Launching a blog is only the first step to growing your business online. But, then what? The next step is to get your audience to SEE your blog and scale your blog traffic, right?
But there’s just one problem — despite regularly publishing new content, traffic to your blog remains at a standstill.
It might not be your fault.
The online landscape is more competitive now than ever. Millions of blog posts are published every single day, which makes it that much harder to stand out. Neil Patel mentions in a recent blog that in 2017, 54.11% of all searches on Google generated no clicks.
Last year it jumped to 62.41%.
You’ll need to get more creative than pumping out articles and hoping for the best if you want to drive measurable results.
In this article, we’re going to take an in-depth look at how you can grow your traffic and turn your blog into the go-to resource in your industry.
1. Create Ultimate Guides
One way to stand out and scale your blog in any niche is to create an ultimate guide — a blog post that covers a topic in-depth. They take some effort to create, but they can drive tons of organic traffic to your site when done right.
Here’s an example of an ultimate guide from Wave Apps. It covers absolutely everything that small business owners need to know about cash flow.
Start by choosing a topic for your guide. Choose a primary keyword that’s relevant to the products or services that your business offers. It should also be a keyword that gets a decent amount of search traffic and isn’t too competitive.
Next, break up your ultimate guide into chapters. Use keyword tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to identify topics you can target.
You can also look under the “People also ask” section in the search results. Here’s an example when searching for “cash flow” in Google:
These would be excellent topics to include in your guide.
Now you can get to work on creating your guide and focus on providing value to your visitors.
Don’t limit yourself to “ultimate guide” posts, though. Provide value to your audience and drive more traffic to your website by publishing other types of content.
For example, Legacy Healing, a treatment center in New York City, publishes how-to guides, do’s and don’ts, healthy ideas, and more to its blog.
These kinds of posts are also good for SEO as they keep your site fresh and give you more opportunities to rank for keywords to scale your blog.
2. Get Listed on Comparison Websites
Today’s savvy consumers are increasingly turning to the web for reviews. They’re looking for information to inform their purchasing decisions.
Many turn to comparison websites. These are websites that make it easy for consumers to compare their options on a single page, so they won’t have to keep switching between different tabs.
Here’s an example of a comparison website that looks at the top nursing programs:
Getting listed on relevant comparison websites is another way to drive targeted traffic to your blog.
Here are some search queries you can type into Google to find these types of sites:
- Best + [your keyword] websites
- [Your keyword] + comparisons
- Top [your keyword] + reviews
Then, reach out to these websites and ask that they include a link to your site. Be sure to follow up again in a few days if you don’t hear back.
3. Repurpose Content Into More Formats
Publishing more content is a viable strategy to grow your traffic and scale your blog. But creating new content isn’t exactly a walk in the park. You have to brainstorm new ideas, research statistics, and source images — all before you even write a single word. It’s like creating a new website, where you also need to come up with an idea, design and audience for which it will be.
Repurposing existing content allows you to reduce the time it takes to create new content and reach audiences on different channels.
For example, you can turn a single blog post into:
- YouTube videos
- Social media posts
- Podcast episodes
- Infographics
- Guest posts
- Presentations
- Ebooks
Turning content into different formats also lets you build backlinks to your site and boost your rankings in Google.
Start by identifying content that has performed well — blog posts that generate a decent amount of traffic or with tons of social media shares. You can find top-performing blog posts by looking through your analytics data.
Then, take an existing blog post and turn it into a new format. For example, if you’re looking to grow your YouTube channel, you can record yourself (or work with a studio) and upload your new video once you’re finished.
But don’t stop there. Take that same blog post and turn it into even more formats to increase your reach.
4. Answer Questions on Quora
Have you considered utilizing Quora to scale your blog traffic?
Quora is a popular question-and-answer site that currently attracts over 300 million unique visitors each month. Users can ask a question on any topic and others can respond.
Here’s an example of questions that people on the site are asking about the ketogenic diet:
Clearly, the topic has a lot of interest. And most importantly, each question represents an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and drive more traffic to your blog.
Search for your main keywords on Quora and look through questions you can answer. The original user who posted the question will see your answer along with anyone else who asks a similar question.
When replying back to a question, take the time to provide an in-depth answer and include a link back to your site.
5. Interact With Relevant Social Communities
Facebook boasts well over a billion active users. No matter who your target audience is, there’s a good chance that they’re on Facebook. In addition to sharing content on your profile, you can join and interact with relevant communities to scale your traffic.
For example, Facebook Groups lets you connect with people who have similar interests and share your knowledge. You can search for popular groups near you or for groups based on interests like travel, health, and more.
Here’s a Facebook group in the fitness category:
You’ll notice that this group boasts well over a million users and has been active since 2015. If you sell fitness equipment, or if you’re in the health industry, then joining this community is a must. You can interact with your audience and promote your content.
