by Neil Patel
Creating a blog is the easy part – you take an idea and you launch it. The real challenge is building your blog with consistent gains in relevant traffic.
If you’ve ever created written content for the web you know it can often be a painstaking process to get any kind of significant traffic to that post outside of your own network of social contacts.
If you’re struggling with traffic it’s not necessarily your fault. Not only are you up against competitors who are publishing content, but you’re fighting to get the attention of your audience from a lot of other sources.
According to Domo, every minute of every day, here’s what happens online:
Tumblr users publish 27,000 new posts
Instagram users share 3,600 new photos
WordPress users publish 347 new blog posts
YouTube users publish 48 hours of new video content
Pulling traffic away from all of that isn’t easy, but I’ve got a list of 7 ways you can start boosting your blog views within 24 hours. Here’s how to get a slice of all that attention.
1. Repurpose your content.
Don’t be satisfied with the content resting quietly on your blog.
Repurpose it and place it on other platforms.
If you have a post with great ideas or tips and advice, break that content down and post short video clips to Vine, Vimeo, Instagram, YouTube and even Snapchat.
Create some slide decks with short presentation slides that gloss the topics and link back to the original post.
Create static images with tips and advice that can be posted to sites like Flickr and Pinterest, then share them across your social channels.
Include links back to your blog with every piece of content you create – otherwise you’ll see far less traffic from your content marketing.
Whatever you do, find ways to squeeze as much juice out of your content as possible.
2. Find new connections on social, and get your content promoted.
Social networks attract a vast amount of time and interest from your audience – just look at the stats I shared above.
With all those users sharing content, there’s no reason why yours can’t be a part of that.
Use hashtags to find and follow people that are the most relevant to the content you’re sharing and start engaging those individuals. Follow them, start conversations, and work on gaining followers as you share your content.
Use those same hashtags when publishing your content to get it into the conversation stream on a particular topic.
If you consistently employ a strategy of participation and engagement as you share quality content then you’ll make a memorable impression with the people you connect with.
Your followers will grow, your content will get shared more often and you’ll see traffic continue to grow to your individual posts.
3. Make your content more visual.
If you want more traffic from your blog posts then you need to inject with a little more oomph – upgrade the visuals.
Visual content is more than 40x more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content, and articles with images placed throughout the content get double the number of social shares than articles with fewer images.
When you create a blog post, give it an eye-catching featured imaged. This is the image that will show up when it gets shared across social media.
Be sure to include images every 100-150 words within the content to support the story you’re telling.
And don’t use stock photos – get images that are more impactful and tell a strong story to back up your messaging.
4. Target TGT +0.78% influencers with your content.
When you’re writing blog posts, find influencers in your industry and quote them. Cite their work within your content and name them directly.
When you publish the content, be sure to reach out to them directly and let them know they were mentioned. Don’t be afraid to ask them to share if they enjoy the content.
You can also tag them in a social post to draw their attention (and that of their connections) with a link back to the blog post. Do it manually, or use a tool like Notifier fromContentMarketer.io to automatically notify influencers you mention in your content.
5. Promote your posts.
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter TWTR -0.11% all provide paid options for sponsoring and promoting content. If you’ve got a particularly great post you want to spread then try boosting it with a paid ad and target your audience.
6. Use Q&A sites.
You can start answering questions in places like Linkedin Answers and Quora on topics most relevant to your audience. Provide detailed answers to burning questions and, when it fits naturally, supply a link to a blog post that covers the topic in more detail.
Those questions stay online forever, so you’ll start building referral traffic immediately and it will continue to grow as you answer more questions.
7. Comment on other blogs.
Blog commenting can be dicey. You don’t want to seem like you’re spamming links and you certainly don’t want the search engines to think you’re trying to game the system by building comment links.
Instead, provide thought-provoking comments to posts within your industry and include a link to one of your blog posts to support your point of view.
There’s a lot you can do to start earning traffic quickly for your blog, but unless you swing a lucky strike and have a post go viral it can take time and devotion to build significant traffic.
Earning traffic isn’t rocket science, it just takes perseverance. When Rand Fishkin started Moz in 2004 it took his team nearly 2 years to get it to the point where it was receiving nearly one million visits a month.
Don’t give up.
Stick to your schedule and remember that everyone has posts that don’t perform well. It’s slogging through the mediocre content that teaches you how to produce the amazing stuff people love to share.
What are your go-to methods for boosting blog traffic?