How to Increase Blog Traffic: The Ultimate Resource Guide
Here's the deal:
Without a decent flow of traffic, your blog's chance at achieving success is zero.
You know what I'm saying?
You'll be like K-Fed's debut album in '06, which no one bought, and basically demolished the ex-backup dancer's hip-hop dreams.
That poor man's dreams are your blogging dreams.
You might be saying, "Well, he married Britney Spears, one of the most iconic celebrities of our time!"
Yes, he did.
But they also divorced. Which, to your blogging dream, would be the equivalent to a short-term win. Like your first 1000 visitors, for instance.
And that's not a lot. It's a good start. Great, in fact. But a start, nonetheless.
You know, it's like I said...
To achieve success as a blogger, a steady flow of (monthly) traffic is key.
So in this guide, we'll show you resources that'll help you increase your blog's traffic.
And we're not talking about filler content that barely summarizes what you'd have to do. We're only going to show you content that will actually show you what to do.
Are you ready?
(Whoa. I can just hear the D-Generation X Theme Song right now.)
Break it down! (hehe)
Let's get started.
Increase Blog Traffic: 25+ Free Resources
We have put the resources together into multiple well-organized categories.
All you have to do is pick one and start from there.
Free Traffic Methods
Whether you have a huge marketing budget or not, free traffic will always be a part of your overall traffic generation strategy.
With free traffic, there are a lot more ways to gain visitors than you would with paid traffic.
With paid traffic, which we'll get into in a little bit, you'd likely deal with ads about 99% of the time.
Below, you'll find some of the best ways to increase blog traffic that don't cost a dime.
1. Guest Blogging
Everyone knows guest blogging is still a viable marketing strategy, even though a Google employee said it wasn't.
Many bloggers and digital marketers have used guest blogging to not only increase blog traffic, but to also grow their online businesses.
Guest blogging works by exposing you and your brand to an already established audience.
Think of it this way:
Pretend you're a musician and you've just released a new album. To promote it, you would likely go on talk shows. Like, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live.
These talk show appearances would give the show some content and you some exposure. Just like in guest blogging.
Know what I'm saying?
Recommended Resources
2. Influencer Marketing
What the heck is influencer marketing?
It seems like there are dozens of different types of marketing, doesn't it? There's affiliate marketing, content marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing.
Shit. Next thing you know, they'll come up with something like video game marketing where you do something like buy ad space on the Call of Duty main menu.
You know?
Anyway...
Influencer marketing is basically a form of marketing where you (try to) tap into the audiences of your industries influencers.
Recommended Resources
3. Expert Roundup Posts
Expert roundup posts, I'm sure you've seen 1 or 2...or 5. They're great. They're everywhere.
If you don't know what they are, you're probably living under a rock. But I still got you...
An expert roundup is what some would call a one-question group interview.
That's basically what it is. You ask an X amount of experts in your area a specific question and post their answers on your blog like a list post.
Recommended Resources
- 80 Productivity Tips From Incredibly Busy Experts - For inspiration.
- 63 Pros Share Their Best Email Marketing and List Building Tools - For inspiration.
- Minuca Elena's Portfolio of Expert Roundups (across several niches) - For inspiration.
- Expert Roundup Posts: 17 Examples in Different Niche Markets
- How To Create An Expert Roundup Post For Your Blog
4. Content Marketing
When it comes to blogging and traffic generation, content marketing is a key part of everything.
Blogging deals with a lot of content creation. Which is basically half the definition of content marketing.
The other half is marketing your content. In other words, content promotion.
Here's Content Marketing Institute's definition:
… a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
The resources below will get you up to speed. And then some.
Recommended Resources
5. Advanced SEO
SEO.
There's no question that a few well-ranked pages in search can lead to a plethora of free organic traffic.
You can call it the holy grail.
If you ask 100 bloggers and marketers what they want in the whole wide web, I guarantee at least 90 of them will say high search engine rankings.
Yes, there are other ways. But this is the mother load.
Basic SEO can only get you so far. Especially in a world where nearly every niche and industry has its competition.
The resources below has everything you need to get started. If you're a newbie, we've got a few in there for you, too.
Recommended Resources
SEO For Beginners
Even More SEO Resources...
6. The Ego-bait List Post
The Ego-bait List Post is basically a roundup of your niche or industry's top blogs and experts. And it's a great way to get your blog's first thousand or so visitors.
