If you maintain a blog, of course you want the traffic to your blog to grow. But what if it doesn’t? What if the traffic to your blog is (slightly) decreasing? What do you do? In this post, I will give 5 tips on how to increase the traffic to your blog once again!
First check: is it a change in your rankings?
If the traffic to your blog is decreasing, you should first check your rankings. It could well be that something happened that changed your ranking in Google. A lower ranking could definitely explain a (sudden) drop in traffic. When you notice a drop in your rankings, you should take action to boost your website’s SEO.
Read more: ‘Tracking your SEO with Google Analytics’ »
When it’s not your rankings
But what if your ranking has stayed (relatively) the same? What strategies can you employ to improve your site’s traffic, besides the SEO stuff? These 5 tips should help you deal with decreasing traffic!
1. Use of social media
Social media are a necessity for the growth and marketing of your blog. As social media become more popular, Google and other search engines can’t ignore them any longer. So your site’s popularity on social media is also getting more and more important for your SEO. The reason for this is simple: if people talk about you, online or offline, you’re relevant to the topic at hand. You’ll want to know about these conversations! Social media is a new kind of marketplace, where people share questions and reviews about products and events. You had better make sure those are your products and events, right? So, partaking in these conversations can be great for your brand and could lead to growth. It depends on your (desired) audience and on your content which social media are best suited for your blog.
Keep reading: ‘Social media strategy: where to begin’ »
2. Commenting on other blogs
Another good way to get more exposure for your blog is by reacting and commenting on other blogs. Make sure to adapt your selection of the blogs to comment on to the audience you would like to address. That way, your comments will attract the kind of visitors you want on your own site.
If you read something interesting on a blog, you should comment. Especially when a post is about something you may have written about yourself as well. In your comment, you can share your view on the matter. You could also place a link to one of your own blogs. Make sure your comments are always nice and polite and comment only if your own post genuinely applies to the piece you are reading. You don’t want to end up in the spam filter!
Our SEO for WordPress eBook guides you through every aspect of Search Engine Optimization »
3. Write more ‘success’ posts
If you want your audience to grow, check the analytics of your blog regularly. What articles are the ones that people seem to read the most? What are the most important landing pages? These posts are the ones your audience seems to enjoy. Could you write more of these posts? Writing articles that are similar to your successful posts is a good strategy to get more visitors.
4. Send out a newsletter
Email is a great way to increase your customers’ retention. That means that sending emails will increase the amount of visitors that become recurring visitors. By emailing your customers on a regular basis, your brand will stay top of mind. Furthermore, they’ll return more quickly to read another post. Of course, your emails would have to be interesting, enticing and engaging for this to really work!
It’s relatively easy to set up a newsletter through a service like MailChimp. You can even target specific subgroups within your entire audience with a newsletter. Sending a nice email is also a great way to inform your readers that you have written new blogposts and that they should come and visit your blog.
Read on: ‘The basics of email marketing’ »
5. Start advertising
If you have a budget, you could decide to place ads on for instance Facebook or Google to promote your blog. Facebook also has the option to boost your post, making sure it’ll get more exposure. Using Facebook, you can even focus on the demographic you want to reach, with settings for age group, location, and interests, making it quite easy to target your desired audience.
Read more: ‘Facebook Page Insights’ »
Conclusion: stay active
Sometimes, your blog simply doesn’t get the attention and the traffic you want it to get. If neither your ranking nor your SEO has changed, you probably just need to put in a little bit of effort. Be active on social media and other blogs, write posts similar to those that are loved by your audience and do not forget to send out that newsletter. Don’t give up!
Keep reading: ‘Blog SEO: make people stay and read your post ’ »