that blog of yours to get a new style that won’t bounce new visitors out in disgust.
Getting the traffic you want and need in your blog isn’t easy. You’re competing with millions of other blogs that are also making efforts to best the others. So, the conclusion is that you can’t stay still. You need your blog to be vibrant, active, out there. Finally, remember one of the most important things of all. There are no success warranties, just good practices that will likely bring the traffic you look for. It might be slow, so be patient and hold on. Your efforts will pay in the end.
