Whether for personal or business interests, one thing is certain: blogs are in. Through WordPress properties alone, over 87 million posts are created every month. That’s a lot of competition…
…competition for your readers’ bloodshot, screen fatigued eyes. The question for you is, “How do I grab and maintain their attention when everyone is fighting for it?” Admittedly, it’s not an easy question to answer.
However, difficult doesn’t mean impossible. While there is a lot of information out there with tips, tricks, and hacks, 3 things trump them all:
keeping your head down, consistently working a plan, and revising when necessary
Yes, there are tips, tricks, and hacks that are effective and work quickly…BUT, their effect is temporary. You need effective and persistent. What can you do to acheive that? I’m glad you asked…all it takes is 6 tactics…
1. First things first: build out from popular content
Your readers come for one thing, content; specifically, your content. Are they not coming? I’m sorry to hear that because it means that you’re creating content for not…well not completely, practice does make better.
And if they’re not coming? You won’t increase blog traffic. You’re not about that, you’re reading this.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that your content sucks; it might just mean that it’s not consistently registering. Thankfully, that is an easy fix and begins with auditing your content. Have you audited your content lately? Ever?
Look for posts that have highest visitor counts (new and returning), lowest bounce rates, and longest time on page. If you’ve been posting long enough, you at least should have a top one or two that foot the bill.
Tip: chances are that your older content will have higher numbers. Normalize by comparing timeframes.
When you find them, dig deeper. What’s the topic, length, and layout? Hint: the topic of the post is likely the primary factor. Now, you have a place to build from: use Google Trends to search for the posts’ keywords.
At this point, we don’t so much care about the keyword as we do related topics/queries. For instance, if I wanted to expand on our recent RTB post’s popularity, I could check for related trending queries:
Source: Google Trends
I want to know what is trending because that’s a signal. Next, I might click programmatic because it’s a breaktout, and look at its top related queries:
Source: Google Trends
Why switch from trending, or rising, to top? Because I want to see where my search traffic is beginning to go and then grab from near the top to secure the advantage as my readers begin to expand their searches.
Lastly, I can address one of the queries directly or use it as a starting point for conceptualizing a related topic. For example, I could expand on what is programmatic by creating a post on the four main methods of programmatic advertising.
The work you do here goes hand-in-hand with SEO because you’re trying increase blog traffic through attracting readers with similar interests as yours…and the way to do that? Writing about what interests them most.
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4 comments
Online Fi on Nov 25, 2023 at 6:20 pm
How to monetize AMP Website with Adcash ads??
Danial Stoops on Dec 26, 2020 at 6:59 am
Greate pieces. Keep posting such kind of information on your blog. Im really impressed by your blog. Hello there, You have done an incredible job. I'll definitely digg it and in my opinion suggest to my friends. I am sure they'll be benefited from this site.
Geoff Kukard on Mar 04, 2021 at 11:30 am
Wow, thanks, Daniel. Appreciate the support. Let us know if there is anything specific you'd like us to cover next and we'll make it happen :)
dharmesh kumar on Apr 03, 2018 at 5:48 pm
thank you so much. I was tired of trying to generate traffic by investing only in SEO within my site, these ideas of your post opened up a range of new horizons for me, it was worth it!
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