When creating a blog the chances of turning it into an overnight sensation is unlikely. After all, there are an estimated 31.7 million blogs in the United States alone according to Statista. 

So how can you stand out in such a large field? The hard truth is there is no guaranteed way to increase your blog’s over-all traffic. There are, however, content marketing and digital marketing tactics you can employ to improve your chances. 

Quality Content

When it comes to driving traffic to a blog , it should come as no surprise to learn that content is king. This goes beyond the quality of posts (although that certainly helps). It’s about posting quality content consistently. Your blog content and how useful or value-added it is to your audience of readers plays an important part in whether a visitor will click on it, will stay on the page long enough to read it and will either come back to read more posts or share with others on their social media channels. All of this is integral to your  blog’s search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Why is that important? A well-written blog that follows some basic SEO rules stands a much better chance of getting ranked higher on search engines, which in turn helps it get found more easily, resulting in more traffic. For more insight on how to level up your SEO game, check out our prior post on that topic. 

Blog Topic

When picking a topic for a blog article, it’s important to think about the potential readership associated with the subject. It seems like a no-brainer, but be sure you know who your audience is and what they are interested in learning. It’s wise to pick blog topics that appeal to a large pool of individuals/businesses while simultaneously focused enough to limit competition for readership. Fortunately, the identification of relevant keywords can assist in this endeavor.

Here is why: Keywords are catalogued and used by search engines to promote content relevant to the overarching topic. Identifying and using keywords can give you an idea of not only general blog topics to write about but also how to phrase your posts in order to make them more relevant to the algorithms search engines use when determining how to rank a page . Web pages with higher hits for select keywords have a higher likelihood of appearing in  organic searches. 

A bit of advice: When selecting keywords think about potential similar words or phrases. A way to determine good keywords is to look at organic search phrases. In other words what phrases are people using when looking for a certain topic?

Keep Your Readers in Mind

Blog optimization means ensuring that you create user experience that’s both enjoyable and informative. For instance, a blog’s overall format, the length of its articles and whether embedded content is used or not will impact how appealing it will be to your target audience, According to Orbit Media Studios, only 26% of posts include video content, yet 41% of bloggers who do embedded videos see very positive results. If you diversify the content on your blog by embedding more images and videos, then you will attract and keep more readers on the blog.

As mentioned above, the ultimate goal of a blog is to create content that your audience is interested in. That comes with the added benefit of readers sharing it with others on their social networks. You can improve your chances of getting more social shares by seeing what more established, popular blogs have written about. That’s not to say you should steal the title and content, but use these thought leaders as inspiration to create similar compelling content. 

Consistent Posting

One of the best ways to generate traffic is by publishing content on a regular basis. According to Hubspot, small blogs should be posting new content 3-4 times a week while larger blogs should be posting new or updated content around 4-5 times a week in order to maximize organic  traffic.

To ensure your blog stays on track, it’s a good idea to create a content calendar. Content calendars allow you to plan, organize, and schedule a regular stream of blog content that will help keep you and your team accountable for maintaining your blog’s readership and traffic.

Consistently posting quality content will keep readers returning to your blog, as well as build overall brand awareness.  Keep in mind that content should cover a variety of relevant content in order to maximize the capabilities of your blog’s SEO. By posting more articles containing your selected keywords, you can boost your blog’s overall ranking, and increase traffic to  the website.

Social Media is your Friend

Considering how much competition is out there on the web, simply posting on your blog is often not enough to bring attention to it. This is why it’s important to utilize social media platforms in order to promote your content and drive more traffic to the blog.

Distributing content through social media also allows you to engage with your target audience and build connections on a more casual level. Participating in the community surrounding your blog topics gains the attention of more potential readers. In the process, you will end up creating a system where your work can get promoted and shared to a larger audience.

Patience

Increasing blog traffic doesn’t happen overnight; it can take months  to build credibility and establish regular readership. The key to doubling your blog traffic is patience. Don’t be discouraged if your website isn’t immediately reaching the number of hits you want it to have. By consistently  posting quality content, using relevant keywords, and engaging with your target audience, your blog will become a credible source of valuable content and will see an increase in traffic in no time. 

About Avalon Funk: Avalon is a Digital Marketing Analyst at Swyft, which has been listed as one of the best PR firms in Austin and a top digital marketing agency in Denver since its founding in 2011. Swyft has satellite offices where it offers PR in San Francisco and Houston.