How To Increase Your Blog Traffic

I want to share with you a quick strategy to increase your blog traffic. And instead of theory, I will show you a real example of something I’ve done here on my blog. In full disclosure, this didn’t happen overnight, but it didn’t take that long either. Also, I am in now way a high traffic site. I am averaging about 3,000 visitors per month. I have just returned to focusing on my blog after a long hiatus. I will write posts like this from time to time and update on my progress. My goal is to grow this site to at least 20,000 visitors per month. I’ll do that in part by using the strategy I have explained below.

The number one problem I see with people who are blogging is that they don’t get traffic to their site. Then, after a few months of checking stats and seeing next to zero visitors, they burn out and quit. It’s hard to write content week after week without anyone reading it. I know, I’ve been there myself.

One thing many people don’t know about me is that I launched a program back in 2006 called the BOA Method. It was one of the first how blog programs ever made. I taught people the three components of a successful blog. I’ll recap those here before we go into the traffic strategy. I’m doing this because it’s important for you to make sure your blog is setup for success from the start. If you are missing these components, then it doesn’t matter how much you increase your blog traffic

The 3 Must-Have Components Of Any Successful Blog

1. You must have a way to collect email subscribers. This can include a pop-up, a slide-in, a mat, or just a link in the sidebar (though these tend to have terrible opt-in rates). You want a list because that is the greatest way for you to make money. I know there’s this idea of making all your money from ads, and that is possible for some people. But the easiest way to create a sustainable income is to have a list of your own that you can email your own offers and affiliate offers to. My favorite list building software is Aweber. (uh oh – another affiliate link!)
2. You should have ads of some sort. There are many different types of ads. The most common is Google Adsense. You can see an example of a Google Ad on the right sidebar of this page. Somewhere over there –> (unless you’re on mobile, then ignore this lol). These are ads placed on your blog, and you get paid when someone clicks on the ad. Another type of ad is an affiliate ad. It’s an ad for another product (not your own). Usually, you get paid when someone clicks the ad and then goes on to make a purchase. The third type of ad is for your own product or service. This usually will pay you the best because you get to keep all the money.
3. The third component is probably the hardest one. You have to have good content. It is what will drive people to your site and keep them coming back. Coming up with content and ideas can be hard for a lot of people. One thing I’ve found is that you just have to start writing. It sounds cliche, but as you write the ideas will flow out of you. If you are an expert in something, you know way more than the average person. The problem with some people is that they don’t realize how much they know until they meet someone who asks them questions.

Ok, so I’m going to assume you have a way to grow your list. You have some ads on your site. And you have some killer content. OR at least you are working on making the best content you possibly can. With that part handled, let’s dive in…

How One Post On My Blog Is Bringing Me In About 600 Visitors Per Month.

Note: I am taking a risk by posting this here. This blog is a minuscule part of my business, so I don’t rely on it to pay bills or anything like that. That’s why I don’t mind sharing the actual keywords and posts that I’ve used. People could just copy me and knock me down the page. If they do, I’m ok with it.

First things first, this is the post that is currently getting me about 600 visitors per month on average:

Unroll me Reviews

This post is about my experience with a service called Unroll.me (warning: that’s an affiliate link haha). The service is really cool. They bundle your emails up into one daily digest of all your emails. They also allow you to unsubscribe from multiple emails all at once. You can read the post above for all the details and my review on it.

Here’s the magic sauce. As of today, if I do a search for Unroll me reviews, this is what I see:

There I am. In slot number two on the almighty Google. Just behind PC Mag. I wrote my post back in September, and it sat idle for a while. It takes time for Google to crawl it and learn to trust that your site is going to be around for the long haul. After a few months, I noticed that I was getting more visitors that were reading the Unroll me post. Interesting. So, I dug into my stats and saw they were coming from Google search.

I searched for the phrase Unroll me reviews and found myself in the top 10 results.

Now, before you think this sort of “just happened” let me explain why I wrote the post and why I decided on the topic. This thought process applies to ideas in your niche or industry or hobby blog.

Why I Picked This Blog Post Topic & How I Knew This Would Increase Blog Traffic

I knew that Unroll me was relatively new. I looked at the search results for reviews (honest reviews), and there weren’t a ton of them. I didn’t do keyword research (to see how many people were searching for that topic), but I knew there would be at least a few. I also knew people who were interested in cleaning out their inbox might be business people or busy people. And that’s my niche. So, I decided to write the article.

If you go and read the blog you’ll see I use the keyword phrase Unroll Me 13 times on the page. I also make sure it’s in the headline and nearly all of the sub-headlines. This wasn’t an accident. You have to repeat the main keyword you are going for quite a few times. This doesn’t mean you want to keyword stuff and just include the phrase over and over again. This is spammy and not cool. But, if there’s a way to use the main keyword phrase, do it.

I am not an SEO master, I know a good amount from my years in online marketing, but there are others far more advanced than me. But there are a few core principles that I think will also hold true.

1. Write great content for people first. If you can solve a problem for the reader or teach them something, that’s the ideal.
2. Make sure you have your main keyword phrase and related keywords throughout the article, especially in the headline, link name, and sub-heads.
3. Use social media to get backlinks out there. Post links to your blog post on twitter, facebook, linked in, etc. and look for shares
4. Build other backlinks to your post (I didn’t do this for this post because there’s not a lot of competition)

This post is in now way a home run for me, but it’s a nice sustainable traffic source. I did the work once, and now I get the traffic every day. I slowly build my email list and make a few pennies when someone clicks on my ad.

Yesterday, I got about 81 visitors to my site. Not a ton, I know. But you can see that 26 of the visitors came to read my Unroll Me article:

The key to long-term success with blogging is not the home run post. It’s not the article that gets you 100,000 visitors overnight. In reality, it’s the 100 posts that get you 30-50 visitors per day each. I call it the snowball effect. The snowball rolling down a hill can start very small. Over time, it grows and grows and grows. It picks up speed, and after a while, it can’t be stopped.

This is what it takes to be a successful blogger.

And I should say – I am from Florida and have only seen snow when I was going to bible college in Illinois. My snowball references all come from TV. So, hopefully, that’s a real thing. 😉

Before we wrap up, here’s a look at my blog stats for the last month. You can see I had over 3,000 visitors and over 9,000 page views. My bounce rate is low which is good. Bounce rate means how fast they leave your page (or bounce). The higher the bounce rate, the faster they leave. The average duration on my site is about 1 minute. I would like to bring that up a lot more. That just means I need to write more engaging content.

Bonus Jonas

Not a major key (DJ Khaled voice), but some people may not know this. If you scroll way back up you’ll see where I linked to my blog post that was the focus of this post. You’ll notice that I didn’t say, you can read the post “here”, then link to the word “here”. I actually wrote out the phrase Unroll me reviews and linked to that whole phrase.

The reason I did this is because that is one of the ways that Google knows what a website is about. It’s sort of a vote for that particular page being about that topic. The more votes a site gets, the more likely it will make it to the top 10 of Google. There’s a lot more to it than that, of course, but it’s a good place to start.

If you have any questions, ask away in the comments section.

You can also book a time to talk about your business. I specialize in coaching people and helping businesses grow through advanced marketing strategies.