So you have a blog but no one is reading it. It’s a common conundrum and it can be very disheartening. But don’t lose sight of your goal. Continue to create top-quality blog posts, but consider using a few of these tips and tactics to increase your blog traffic.
Share your posts more often on social media
If you’re active on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest, share a link to each new blog post as part of your regular interaction. Include a teaser or a snippet to motivate clicks. Include a link to your post. Now that social media is more visual, it’s important to include an image, too. But don’t post your link just the once, go back and post links to older posts with evergreen content, too.
Give something away
Create a plan to poffer free downloads to your readers. For example, once a month you might give away a free report, resource list, or checklist. Don’t make it part of your opt-in offer; that should be separate. Simply provide free information to your audience. Be sure to market those freebies so people know they’re available.
Build an email list
You have probably visited dozens of blogs and thought, “I love this site, I’ll be sure to visit here again,” and then never returned. Your intentions were good but life, and a bad memory, got in the way. This happens to your visitors too. Help them come back to your blog by providing a newsletter or opt-in offer.
Here’s how it works – create a free download that entices people to sign up and email them at least monthly (preferably weekly). You can then use the newsletter to connect with your audience, share promotions, recent blog posts, and other valuable information – and of course use your email messages to drive people back to your blog.
Install analytics and pay attention to the results
Google Analytics is powerful, free, and easy to use. Install it on your blog. Make a point of reviewing the information on a regular basis – at least once a month. If a majority of your visitors come from a specific region, you can create content to recognize and benefit that region. If many of your visitors come from (say) Pinterest then you can step up your activity there. Even if you don’t plan to use it just yet, set up Google Analytics now as you never know when you’ll want to use that data later on. One day you may end up needing multivariate data analysis software which is taking things to a whole new level
These are simple and easy steps that you can take today to start driving traffic to your blog. Don’t let your hard work go to waste; make sure your audience knows about the value you have to offer.