I want more traffic on my blog!

Image from iStockPhoto

If you have a website with little traffic flowing through to it, the frustration can sometimes be unnerving. And most times you think you should just quit, or leave the site at that and hope for the best.

But none of these things would bring in more traffic to your website.  In fact, it’ll take the few visitors you have away.

So what do you do to get more traffic to your website?

Getting More Traffic

My blog (the one you’re reading now) opened on Monday this week. And yes, it was new, but I wanted all the traffic to start coming in immediately. And so I went on a search to find the ultimate solution. It felt like Samurai Jack in search of Akoo, because everywhere I went people kept saying the same thing without being more precise about it. So I could never quite catch Akoo. But then one solution hit me when I found it, simply put, solve people’s problems.

Now that might still be a bit vague, but it had more traction in it than most of the other points I had read.

So I went around in my mind looking for a way to solve a problem I knew well enough. That was how the post on Circuit Atlantic was born. I reached my all-time high that day for the week.

Now I don’t claim to be a total expert at this, but I have gone around the web for months now, desperately searching through this topic, and a few things have stuck, most of which have worked. So let’s get down to them. I’ll try to be as specific as possible.

1. Solve  a Problem

[quote]

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care

–          Theodore Roosevelt

[/quote]

That’s where I found my first real proof. And now that I think about it, why else should people come to your site if you aren’t helping them out with something? I wouldn’t even read my own blogs if they didn’t help me do something (get ideas).

So first things first, make sure a problem is solved by your blog posts. Now let’s go down to specifics.

Assuming you’re a web designer like me, you could educate people on what they need to know about web hosting, or how much services like yours cost, or whether or not they even need a website.

If you’re a copywriter, that is, you write content for the media, websites or books. You could write to tell people how you got so good at your skill. Give them tips to become more like you, and you’ll find that you steadily grow a readership of “students”.

Last specific now, for bloggers who write stories, I find that people are more receptive to those stories that teach life lessons, the stories that connect with them on a human level not just entertain them, this, most probably, is because they can draw practical lessons from them, applicable to real life, or because it reignites something deep within their spirits and makes them strive for more.

So next time your writing, think about the particular problem you are solving. Even if the post is entertaining, try to draw it back to a valid lesson and you’ll see your readers come to sit at your feet for insight every day.

 

2. Give them fresh content regularly

Now at first when I saw this being talked about on all those sites where they give you tips to becoming a better blogger, I assumed they meant creating new content every day.

But I was wrong.

People don’t stop buying quarterlies because they only come out four times in a year do they? Nope. They have come to understand and flow with the frequency of the writer, so though the magazine or any other publication doesn’t give them new content every day like the newspapers do, they still tend to be loyal readers.

As for bloggers the story is a bit different, people have come to expect new content more frequently than four times a year from an online publishing platform.

But you don’t need to publish every day. Some of the best bloggers only make posts on their blogs a few times (2-3 times) a week. But they still have a crowd of loyal readers.

Have a regular schedule so your readers can know when they expect to hear from you.

For me, I make it a duty to write a blog post every day, mostly because I am building my writing skills. So I have good reason to drive myself this much.

And don’t forget, Google loves fresh content. It’s like giving the robots a treat for the day, lol.

 

3. Be interesting

Just because you blog about legal issues doesn’t mean you can’t throw in a joke every once in a while. A blog is like a classroom, the readers are your students, and the blog post is a teacher.

I’m sure you can’t count the number of times you slept off in a boring class. Don’t take it out on your readers, give them interesting content that would keep them scrolling through the pages

To be interesting try

• Telling a joke, if you don’t know how, search Google for one
• Being different, common things are becoming too common
• State interesting facts, depending on your field, this could be hard
• Encouraging participation. I remember my lecturer telling the whole class to stand and sing a song along with him, and then making the lyrics a test. Not like it was ever used though. But it was fun
• Go all out in rage against bad service. People love a common enemy

When next you write a blog post, scan through it and check for interesting points, if there aren’t any, please do write some.

 

4. Let people know you have a blog

So now that you have put all these things in place, this is the last, and probably the most essential step.

Get your blog out there.

Don’t think people would just know by some stroke of magical luck that you have a blog. Life doesn’t seem to work that way.

There are several tools to let others know about your blog

• Tell your friends about it
• Publish your posts on social networks
• Link to other sites, they just might return the good karma
• Create a Facebook fan page for your blog to get more conversational
• Allow for social sharing from your blog, let people like your posts on Facebook and tweet them all from within your blog
• Network with other blogs larger than yours, but not too big, they tend to not pay attention to smaller bloggers. You might advertise on another blog and in turn advertise that blog on your site
• Give away freebies. Things like special reports, free eBooks and free memberships tend to resonate
• Again, make sure you tell your friends about it. And have them advertise your blog for you

 

Here we have discussed how best to get more traffic to your blog.

But remember, these things are practical steps and as such should be practiced. Don’t procrastinate, tackle them one point a day and watch people troop in.

DISCLAIMER: Don’t do this and expect the crowd to come in in one day, then when it doesn’t, you want to come back to this post and curse me, lol. It takes time. Don’t be in a rush.

Have any other ideas on traffic building, do share with us.

And don’t forget to sign up for my blog digest. I send out new content as they come in. Do sign up.