Day 6: Drive Organic, Engaged Traffic To Your Blog

Welcome to Day 6!

Today we are going to go over how to drive organic, engaged traffic to your blog. Organic means that your traffic is natural and not driven by something more ‘forced’ like a Facebook click-return thread (where bloggers add their comments in exchange for others to do the same).

Traffic is one of the ‘bread and butter’ requirements for a successful monetized blog. If you do want to make a significant income with your blog, over 100,000 monthly page views is a good eventual goal. So, let’s dive into how to do just that!

The fundamental and necessary basics for blog growth:

Write catchy headlines and quality, focused content – An enticing blog headline is what prompts a reader to engage. You may have the most amazing content of all time but if you have a poorly written title, chances are that content gold you poured your heart and soul into will remain buried treasure. Along with a great headline, make sure your content is easy to read with clear headlines, subtitles, and bullets. In the end, remember to be authentic and have fun. If you feel like you are forcing your writing, readers will notice.
Have quality photos and a Pinterest targeted image – It’s some sort of a weird proven thing that if you have photos then people will like your blog post more. Remember my photography recommendations from Day 4? Shutterstock or Depositphotos are my suggestions. Most of my traffic comes through Pinterest and having a Pinterest targeted image on my post. Don’t overlook the power of Pinterest and solid photos.
Make sure your content is easy to share on social media – Do you see the “Sharing is caring!” at the bottom of basically every blogger’s page? That’s Shareaholic. It’s free. I’ll shoot you a recommendation list of all the plugins and things like this because it took me way too long to figure all that out. Add Shareaholic and make sure your social media links are clear in the header of your blog.
Be active on social media – Choose three social media sites to be active on and at first, become an absolute expert on one. I started with Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Schedule with Hootsuite. It’ll make your life a ton easier. At first, the following may be small. That’s ok. Take a look at other bloggers in your niche and note how often they post as well as how they post. And again, don’t overlook Pinterest. It is one of the largest untapped search engines with spendy active users.I have a couple resources I would highly recommend if you want to increase your traffic to Facebook or Pinterest:
Facebook Strategies Worth Sharing
Pinteresting Strategies
Always respond to reader’s comments and emails – I suggest bloggers spend a planned amount of time for their readers. For a new blogger, this could be something like half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. Try to always respond the same day and be positive, supportive and encouraging.

Active steps for blog growth:

Consider writing more often – Google likes websites that post more often and therefore, it pushes them up further in searches. Try to post twice a week if you can and be consistent. Post at the same time every week. Some bloggers post every few days. I post once a week currently because it takes me forever to get a post ready to publish. Usually around 4-5 hours. With another business and a baby, I hardly have time to shower as it is. I have started to become much more proficient at creating a blog post and plan on releasing two a week in the near future. I also am thinking about hosting a fellow blogger to guest post once a week. In the end, with weekly posts, do what you can do but be consistent about it!
Promote on social media – Make sure your blog’s URL is in your bio on any personal social media profiles. Once you have your feet wet in social media, test out paid promotions. It’s a basic business principle that you must spend money in order to make money.
Learn basic SEO and use keywords – Buy an SEO guide or take an ecourse. Learn the basics so you can really start driving some traffic.
Invite guests to post and write guest posts – This is a great opportunity to cross paths with another blogger’s readers. It allows you to expand your network, make new associations and learn.
Have an email list – Have a newsletter with quality must-have opt-ins to your subscriber list on your site. ConvertKit is the best, hands down. Most all professional bloggers use it but if you don’t have the $$ to dish out for the monthly subscription then start with MailerLite.

One key thing to remember with driving organic, engaged traffic is that it takes time. If your blog has all the necessary basics above, your blog numbers will grow each month. SLL started small with its numbers doubling and tripling each month, growing steadily.

Tomorrow we’ll chat about beginning your editorial calendar, managing your blog and how to create post ideas!

See you then!