Whether you have set your sights on 100 visitors, 1,000 visitors or 100,000 daily visitors, the same steps need to be taken to drive more traffic for your blog.
Just to put the competition you are up against into some kind of context - it is estimated that around 7.5 million blog posts are published on a daily basis. WordPress alone publishes more than 70 million blog posts per month, making it difficult to make your voice heard above the noise.
Nevertheless, there are several tried, tested and trusted strategies that never fail to produce positive results. Each of the following should therefore be prioritised, as part of the ongoing growth strategy for your blog:
1. Find Out Whether Bigger is Better
First up, blog posts that are punchy and concise are the preferred posts for the masses. Depending on your niche and the topics you are writing about, your audience may respond better to longer and more thorough posts of an in-depth nature. Something to experiment with and see how your readers respond.
2. Optimise Your Blog for SEO
Something you should already be doing, but carefully optimising your blog for SEO is essential for driving organic traffic. It is a process that begins with identifying the most appropriate keywords and search terms you want to rank for, which should the researched as a matter of priority.
3. Conduct an Outreach Campaign
This essentially means reaching out to related blogs within your niche to build backlinks. It is something that will only work if you can produce content of the kind of quality they will want published on their websites. Nevertheless, do so and you have the opportunity to tap into their audience and boost your SEO strategy in one fell swoop.
4. Publish Content More Often
Publishing low-grade content simply for the sake of it is never the way to go. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that the more frequently you update your blog with fresh and relevant content, the more likely it is to attract a steady stream of traffic.
5. Actively Promote Your Blog Elsewhere
Use every online and offline asset at your disposal to promote your blog, remembering to issue alerts, reminders and links each time you publish new content. Rather than simply expecting your audience to find and read your posts, show them the way.
6. Mix Things Up
This refers to the type of content you publish, as blogs that combine textual content with video clips, high-quality images and other types of media almost always perform better. Though again, it is essential to ensure that the content you publish is relevant, unique and of the highest quality - without exception.
7. Invite Guest Contributors
Guest contributions always bring fresh flavour to a blog - user generated content (UGC) can be particularly appealing. If possible and appropriate to do so, give your readers the opportunity to suggest ideas and submit their own content, while reaching out to others within your niche to request contributions.
8. Invite Comments and Always Respond
Last up, all evidence of engagement on your part can only work in your favour. It is therefore essential to invite comments on your blog and respond (properly) to each and every comment you receive. Publishers who demonstrate genuine interest in their audiences are always more appealing and engaging.
Chris Jenkinson works as a marketing consultant assisting companies to grow.