Aim to become an active member of any group you join. That means participating in discussions and answering questions that others are asking. But make sure to follow the rules and don’t spam your content as that will likely result in a ban.
As you participate in Facebook groups, pay attention to what each member is talking about. If certain questions keep popping up, take note as you can use discussions as inspiration for new content to scale your blog.
6. Build Your Email List
Search and social media are obviously some of the more popular ways to drive traffic to your blog. But don’t neglect email marketing either.
Your email list represents another way that you can scale your blog traffic.
By including links to your content in newsletters, you can drive targeted traffic back to your site. It also helps you build relationships with the people on your list.
Don’t have a list? Then you’re missing out on a highly lucrative marketing channel. The sooner you can build an email list, the better you can leverage it to grow your bottom line.
Be sure to include a personalized CTA (call to action) under each blog post. Include an extra incentive to get visitors to subscribe.
For example, Loganix offers a free detailed guide on buying links to grow their email list:
Take a similar approach by offering something of value to your visitors. Remember not to spam your subscribers, as doing so will cause many of them to unsubscribe.
Just like with any content you publish, always focus on delivering value.
7. Target “Best” Keywords
With so many different options and choices available, consumers often don’t have the time or patience to evaluate each one. As a result, many search engine users are appending the word “best” to their searches.
Data from Google has found that mobile searches for the keyword “best” have grown over 80% over a two-year period. You can use this to your advantage and scale your blog traffic by targeting these words with new content.
If you’re a SaaS company, you might do a comparison of the top options in your niche and provide a complete breakdown of each. This not only helps you rank for “best” related keywords, but also helps your visitors make informed purchasing decisions.
Here’s an example blog post from SimpleMoneyLyfe comparing credit repair companies:
Instead of visiting each company’s website and comparing each option, this blog post compiles everything in one place — something that visitors are sure to appreciate.
Of course, the word “best” is always subjective. But make sure that your content lives up to it by providing a comprehensive overview of the topic at hand.
8. Write About Trending Topics
The good thing about trending topics is that they’re not yet competitive and they can drive tons of traffic to your site if you’re quick enough.
As you seek to scale your blog traffic, we have to take a look at trending topics right?
Use a tool like Google Trends to identify keywords in your niche that are trending upward. The tool lets you see general interest over time when keywords are spiking in interest.
Simply search for a keyword like you normally would and scroll down to the “Related topics” and “Related queries” section.
Google displays exact search volume increases.
This tells you how much interest a particular keyword phrase has. If you find any topics with the word “Breakout,” it means that search volume for that term has grown by more than 5,000% and is well worth a closer look.
By publishing content around a trending topic and building a few backlinks to it, you can get it ranking in a shorter period of time. Of course, you shouldn’t solely rely on this strategy. The amount of traffic you drive to your site from trending keywords may be short-lived but it could effectively boost your sales.
9. Run Ads on Social Media
You’re probably actively posting on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. But depending on how long you’ve been on Facebook, you may have noticed a decline in organic reach — the number of people who see your posts without paid distribution.
Advertising on Facebook allows you to increase your reach and drive traffic to your blog. How much you pay will depend on factors, such as the audience you’re targeting and how much you’re bidding.
Facebook lets you choose the demographics that best represents your audience. You can determine where you want to run your ads and set a daily budget that you’re comfortable with.
Facebook isn’t the only game in town. Be sure to develop and implement a social media advertising strategy on other networks like Twitter and LinkedIn.
10. Get Help From a Marketing Agency
Finally, it’s important to recognize that you can’t do everything yourself. In order to scale your blog traffic, sometimes you just have to accept help.
There are only so many hours in the day that you can spend growing your blog. You need to brainstorm topics, write new content, maintain your social media, build backlinks, etc.
If you’re on a budget, you’ll want to do as much as you can by yourself. But as your blog starts to grow, it makes sense to hire outside help.
With an agency, you’re not just working with one person — you’re able to leverage the expertise of an entire team who can help with anything from content creation to link building and more.
Note that you don’t have to outsource everything. For example, a digital marketing agency can help with email outreach and boost your link building efforts while you handle the content yourself (or vice versa).
Working with a marketing agency is also highly scalable. For example, you can always start with a small budget and gradually ramp up your spending as your blog starts to grow.
Conclusion
There you have it — 10 strategies that you can implement to scale your blog and drive more visitors to your site. Some of these strategies can be implemented right away, while others may take more time before you start seeing results.
One of the best ways to grow traffic to your blog is to combine these tactics together and follow eclincher for more social media strategies for growing a brand online!
For example, you can work with an agency to produce content for your blog and work with them to repurpose that same content into different formats.
As you implement these marketing strategies to grow your blog, always pay attention to your analytics data. This will help you determine which efforts are producing results and which are falling flat.
Then you’ll be able to make informed decisions on which tactics to prioritize and which ones aren’t the best use of your time or budget.
