Blogging can have a lot of benefits to your business. To begin, it is fun. You get the chance to express yourself publicly and share your personal views. It can also build up trust in you or your business due to its interactive nature.
On top of this, blogs are effective at raising the audience count on the site they are posted on by focusing on various topics with an appeal. As claimed by hubspot, Businesses who post regular blogs experience 55% more traffic than those who don’t.
If you write skillfully about an interesting topic, you could get huge amounts of traffic to your own website! We all know what increased traffic means: more potential revenue sources and ultimately higher profits for you as an entrepreneur.
With so many successful blogs out there already, one might ask what the key to doing blogging for website traffic is. You want people to return to your site, again and again, you want to build a loyal following.
The following are some tips to do successful blogging for website topics and increased sales.
How to do blogging for website traffic
Write from your heart
Starting up a blog may seem daunting at first, once you sit down in front of your computer wondering what you're going to write about. However, in addition to writing great blog posts with useful information, the author's personality also has to come across in their work. You have to find a way to mesh your own style of writing with the type of information being provided so that readers stick around long enough for your blog content to affect them. If they are interested in you as an individual, not just liking your blog content, they will feel more of an attachment and repeatedly return for more of what you're providing online.
Keep your content simple and understandable
Blog posts are often read by people from all walks of life with different levels of understanding when it comes to the topic being addressed. In most cases, your audience is going to be relatively new to what you’re discussing so creating a foundation for your content with topics that are approachable and jargon-free gives you a leg-up in appealing to most any reader. While Google does have their guidelines about writing content with their audience in mind, remember that they know what they’re doing with search algorithms! So a good online marketing strategy for your blog post is to showcase topics that almost anyone could appreciate and make it approachable while following the rules outlined by the search engine company itself. Take some time reading up more on SEO plans and follow those along with engines like Bing and Yahoo as well!
Conduct extensive keyword research for a traffic-generating blog
If you want to go the extra mile and create an in-depth and informative blog post, it's important to use keyword research to find what people are searching for and what keywords work best for your blog post topic. Keyword research helps you determine how to use keywords, how to phrase content, and what words and phrases to include in your article. It will also help you determine the best keywords to use in your meta description and for your blog post title. The best places to get keyword research include Moz, Ahrefs, and semrush. These sites show what keywords competitors are using, how often people search for keywords, how expensive the keyword is for pay-per-click ads, related keywords, and much more valuable information to guide keyword strategy.
Extensively use long-term keywords
Long-tail keywords are search phrases composed of four or more keywords. They are more likely to rank higher in search results because there is less competition for these searches. They can even get you a top SERP spot in Google, which makes them important to consider, especially when you are solely blogging for website traffic. Long-tail keywords are really important no matter what business you run. They work like mad in all sorts of industries. For example, if you want to rank high for “weight loss” that's the whole thing; the phrase “weight loss” is already crowded with too much stuff about weight loss in people's minds! So look at things related to it: weight loss meal plans? How do they go? You guessed it... With the long-tail technique! And with great ease, oh my... If I wanted to zap my fat away with a strategy I would use this one without any question asked.
Make sure your blogs are Search Engine Optimised
Keep your blogs search engine optimised to give your blog posts the best chance of performing well in search. Aside from making sure each blog post contains a title, URL, and alt text that includes information related to your chosen keywords, it’s also recommended that you include several headings into each one that makes breaking up long-form content easier for readers. The type of headings you use often depend on the words you choose, but these are some general conventions:
On-page SEO is rather easy to complete, mainly consisting of four things - keyword research, title creation (a post’s URL should reflect content), headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.), and alt text/filename usage.
On the technical side of things, there are a few steps you can take to ensure your blog is optimised for search. Google prefers content that loads fast and fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to contribute to your site’s speedy load time:
- Setting up a Google Analytics account
- Minimising the size of your image files
- Not using jargon and unnecessary scripts.
