How to Get More Views and Increase Traffic on Your Blog

Welcome back to the blog! The second option in my “what would you like to see on my blog” Instagram poll this week was how to get more blog views, which a ton of you voted for as well. As a blogger, we want people to see our work and find value in it, and it can be disappointing to spend so much time perfecting something for only a handful of people to read it. We love what we do, and there’s always some excitement behind others loving it too. Keep reading to learn why your blog isn’t getting traffic, how you can increase your views and get your posts seen by many!

Use SEO-friendly titles.
This is the number one mistake bloggers make. I see so many blog posts titled “I Love Pink” ft. a pink outfit or “Bath Time” showing bath bombs. No one is googling “I love pink” or “bath time,” therefore these titles likely aren’t going to perform well in search engines. You may see big bloggers titling their posts like these, but they likely aren’t trying to get views since they already have a large audience. The title should provide some kind of context to what the post is going to help you learn, like “How to Style a Pink Dress” or “Top 5 Bath Bombs for Newbies.”  These are more SEO friendly and will get much more traffic. Don’t make it too wordy or complicated, but make it sound intriguing, true and something you yourself would click on.

Write about topics that people Google.
Expanding off the last tip, think about blog posts that you personally would like to see and would find helpful. Put yourself in the mind of a reader — this will help you brainstorm and write effective content much easier. Chances are if you’ve found yourself googling the same topic or questions, lots of other people have too.

Download and utilize the Yoast SEO plugin.
This baby is a lifesaver, especially if you’re an SEO newbie — which a majority of bloggers aren’t necessarily pros in that department, especially when just starting out. The Yoast SEO plugin makes your website as search engine-friendly as possible by helping you understand and perfect titles and meta descriptions, set your targeted keywords and track how often you’re using them, manage sitemaps, and more. You can read more about it below.

Utilize alt tags for your images.
When uploading your images to your post, you’ll see in the “edit” portion an option to add your own alt tags — also known as alternative text. Google can explain it better than I can:

“An alt tag, also known as “alt attribute” and “alt description,” is an HTML attribute applied to image tags to provide a text alternative for search engines. Alt text is important to provide contextual relevance about the page where the image resides. When you use an optimized alt attribute with a target keyword, it gives your page a boost because the alt text is a helpful relevance signal for search engines. Applying images to alt tags such as product photos can positively impact an e-commerce store’s search engine rankings.”

Be mindful with your tags.
If you’re a WordPress user, there’s a “tags” section on each of your posts on your dashboard that allows you to include keywords that your blog post is about. Do not neglect these! This helps people find your blog post when searching for similar posts online. There are a handful of tags I use for every blog post, then specific ones I use in various formats based on the topic of each individual post.

Push out the link to your blog post on all social networking platforms.
Cover your bases and post that link EVERYWHERE. Your personal Facebook, your business Facebook page, Instagram (story and your feed), Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and anywhere else you can think of. People aren’t going to see your post if they don’t know it exists, so don’t be afraid to promote yourself.

Post more frequently.
I’ve posted 2-7 times a week since I started my blog nearly 3.5 years ago (I know, it’s a lot) and I think it’s really helped me gain views and maintain consistent (and increasing) traffic. If you’re posting one time a week or less (I know so many bloggers that only post a couple times a month), that adds up to far less posts on your blog over time than someone who posts a handful of times a week, therefore getting less search-engine leads to your site. Post, post, post and make them good!

Share with your email subscribers.
Building an email list and sending out notifications each time you post is yet another way to route people to your blog. I use Mailchimp, which is free, and I really like it because it allows you to fully customize your emails and send them all out at the click of a button. For people who like reading your blog but don’t always think to check or aren’t on social media that much, email notifications are an additional way to capture attention and get clicks.

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Was this helpful? Apply these tips to your blog/posts and let me know if you get better results from it! Feel free to read up on my other blogging-related posts here, some of which are listed below. Thanks for reading & check back for a new post on Friday!

• Guidelines and Expectations to Follow When Working with Brands
• How I Edit My Instagram Photos and Stories
• How to Know if Blog Collaboration Inquiries are Scams
• Why You Should Prioritize Your Blog Over Instagram