Learn How to Quickly Increase Blog Traffic

Blogging can be a very lucrative online business model. If you put in the time and effort to make it work, it can easily provide you with an extra stream of reliable income.

But the real key to your success as a blogger is to find ways to constantly increase blog traffic.

This is because it is the amount of traffic your blog receives that determines its potential to make you money. So if traffic is that important, let us look at 3 ways you can quickly increase blog traffic.

Search Engine Optimization

The first and easiest way to increase blog traffic is through Search engine optimization, or SEO. SEO is what enables people to find your blog when they search for specific information at the search engines.

For example, if your blog is about poker, using SEO strategies will enable your blog to get found by people who are searching for information about poker.

So how exactly do you use SEO when attempting to increase blog traffic? Well, the first thing you need to do is to figure out what words and phrases people are using to search for the type of information that you provide on your blog.

When you figure that out, you then need to use those words and phrases frequently in your blog content. So going back to the poker example, you need to find out what words and phrases people who are searching for information on poker are using at the search engines. Then use those words and phrases when writing your blog posts.

But it’s important not to overuse them to the point where your content no longer even makes sense.

The best rule to follow is to write for humans first and search engines second. In other words, your content should read smoothly and coherently to humans and also be optimized for search engines.

The beautiful thing about optimizing your content for search engines is that it ensures that you write about things that are of interest to your readers. They will be pleasantly impressed when they find out that the information you are writing about is providing the answers they are searching for.

Now, you may think doing research on what words and phrases to use is hard work. Actually, it is very simple to do. All you need to do is use the Google Keyword Tool. It’s a free tool provided by Google that allows you to see the words and phrases people are using to find information pertaining to a certain topic.

If you want to do intensive research, you can use the WordTracker tool. It allows you to seriously analyze the searches people in your niche are making.

Another SEO strategy you can use to increase blog traffic is to create clusters of themed content on your blog. What does that mean?

Well, when blogging you will find that you will write more than one blog post on almost any one aspect of your niche. For example, if you blog is about “small business success”, you will most probably write more than one article on Marketing.

You also more than likely write one article about Time Management. The same thing goes for Accounting.

So in order to create a cluster of themed content, what you need to do is to get all the articles on marketing and put them together to create a mini course on marketing. You don’t even have to do any editing.

All you need to do is write a blog post that summarizes marketing and then provide links to all the articles you have written on marketing at the end of your summary.

This will create a cluster of themed content about marketing and it will make your blog much more organized as well. People will be happy to be able to find links to all the information about marketing on one page of your blog.

Search engines will also reward you with more traffic because they love themed content. It makes it easier for them to be certain that your blog provides sufficient information about a certain topic.

Based on the above example, you could also create a cluster of themed content on Accounting or Time Management.

Build a List

The second method you can use to increase blog traffic is to build a list. List building is a very smart thing to do because it enables you to get repeat traffic to your blog. Not everyone who visits your blog will come back.

Most people are drawn to the latest new thing they come across, so you need to remind them to come back to your blog. The easiest way to do this is to include an opt in form on your blog. This way, when people visit it, they will have the option of opting in to your list.

The wonderful thing about creating an opt in form is that you can create it once and set things so that it shows on every other page of your blog as well. Once people join your list, you can then send them an email every time you publish a post on your blog.

If you use curiosity in your emails, you will find that many people will visit your blog to find out what you have written about. But the thing that will really cause people to come back to your blog is the quality of your posts.

It won’t do you any good to build a list and then post unhelpful and uninformative content on your blog. You need to make sure your blog posts actually solve people’s problems.

In order to get people to join your list, you need to make an incredibly valuable offer that they can only receive if they join your list. So you need to find out what they find really valuable.

For example, if your blog is about real estate investing, your opt in form could offer people an ebook that shows them the 7 deadly mistakes that prevent new real estate investors from successfully making it past their first year of investing. And the only way to get that ebook is to join your list.

That could potentially cause many people to join your list. So figure out what you can offer people in your niche and start building a list today. It will help you increase blog traffic through repeat exposure.

Write More Blog Posts

The third way you can increase blog traffic is arguably the easiest method in that it involves the least amount of skill. This method simply involves writing more blog posts.

Search engines absolutely love blogs that are updated regularly. To give you an extreme example, a blog that publishes fresh new content every day will most probably get more traffic than one that publishes content every 2 months.

Of course, we are assuming all other things are equal and neither blog is spending ridiculous amounts of money to buy traffic.

The reason search engines love frequently updated blogs is that content is the life blood of search engine business. If all the content on the internet disappeared, search engines would go out of business.

They need your content so that when people search for information, they can provide them with what they are looking for. Search engines don’t provide the content. They simply direct people to the content they are searching for. You provide the content.

So make search engines your ally by providing them with fresh content on a regular basis. If possible, also write some meaty articles on your blog. You don’t always have to write the traditional 500 words articles.

Experience has shown me that meaty articles tend to get picked up by search engines especially if they use the right keywords.

So in summary, blog more and include longer articles in your mix of blog posts unless of course you have done your research and discovered that your niche only reads 500 word articles and then loses focus.

So those are 3 methods you can use to increase blog traffic starting right now. They may seem simple, but they are very effective. If you simply include an opt in form on your blog today and write more often, using the right words and phrases, you will progressively start enjoying an increased amount of traffic.

And that’s a Wonderful thing indeed!

To Your Success

Bruce