- Attracting high-quality links to your website
- Using a blogging platform that allows you to schedule your posts
- Using a blogging platform that allows you to easily create content upgrades
- Registering with Google Search Console
Seize the opportunity to capture email addresses
Once you’ve captured your visitor’s attention, it’s important to remind them about your brand in a fun and playful way so that they will visit your blog again in the next 5 minutes after leaving just to see what you have created. One way to do this is by contacting them through an e-newsletter, which shows the popular blog post categories from just 15 minutes ago when they last visited. This can increase visitor confidence when using your service because they feel heard and appreciated by the brand. It also gives more of a personal feeling of belonging between both of you. If you choose to implement an e-newsletter on top of that, be careful with how often you send them because too much content at once can overwhelm or annoy some people. Do not break their attention span!
Provide your customers with something valuable to read
Writing posts that are full of good, original content becomes much easier when you turn your blog into one which people want to read. If customers find your content valuable, they will likely stick around for more. As you become known for the quality of your writing, others will pay attention and be willing to work with you because they know they can trust your knowledge and experience.
Review your content regularly
It is certainly a good idea to publish new blog posts as often as possible, but not just for the sake of it. Search engines have evolved over time and nowadays their algorithms also interpret the site content more on a qualitative level than a quantitative one. As a result, relevance ranks higher over frequency when it comes to determining the value of a particular page on a website. This is why it can be quite beneficial to review your older pages from time to time and rework them to include the latest information available on your topic or industry. In doing so not only will you ensure that search engines don't view your website as outdated but you will create longer pieces of content that tend to rank higher in search results for long-form topics compared with pages created solely for SEO purposes, i.e.:
Accept Guest Blogs on Your Site
Guest blogging is not only about publishing articles on different blogs in your industry. Invite people who blog in your niche to write articles for your website's blog too. Just make sure that you provide an excellent guest blogging experience by piquing their interest, involving them in the content marketing strategy, making the process easier for them by doing some legwork, and following up with a friendly email after an article has been posted to thank them and let them know of new content every week.
Integrate Videos into Your Content Strategy
Adding videos to your content is an effective way in increasing your website traffic through blogs. To further "humanise" your brand - especially for B2C companies - consider using video marketing to give new audiences a better idea about what sets your business apart. Video is data-proven to raise the retention of information by more than 50% compared with text alone, meaning that you can use it to grab new visitors' attention and keep them engaged longer on the site. So how do you choose which type of video content is best suited to your needs? Marketers are already taking advantage of video's many benefits, including its ability to break down complex topics or concepts into manageable pieces. Best-in-class marketers are offering multiple types of videos across their sites, based on their target audience’s desired learning style.
Keep an eye out for competitors
To stay on top of what competitors are doing, we recommend using a service like buzzsumo to see what topics and content resonate with readers and are shared the most on social media. By getting an idea of the types of articles that will be read, you can start focusing your efforts accordingly, so you don't spend too much time working on something that doesn't translate well onto digital platforms. One way to create viral content is by writing about trending topics, providing suggestions or opinions about them, and providing tips/tricks for interested third parties that want to become experts in those areas as well!
Choose the right platform
Many people wonder if it’s best to blog on a custom platform like WordPress or Squarespace. One is not necessarily better than the other, but depending on your goals you may be better off using one or the other of these platforms. If you are building a site specifically for blogging purposes, there are lots of website builders out there that are great starting points including big commerce, Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace. These website builders allow you to build a platform that caters specifically to blogging without requiring extensive technical knowledge or having to set up your server. To get started marketing your site on these platforms, keep reading this post! However, if you want to create a full-blown publication—for example, you plan on selling advertising or publishing exclusive content—then WordPress is the way to go.
Give-and-take Backlinks
With so many businesses working to find ways to improve their search engine rankings, there are plenty of great opportunities for backlink exchanges out there. Reach out to websites relevant to your niche that you think will be interested in your content and offer your extra resources. You can even offer an incentive for including your link in one of their posts, or vice versa.
Lastly
Every blogger will eventually reach a point where they are unsatisfied with the amount of traffic their blog is getting. The reasons for this are many, but usually, it stems from bloggers simply not knowing how other people also do what they do - other bloggers who may be making more money or having bigger audiences than them! Sometimes that comparison can be helpful, sometimes it can lead to frustration and stress.
While there are a lot of different tactics you can use to grow your visitor count, from social media to guest posting. Don't be afraid to try something new and have faith because hard work eventually pays off!