You start a new blog.
With all the zeal and optimism in the world, you write your very first post. You copy the blog post’s link and post it in all the social media channels you use.
After some hours, you reason that it is high time to return to your blog. You want to reply to all the thousand comments that your fans have left.
You check your analytics dashboard, but what you see stuns you.
The page barely has 10 views. There are only 2 comments (from your mum and grandmother), talk less of subscribers and shares.
What did you do wrong? Why is nobody visiting and reading this amazing piece of content you created?
This article will equip you with 10 tips that can help you drive traffic to your blog.
Why you do not have enough traffic
Every minute, more than 120 blog posts are published on the internet. Imagine that. From the time, you started reading this blog post till now, more than 120 posts have been published.
No doubt, this means that you have a lot of competition. Moreover, a lot of this competition are not newbies like you, rather they are experienced.
It might seem like you are a little fish in an ocean full of sharks.
Do not give up despite this competition. Many of the people or blogs getting a million views today also started like you.
The interesting thing about the internet is that everyone can become a star. You too can start getting a couple of eyeballs (Aside from your well-meaning family members) to your brand new blog.
Want to know how? Of course, you want to know. Why else would you be reading this article?
10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
1. Optimize your site for search engines
This might sound a bit technical for a newbie blogger like you, but is it something you should know how to do.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. And it means optimizing your site to show up on the front page of search engines for certain keywords.
You would need to allow Google index and crawl your blog or website.
Ahrefs has an interesting article that discusses how you can do it.
Setting your site up well for Google is one sure way to drive traffic to your blog.
Each page of your site must have an HTML title tag and a unique and relevant description meta tag for its content.
Another way you can optimize your site for SEO is to reduce the loading time on your site. How well do you enjoy blogs or websites that take forever to load? I know you hate them, just like me, and like a billion other people.
Google hates it too. It pushes slow sites down the rankings. So if you want SEO to work for you, your site needs to load fast.
Once your site is ready, don’t wait for Google to add it to its results, submit your site to Google.
You can find other resources on SEO on sites like Moz.com and backlinko.com. These sites are dedicated to everything SEO.
2. Create fresh and frequent blog posts
Not to put you under a lot of pressure, but you would do yourself a lot of good if you already have 5–10 blog posts ready to go.
This is good practice because it would make your first blog viewers stay a little longer. When visitors see that you have more than 1 blog post, they are more likely to return (With the hope of finding more when they return).
Before starting a blog, you need to have a clear idea of who your ideal reader is. With this idea, it would be easier for you to create content that they would like. This would help you create a content theme around your blog.
Also, avoid copying content from other sites. Generating unique content will allow you to maximize the impact of your blog, increase backlinks, and improve the number of time your post is shared.
Once you define the topics you would like to address, use Google’s keyword tool to find the keywords that your audience use when searching on Google.
I’ll recommend that you publish at least one new blog post every week. This signals to Google that your site is active and it also helps you avoid the burnout that might come from posting every day.
Also make sure that readers can join your mailing list so that you can inform them when you publish new blog posts.
3. Join Pinterest
Did you know that Pinterest is a search engine too? I bet you didn’t.
Pinterest is criminally underrated considering the power it has to drive traffic to your blog.
Many bloggers even use Pinterest as their primary source of traffic. You can do the same too. Yes, even with a brand new blog.
There are things you need to do to use Pinterest well after creating an account.
First, you need to create multiple boards with keywords you want to associate your blog with. Fill this board with pins that are relevant to this keyword.
You can do this for many boards.
Aside from creating your boards, you can also join other group boards. Since you are new, you would benefit greatly from these group boards.
Finally, to improve your traffic from Pinterest you need to create pins that other people would like too. You can create 20–30 eye-catching pins everyday. Doing this would set you on your way to drive traffic to your blog.
4. Use Quora
Never heard of Quora before? It is another underrated tool for driving traffic.
Quora works like one big classroom, where questions and answers are thrown about. Someone asks a question and someone else answers this question.
Users on Quora ask questions on virtually every topic under the sun. Honestly.
So how can you use this to drive traffic? Simple. Become the teacher. Answer questions that relate to what you blog about.
Suppose a user asks “Where can I get the best Art supplies?” and you have written a blog post about this. You can easily answer this question and leave the link to your blog in the answer.
If the reader finds your answer useful, he might visit your blog. He might even decide to share it with others. What is more? If the question is about something that many people are searching for answers for, it would lead traffic to your blog.
Do not stop at answering one question. Answer a couple of questions and then more. Try to focus on answering questions around a particular topic. This way readers would see that you know what you are saying and they’ll trust you more.
