In most cases, it’s really hard to get more than 100 visits on an article. I think the main reason is the lack of marketing and promotion. I believe if we follow and fit certain factors into our strategy, there is no chance of failure.
I have started my digital marketing blog in May 2017. Initially, as most of us, I was struggling too with my website traffic. But now it has been 3 months since I started applying my tactics and well-planned strategy, it’s working for me.
You can see my website traffic below for my blog www.marktechpost.com
I would like to share some tips and tricks that you can apply in your marketing strategy (especially for bloggers) for increasing website traffic.
1. Write great content.
Write great content because “Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information”.[9] If you know writing, please don’t stop yourself, write with your heart. According to a report “45% of marketers say blogging is the #1 most important piece of their content strategy.”[9]
Here are some tools that I use and these might be helpful for you as well. The best part is most of these tools are free.
- Canva: For Graphics designing
- Buzzsumo: Find most shared contents on social media.
- Grammerly : For grammar and spelling check
- Hemingway : For better readability
- Unplag : Check plagiarism in your article.
2. Get Viral by Graphics and Color
“Blog articles with images get 94% more views”.[9] As you can see below picture, how I have posted it in one of the LinkedIn groups and it got viral. I have taken care of 2 things while posting this article on direct mail. First, Title is very simple and Second, Content is written as comparison model with Emails. But wait there is one more thing, Yes you are correct, it’s the color scheme I have used in the graphics. Red color increases your chance of getting noticed by a reader.
Here are the list and reasons for using different colors.
- Red – (most noticeable) excitement, strength, passion, speed, danger.
- Blue – (most popular) trust, reliability, belonging, coolness.
- Yellow – warmth, sunshine, cheer, happiness.
- Orange – playfulness, warmth, vibrant.
- Green – nature, fresh, cool, growth, abundance.
- Purple – royal, spirituality, dignity.
- Pink – soft, sweet, nurture, security.
- White – pure, clean, youthful, mild. [7]
3. Ask and Answer on Quora and Reddit
Ask and answer questions related to your blog topics. You will be able to prove your worthiness in front of millions of people by answering their questions or asking them questions. It will 100% help you to get traffic from different countries and sectors. Don’t forget to include your blog post url link at the end because this is where you will get backlinks. Backlinks play a big role in SEO.
4. Share your content on social media
- Best channels to use are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
- Use hashtags and @mentions while using Twitter
- Get more followers by sharing good articles on twitter.
- Join your industry related groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. Share your content in those groups. Make sure you do not post an advertisement in any group because it might get you banned from that group.
- Don’t forget to post on Google Plus. Google Plus is a Google product, hence it will help you to get faster on SEO ranks for specific keywords.
5. Write great headlines:
- Did you know that 8 out of 10 people will read a headline and not read the rest of your ad? [6] .
- Make it a maximum 65 characters with a maximum length of 6 words.
- Use interesting adjectives like- “Fun”, “Effortless”, “Unique”, “Incredible”, “Essential”, “Strange”.
- You can use negative words like- “No”, “Stop”, “Without”, these leads to more shares.
- You can use numbers example- “10 things to do in Rome”.
- You can personalize the topic example- “9 Ways to crack GRE Exam: Number 3 is Most Important”
- There are some tools that can help you to find a right title. Here are some- Portent , Hubspot Topic Generator
6. Add your blog post to StumbleUpon, Alltop and Triberr
When you add your blog post on any of the above mentioned websites, you get 2 benefits. Do you know what it is? They are website hits and backlinks. Website hits improves your Alexa ranking and increases visitors on your website while Backlinks improves your SEO ranking on Google.
7. Invite others to guest blog
“Guest blogging is by far the most effective way to build influence”.[8] It is good when you post guest articles on other’s blog because you get backlinks and sharing. In the same way, when other people post guest articles on your blog, you get more sharing and hits on your blog. Hence, Google spider net expands with double speed when you guest blog on other’s blog and other bloggers write on your blog.
Below are some guest blog articles on my blog www.marktechpost.com
8. Email your subscribers
Once you have posted your blog article, it’s time to start emailing it to your subscribers. People subscribe to a blog because they feel the nerves of the portal, they connect themselves with the content. They start trusting the portal and have expectations from the portal. Now if they get zero emails in a month or 100 emails in a month, both are dangerous. You need to send 3-5 emails in a month to your subscribers specially if you are running a blog. Of Course you need to set automation emails when someone joins the email list and this doesn’t count in that 3-5 emails.
Some tools that I use for myself and for my clients are Mailchimp, Wix Shoutouts. I try to make things simple and not much automated hence I prefer doing 70% of my email marketing tasks manually because I feel a computer program cannot fully understand my mindset. It makes me to understand my clients and subscribers more closely. Hence I would suggest, not to try too much of automation in emails especially in first few years of your startup/ blog.
9. Make your website/blog fast and mobile friendly
This is the last topic in this article and a very important one. You might get new visitors on your website but to bring back returning visitors is very hard. Speed and Mobile friendliness are very important factors in bringing returning visitors and improving bounce rate.
If you are using WordPress then you can note down following suggestions
- Never host on new servers. Try using Siteground or Bluehost.
- Improve your speed by reducing size of images using these plugins- EWWW Image Optimizer, CW Image Optimizer
- Check your speed at Google speed.
- Check mobile friendly at Google Check
- Optimize your home page
References-
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/05/13/39-actionable-ideas-for-driving-traffic-to-your-website/#3114c1f22b0f
- http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/08/14/increase-traffic-to-my-website
- https://www.incomediary.com/website-traffic-tips
- http://www.webconfs.com/257/10-ways-to-get-traffic-for-free/
- https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249125
- https://www.quicksprout.com/2014/07/03/the-formula-for-a-perfect-headline/
- http://www.mycompanypension.co.uk/What-Colours-attract-Customers-to-your-Website-or-Store-Adviser-Zone
- http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/busting-the-top-3-guest-blogging-myths/
- https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/25-little-known-blogging-statistics-to-boost-your-strategy-in-2016
Asif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences.
