How to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog

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You have great content and amazing ideas, filling your blog with post after post that no one ever reads. It’s very frustrating when you put so much effort into a project without getting approval, but it may not be your fault. The average person spends over 20 hours a week online, and the competition for their attention is high. What can you do to stand out in the crowd and drive more traffic to your site?

SEO for Beginners

SEO sounds intimidating to some people but there are some very simple implementations even the least technical blogger can use to boost your search engine ranking.

Why are search engines so important?

• 3 billion searches are done on Google alone every day, and it is the number one website in the world. If someone is going to find your blog from a search engine query, it will likely be from Google, Yahoo, or Bing, but most of your audience will never look past the first page of results.
• Your main sources of income, including people seeking you for advertising deals or guest content, will also be searching for you from search engines. Everyone responds better to organic search results rather than paid results.

The reason SEO can sound complicated is because it is a bit of a mystery even to experts; search engines are notoriously closed-lipped about the algorithms used to determine search results. SEO is the science of deconstructing the algorithms used by search engines like Google through trial, error, observation and deduction.

What have the SEO experts come up with? For our purposes, here are some simple tips to keep in mind:

• Keywords are those words which you think your audience would use to find your blog learn more about blogs at myvu.com . A keyword can be a single word or a phrase, but it should be directly related to your content and likely to be used in a query. Keywords are best used in titles, URLs and headings.
• Google is known to show synonym results. An example of this is searching for “local carryout” and getting results for “local takeout” as well. In addition to using keywords in your blog, think of synonyms and sprinkle those naturally within the content.
• Backlinking is when someone references and links another online source in their article. It is thought that pages with more backlinks to them (references from other trusted sources) rank better on search engine results. For this reason, it’s important for you to be backlinked in 3^rd party content, just as it’s important for you to backlink to quality content within your own articles. This is also a great passive networking tool.
• Very simply, write relevant, original content that adds something new. Merely rephrasing content that readers can get anywhere won’t move you up very far in search results. Perform hard research to develop engaging opinions or share new information.

The Basics of Growth Hacking

Similar to traditional marketing, the growth hacking approach focuses on building a fan base and converting those fans into increased sales. It can refer to retail, B2B and even to bloggers, who depend on a steady and growing stream of fans and followers to put dinner on the table. Growth hackers use a lot of statistics and tricks to boost growth, but here are the basics:

• Define your goals and simple and realistic terms. Will it be 50 more site visits a week, or 200 more views of a certain post? Maybe you’re interested in converting more readers to social media followers or email subscribers. Whatever your goals are, set them early and make a plan.
• Make it impossible to miss your share buttons. Have them available on all your posts and in all your emails.
• A/B test your pages constantly to find the right balance for your audience.
• Reach out to your audience for feedback, and identify serial sharers within your subscription base to identify possible lead funnels.

If your blog isn’t drawing the sort of attention you know it deserves, don’t keep trying the same thing over and over! Tweek your pages, the placement of share buttons and subscription form. Test different headlines and even different content if you’re not sure what’s holding you back.