5. Write Well
Sometimes, it could be that you are a bad writer. It sucks but it is true.
The world is full of so much unread clear information already, so why would people read the unclear ones?
Make sure that your writing is simple, and straight to the point. There is more. You also need to structure your writing well. There are several working formulas on the internet about how to write well. Pick the one that resonates well with you.
No matter the formula you choose, your writing needs to have some basic elements. First, it must attract readers. This means that you have to write a compelling headline. Note that a compelling headline is different from clickbait headlines. Compelling headlines promise the reader what they stand to gain from reading the post.
For example, you are reading this post because it promises to teach you how to drive traffic to your blog.
Another element of writing well is that your writing needs to interest the reader. It is one thing to attract readers through a headline, and it is an entirely different ball game to keep their attention.
Your writing can interest a reader either by entertaining, educating, or inspiring them.
Use simple sentences and do not try to sound smart. Use photos to break up the text to improve readability
Finally, your writing should have a call to action i.e. something that you want the readers to do after they read your post. For a new blogger, asking your readers to share your post would be a good place to start.
6. Post as a guest on third party blogs
One of the fastest ways to become known in the blogosphere is to guest blog. This means that you write for other blogs.
You might be thinking “How does writing for other blogs help my blog?” Here is how:
You are new. Nobody on the internet knows you (yet). When you write for other blogs, you put yourself in front of another blogger’s traffic.
Since you are a guest author, in these articles you can include a short personal biography, where you can add a link to your site.
If this new audience likes what you write, they would flock over to your blog to see more of what you have written.
If you ever decide to guest blog, do not just go on and write for anybody.
First, identify the blogs that are relevant to your target audience. If you write for just anybody, you would not get the right traffic to your blog. Also, make sure that the blog you are writing for is more popular than you and is in the same niche as your blog.
Aside from gaining new traffic, you also get a link back to your blog that can improve your SEO.
7. Get on Social Media
You are probably like millions who think that social media is for only perfect selfies and memes. You are wrong. A lot could go down on social media.
When you write something new on your blog, do not be afraid to post on social media. You will not get a million views after you share on social media for the first time (or even the 100th time) but that should not stop you from trying.
We have seen cases of people who grew to be online sensations after they went viral (This is common on Twitter). This does not mean that you should now create content only for the sake of going viral.
Create content that resonates with your ideal audience, and if it resonates with a thousand other people, it would do viral.
Facebook and Twitter are great examples of social media platforms where you can share your content. These two platforms encourage shares and retweets.
8. Join Blogging communities and forums
Remember that song from the Lego movie? “Everything is awesome, everything is great when you are part of a team”? Sorry, I digress.
The point here is that things are great when you are part of a team or community.
There are many blogging and online forums that you can join. You can find them on Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn, and other forms of social media.
When you join these platforms, be of value. Answer questions and help other people with your problems. When other users see how helpful and of value you are, they would gravitate towards you.
Do not be one of those people that spam groups with their blog links. You would agree that spammers are annoying and self-promoting.
In the case where you do not find a community you want, you can create one. This helps further to build your authority in your niche.
9. Use Ads
Yes, you can use ads even when you are just starting. Although many people frown on ads, it is one sure way to gain traffic provided you have the budget.
Ads get a bad rap because most of the content that they promote are salesy and of no use.
If you want traffic to your blog by using ads, your content should be of value. Ads are like fertilizer. When you use it on great content, it produces fantastic results. But when you use it on poor content, weeds and thorns is what you would get.
You can run ads on Facebook or through Google.
10. Use YouTube
Aside from Google, YouTube is the largest search engine on the internet.
People go on YouTube all the time to look for content on anything. Seriously there is a video on YouTube on “How to boil an egg” that has millions of views.
You can use this to your advantage. After creating a blog post, you could repurpose it to become a YouTube video.
I get that you could be camera-shy like most writers and bloggers. Still, you could create videos without appearing in them. White-board animations with voiceovers or something similar can work too.
If you are thinking that you need all the fancy gears before you can upload a video, you are wrong. All you need is your phone camera. With your phone, you can make a video talking about what your blog post is about. In the video description, you can leave a link to your blog. This can help to direct traffic to your blog.
Final Thoughts
As you can tell already, starting a blog is the easiest part of blogging.
Getting traffic to your new blog is hard. But the job is easier if you follow these tips. You can decide to use all these tips at once, but I’ll advise that you try one or two at a time. This would help you identify which one is working.
When you have a working formula, stick to it.
Be consistent. Do not fall back. Do not become another statistic for those who start and dump their blog within the first 6 months.
So get right to it newbie and attract all that traffic you deserve.
You got this.
