How to Grow Your Blog and Increase Traffic: 9 Ways That Work

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how to grow your blog

In 2018, there were over 505 million blogs on the internet. And the number of active bloggers is projected to exceed 31 million by 2020.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of competition out there. So, how do you attract more people to read what you have to say if you’re a budding blogger? If you’re wondering how to grow your blog and get a bigger audience, then keep reading.

We’ll give you 9 ways that work!

1. Keep It Short

On average, readers spend only 37 seconds reading a blog post. While a long blog post can certainly be engaging and interesting, it’s rare visitors will spend more than a few minutes on your site.

In addition, almost half of all readers skim through these posts instead of reading them completely.

Writing a post can take up a lot of time, and you want to be sure people actually read them. So do yourself a favor and choose short-form over long-form content.

2. Put Thought Into Your Headlines

Your headlines might be just a few words, but they’re the most important ones in your blog posts. If they’re not interesting enough, then your audience won’t even click through to read your actual text.

Don’t just slap together any headline you think of. Make it intriguing (ask them a question they’re curious to know the answer to) or use a list in your title (people love lists)!

3. Make Sure Formatting Is Done Correctly

You might have great content, but if your WordPress site’s formatting isn’t correctly done, this will turn off your readers immediately.

Make sure you not only install WordPress themes but also learn to use them. Not only will this make your blog look nice across all devices, but it’ll also give your site a personal touch that readers will recognize instantly whenever they’re on it.

4. Leave Thoughtful Insights on Other Blogs

If you make your presence known on other blogs (especially bigger ones), you might get noticed by readers, which can gain you additional traffic. It’s a great way to engage with audiences and have personal interactions.

However, don’t just visit every blog and leave comments one sentence long. This can come off as spammy and it’ll be obvious you’re trying to get exposure for your own blog.

Make sure to be selective about what comments you leave and that they add value to the post.

5. Blog Regularly

We know—it’s tough juggling your personal life, job, and a blog all at the same time. Sometimes, you might have time to write 5 blogs at once, and at others, you might only have time to write 1 post a month.

However, you want to be consistent in posting. Once your audience gets a taste of what you have to offer, you don’t want to leave them hanging; they may lose interest in your blog.

When you have more time, write up all your blog posts and schedule them; most blog sites should have the option of scheduling posts to be published at a later date.

That way, even if you’re not actively writing for a while, it’ll appear you are when a new blog post goes up every week.

6. Promote Your Blog Through Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool that’s free to use, so why not take advantage of it?

Whenever you write a new post, share it on your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. If you’re on LinkedIn and your post is professionally relevant, share it there too.

And don’t be afraid to share old posts as well. Some people may have missed it the first time around and will appreciate seeing them at a later date.

7. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of using strategic keywords throughout your site to boost its ranking on search engines.

For example, if you’re writing about cooking, you might want to focus a piece on the keyword “kitchen knives.” But you can’t just stuff your content with this keyword, as search engines will actually penalize you for doing so.

Instead, sprinkle it throughout naturally. You’ll also want to use it in your headline, meta title, meta description, and alt image tags for your graphics.

8. Write Guest Posts

Another way to grow your traffic is to “borrow” other people’s audiences. You can reach out to bigger bloggers to see if they’d post something you wrote on their blog.

Work out a mutually beneficial relationship by allowing them to write a guest post for your blog as well. By combining forces, you’ll be able to help one another reach more people.

9. Make Use of Helpful External Links

You might be afraid of using external links since they take visitors off your page. You don’t want that, right?

But not using external links actually hurts your blog site. If you throw in a few useful links for your readers, you’ll benefit in several ways.

Firstly, you’ll build your reputation as someone who knows their stuff and is helpful. Secondly, search engine algorithms will work in your favor if you link to reputable sites.

And lastly, those sites just might return the favor. If they see you linking to them, they might start pointing their readers in your direction too.

Knowing How to Grow Your Blog Successfully is Important

By knowing how to grow your blog, you’re sure to gain the audience you’ve been searching for. Some of our tips will work better for some than others, so you have to experiment and see what works best for you.

The most important thing about growing your blog is being open to new ideas and testing them. If you don’t constantly tweak your strategies, then your blog might stagnate and you won’t have many readers.

So get to employing these tips, and don’t forget to test and learn!

If your blog’s on WordPress, then learn some tips and tricks by checking out our articles.