4 Immediate Steps to Help You Jump Ahead
No one writes a blog post with the hope that no one will read it. But as much as we want to think we’ll attract readers by the strength of our content alone, we need to more to boost response.
What actions can you take today to increase traffic to your blog?
Post, Refresh, Repeat
How many times have you done this? You have an idea for a great blog post. You spend an hour and a half writing it, another half hour editing, and then you finally hit publish. Maybe you hop over to Facebook or Twitter and drop a link to your post in the feed. Then, you head back to your blog’s analytics page and hit refresh. Then you hit it again. And again.
Does this sound familiar?
If so, you’re not alone. Most people who take the time to share their content with the world want to know if it’s being read. The same is true of our Instagram and Facebook posts. When you take the time to post it, you want to experience the reward of abundant likes and comments.
If you do this, you’re not alone. It’s in our nature as this behavior shows our longing to connect with and be affirmed by others. But if we aren’t careful, the pursuit of this feedback can define us and make us miserable.
Try Platform University!
Want to give Platform University (your one-stop shop for building an online audience) a spin? Get your first week of Platform University for just $1. Cancel anytime. Try Platform University for Just $1Boost Your Blog Traffic
When it comes to your platform, engagement is often a measure of success. Your desire to increase blog traffic has a direct impact on your bottom line. You cannot afford to ignore it.
Several years ago, Platform University’s founder, Michael Hyatt, tried an experiment with his blog. Specifically, he employed a few tactics to see if he could increase his organic blog traffic.
The results were staggering. In just one month, Michael increased his number of unique visitors from 71,885 to 130,320 this month (an 81.3% increase) and the number of pageviews from 173,794 to 284,192 (a 63.5% increase).
Want to try your hand at Michael’s success? Try these four tactics to boost your blog traffic.
- Increase your blogging frequency. Michael always knew that there was a correlation between frequency and growth in traffic, but this test proved it empirically. What changes? Michael went from posting three times per week to five—Monday through Friday.
- Write shorter posts, shorter paragraphs, and shorter sentences. Michael owes this insight to CopyBlogger’s post, “Shorter Is Better.” He determined that he would keep his posts between 500–600 words, include no more than 3-4 sentences per paragraph, and avoid compound sentences wherever possible.
- Improve SEO metadata. Michael began using a WordPress plugin that analyzed his posts and gave it a score based on how Google will rank it. Today, your blog platform likely has some version of this functionality built in. We also recommend you set up an account with Google Analytics. This SEO insight will help you tweak your metadata to improve your visibility in Google’s search rankings.
- Become more engaged in comments. This may seem obvious, but many bloggers fail to do this. If you’re on WordPress, we recommend a plugin called Disqus that makes it simpler to manage and reply to your comments. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to reply to comments made on your social media posts.
These four steps worked for Michael. They can work for you too. Are you ready?