I've used it twice. The first was on another site, AffiliMarketer.
The traffic it generated wasn't bad. Especially considering the fact that the blog wasn't even getting 100 visitors per month.
The one I did here on Blogging Aid did even better.
In the first couple days, it received over 400 shares.
After a while, the post reached over 1.1K shares.
How does it work?
This method was designed to tap into the audiences of the people you feature in the post. So the traffic will usually come from the social media shares.
How you get those shares and mentions will require a lot of outreach. Which is all covered in our resources section.
Recommended Resources
- 100 Top Blogs That Will Help You Become a Better Blogger - For inspiration.
- Learn Affiliate Marketing From These 24 Top Blogs - For inspiration.
- How to Create an Ego-bait List Post
7. Blog Commenting
You're probably like...
Uh! Blog commenting? How in the heck is this going to get people to visit my blog?
Well. It's pretty simple, actually.
Most commenting systems require the commenter to provide 3 things before submitting their comment for moderation. Your name, your email, and your website URL.
That's right. You get to link your name to your blog.
You could even link to a specific page if you want. Like a blog post or a landing page.
Ready to get started? Good. These will get you up to speed.
Recommended Resources
8. Online Groups and Communities
Out of all the others, generating traffic from online communities requires the most groundwork.
There's the profile setups, the countless questions from group/community members, the rules (which must always be followed), and other stuff I can't even think of.
But you know what? It's worth it.
Becoming a part of a community can lead to a lot of targeted traffic. Which is the best kind, right?
Recommended Resources
Facebook Groups
Google Plus
Quora
9. More Ways to Get Free Traffic
Not enough for you? No problem.
Here are a couple more...
Recommended Resources
SlideShare
Republishing/Reposting
Paid Traffic Methods
Paid traffic is the real deal.
You can generate 1000x more (targeted) traffic in one day than you would with, say, a guest post.
Seriously.
It may make a big dent in your marketing budget, but if done right, the ROI can be massive.
To start off, we recommend the 3 following paid traffic sources. Good luck!
10. Facebook Ads
Facebook's advanced targeting feature allows you to target specific types of people. You can be as specific as 18-year-old men from Toronto, Canada who like Call of Duty.
Seriously.
That kind of targeting can get you a plethora of website visitors dying to read your content.
Recommended Resources
11. Twitter Ads
Setting up a Twitter Ad campaign is probably one of the easier things you'd ever do in your digital career. It's basically creating a tweet, choosing your target audience, and setting your time and budget.
It's all covered within the resources below. There's also some great tips for launching great campaigns.
Recommended Resources
12. Google AdWords
AdWords is a big thing. Expensive. But, big.
Since Google's search engine is used by nearly every internet user, you can expect a ton of traffic from a good ad campaign.
But a good campaign takes work. And these resources will get you started.
Recommended Resources
Wrapping it up
Generating traffic to your site can be extremely difficult. No traffic is among the biggest online business killers.
But now...You have everything you need to learn how to overcome that.
No excuses.
If you still don't know how to get traffic after all our recommended resources, the only one left to blame would be you.
Roundup posts and influencer marketing are really good ways to boost traffic. Nice piece Julian! But I was wondering, do you think guest posting is till gonna be a thing this year? it’s getting more spammy these days.
A thing? Yes. It’s one of the best ways to get your name and brand out there and gain authority.
Spammy? Only if editors don’t care about the quality they’re getting from their contributors.
No doubt , this is one of complete list which we can use to generate traffic but traffic doesn’t come without handwork. The easiest way is to find high domain authority website in your niche and subscribe them, once you receive new post , visit that and comment according to topic , in this way your link will remain on top and you will get maximum traffic
Tremendous List Julian I tried few of them and specially the Quora and it worked amazingly well. I did receive traffic from there and you just need to answer things with your knowledge with website link if you want.
Oh yeah? That’s awesome, man.
Stuart Walker from Nichehacks recommended your article. That in itself is a great achievement. This is kind of the second best Website traffic article I’ve ever come across. The best one for me was from Matthew Woodward. Loved it Julian 🙂
Hey. That’s great, man. Thanks.
Thanks Julian
I saved this from my Facebook feed to have a closer look. I will definitely bookmark this post and come back often for and references and inspiration. Great links to more great info too.