Blogging has become a very lucrative career choice for Millennials from around the globe; the primary reason being its technical as well as a creative alignment. It is a subtle art of convincing people to read and find larger interest in the content you furnish for the areas they might be slightly interested in. Hence, a lot of people have turned themselves towards learning the nuances of this well-sought-after career field.
WordPress (being an easy and beloved Content Management System) publishes approximately 76.3 million blogs each month. Blogging on WordPress is being used by influencers- big and small, pertaining to several industries. Hence, monetizing your passion for blogging is always under the scope. But, is it really?
As of 2013 alone, 152 million blogs existed on the internet. Now, fast-forward to 2018, we bet the numbers are glaring. So, how do the successful bloggers create a unique niche for their platform? How do they manage to drive substantial traffic to their blogs in such a competitive atmosphere? What is their guide to directing traffic to their WordPress blogs?
Let’s find out.
Transform Your Blogging Niche
Have you been blogging for a while and see no consistent improvement in the traffic? Have you created a blog that seems like a herculean task to get going with? If this is the case with you, you need to transform your blogging niche. We mean to say that if you blog about lifestyle trends just because everybody is doing so, please change it right away and invest your time and efforts into a niche which is more appealing to you.
By saying so, we are emphasizing that your blog should find your interest as well. If your existing blog isn’t the one, you can take a chance and create a blog that addresses content delivered through your righteous passion. Only then, will your blog be less of a drag and more of a life-changing profession.
Most Importantly, Create Content That Matters
The mantra for successfully directing more and more traffic to your blog is creating content that really matters; enough to keep the audience gripped and wanting for more.
Don’t give out what has really been talked about a lot. If you must, try to explore and feature content which is unique and what might greatly privilege the audience consuming it. Keep researching and read a lot of enhanced subject knowledge. Infographics, presentation, beefed-up blog posts, crisp summaries, audio-video content and similar deliverables can make your blog a star among others.
You must follow the following guidelines to make your content stand out:
- Use short and Crisp paragraphs to deliver content.
- For blog posts, long write-ups are presently the favored ones.
- Use interesting headlines to attract users and hence, tempt them to continue reading.
- Try to use a fairly easy language and skip the jargon, unless necessary.
- Break your content into points, use sub-headings and a lot of bulleted content.
Be Visually-Empowered
Visual stimulation sells like a hot cake. The presence of images, gifs, videos, infographics, amazing landing pages, presentations, charts, and graphs amps up the appeal of your content and make it worth the readers’ time.
Develop a Fast-Loading Blogging Website
Have you ever given a thought to your blogging website’s loading speed?
If you haven’t, you must assess its speed using tools like Pingdom. FYI, a fast loading online entity garners spiked traffic and enhances the viewers’ experience. Hence, your blog should never be the one to disappoint its audience by fetching poor loading speed. Users usually abandon a blog if it takes up more than 2-3 seconds to pull up.
You can try using a WordPress Caching plugin to decrease the loading time substantially. Some of the best ones from the WordPress repository are W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache. Also, always rely on the best web hosting service in order to stay on top of the search engine rankings.
Keywords Are Your Key to Success
Search engine optimization is definitely a feat to be accomplished but nothing that blog owners should be afraid of. Before diving into the advanced analytics, you must begin with the KEYWORDS. There are some amazing SEO plugins for your WordPress blog to guide through the optimization process such as ‘All-in-one SEO’ plugin and ‘Yoast SEO’.
These Keywords are game-changers. Follow the following tips:
- Use the right combination of one-word keyword and long tail keywords. For example, if you are a beauty blogger and your next article is about hair care tips, you can use low-competition keywords which are high search index i.e. people use them a lot.
- Do not stuff keywords in the content. They must be naturally placed and follow the flow of information.
- Don’t shrink at the thought of re-hauling your list of keywords if they aren’t working appropriately for your audience. After all, your keyword must be the term that the requesting visitors input into their browser’s search bar.
- Optimize your blog’s content by adding to the title, meta description, tags, categories, image Alt text, etc.
Work Your Way Through Your Blog’s Promotion
If you are blogging, you are definitely trying to monetize your content. Also, it is difficult to sell your content without promoting it well. If you want to drive in more leads and convert them into faithful blog followers, implement the following promotion practices.
- Building a great email list will help you cater to your audience well. If this list is segmented as per the targeted content, your emails will have a higher chance of being read.
- Your best blog post, the one that has the maximum number of views and comments; must be put up as a featured post on your blogging website’s homepage to further driving traffic.
- ‘Related post/content’ is a great blogging asset which helps you upsell your existing content on the page. Never miss out on this opportunity. For example, if you have just published a post that talks about ‘skincare routine’, you can add ‘skincare routine for 30+ age group’ and ‘Skincare routine for Summer/Winter’ in the RELATED POSTS tabs.
- Keep circulating your old posts by updating their content with the latest information and do not forget to mention that the post has been updated on a specific date. Re-share them on your social media channels.
- You can occasionally conduct giveaways to directing traffic and also make your viewers feel appreciated.
- The good old Guest Blogging still works wonders when you put up a guest blog post of your own on somebody else’s popular blog. You must also entertain guest contributions for your own blog. This way, you can exchange your author bios and internal links for further promotion. Backlinks are authoritative when it comes to your blog’s search engine ranking.
- Interacting with the comment audience is a great way to get in touch with your readers and make them feel engaged. The comment section on your blog is also probably a great place for new ideas for your next post.
- Make sure that you shell out some time to read other blogs as well and also drop a comment, appreciating their content.
Be Regular with an Editorial Calendar
A great blog is the one with consistency. You must post at regular and fixed intervals to keep your readers coming back for more. If you have difficulties maintaining this discipline, you can use one of WordPress’ most coveted features – the Editorial calendar. It helps you plan the deliverables well in advance, post writeups regularly, and saves you from the hassle of coming up with new post ideas.
Use the Right Content Curation Platforms
All blog owners have their share of days when they feel stuck or go blank when it comes to digging up new and unique ideas for jotting down the content. To counter this, blog owners must regularly feed their mind with the right content curation platforms such as Reddit threads, Quora, online forums, and their own comment section.
This is crucial because the right ideas give way to an amazing content, hence driving in loyal readership with a consistent traffic to the blog.
Consistent Social Sharing
There is no denying the fact that social sharing is one of the largest traffic-driving factors for any existing online blog. If readers like your blog, they end up sharing it on their own social media channels; garnering increased views. So, it is important to enable social sharing on your blog.
Also, try to be exclusive when it comes to social sharing. Try enabling the major social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest on the blog so that viewers do not feel overwhelmed with hundred choices while they try to share your content.
Conclusion
We are sure that the above guide is inclusive of but not limited to the tips we have mentioned about growing your blog traffic. You must also not forget that these efforts will not spike your blog traffic overnight. Hence, be determined by your efforts and soon the results will start falling into place.
Keep coming back to this space for more amazing content.