How to Boost Blog Traffic for Beginners: The Ultimate Guide
Reports show that blogs are one of the best marketing tools for businesses. They're also a great way to make passive income. But to reap the benefits, people need to find and read your articles. In this article, I'll share tips to boost blog traffic for beginners – or anyone who needs some guidance.
As an SEO copywriter, I’ve been writing blog articles for 5+ years to help my clients grow their businesses. In fact, I've written over a thousand blog posts. You’ll find many of my articles on page 1 of Google for keywords with high search traffic, like this one in the top spot on page 1:
an article I wrote & published for my client – at the top of page 1 for a keyword with a high search volume
10 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic – for Beginners or Anyone Looking to Grow Their Blog
Over the years, I’ve used various practices to ensure good organic search traffic for myself and my clients.
Here are my top tips for increasing blog traffic:
Identify and understand your audience
Share valuable content.
Write easy-to-read articles.
Implement an SEO strategy.
Optimize website speed.
Start an email newsletter.
Promote your articles on social media.
Be consistent.
Update your articles.
Use Google Search Console.
1. Identify and Understand Your Audience
Identifying and understanding your audience is one of the most essential tools for increasing blog traffic for beginners.
Surprisingly, some well-established businesses skip this. However, it makes sense why businesses often forget to put themselves in their audience’s shoes. After all, people running a business are busy!
Here’s what you need to ask yourself about your audience:
Who is my ideal customer or client? If you don’t know this, you can’t write for them.
What problems might this person be experiencing?
How can my product(s) or service(s) help solve these problems?
What blog topics would this person be interested in reading about?
Identify your target audience, so you can write specifically for them.
Once you know the answers to these questions, you’ll be impressed at how much easier it is to come up with blog post ideas and create content. Best of all, you’ll see that people actually want to read your blog articles because you're covering topics they're thinking about.
Social media is another awesome tool to help you understand your blog audience. Facebook Insights, for example, lets you see what topics your audience is interested in. Instagram analytics are similar. You can also use social media to create polls to learn more about your audience (what they want to read about, what problems they're trying to solve, etc.).
Related read: What is User Intent? A Beginner’s Guide
2. Share Valuable Content
Once you understand your target audience, you can create valuable content and increase your reach. Providing helpful information to your target audience is what turns readers into customers or clients.
One of my favorite pieces of blogging advice is: if it’s not valuable for the reader, leave it out.
Use these tips to help you write valuable articles:
Write on topics that help your reader solve a problem.
While you’re writing, ask yourself what the reader might want to learn next.
Share unique content. Specific examples and personal experiences are a great way to do this.
Also, share content you see in already-ranking articles because this means Google finds it helpful.
Include images and other graphics that add value.
3. Write Easy-to-Read Articles
Many people wonder if blogging is even worth it since people have short attention spans. However, people take time to read (or at least skim) what they’re interested in.
If you write easy-to-read articles, you encourage readers to stick around longer and consume your content.
To write blogs that are easy to read:
Include headers, lists, charts, and images.
Write short sentences and paragraphs. Stick to paragraphs with 1-3 short sentences.
Use Grammarly when editing for readability suggestions.
4. Implement an SEO Strategy
SEO (search engine optimization) is critical to understand when it comes to blog traffic for beginners. SEO is a set of techniques you can use to drive traffic to your blog.
When you use SEO, you show Google you have content to rank so that people searching the internet can find your articles.
SEO involves many aspects (here's a beginner's guide), but I'll give you a rundown on how you can optimize your blog articles for SEO.
Do keyword research. Use a tool like Keysearch (use code KSDISC for 20% off) to find keywords to target in your blog articles. Choose keywords with a high search volume (at least a few hundred) and a low competition score. I use Keysearch for every blog article I write.
Use your keyword appropriately. Use your keyword naturally in your content, including your title, headers, meta description, and alt text. Don’t overstuff your keyword because that looks spammy, which is a turn-off to Google and readers.
Include internal links. Incorporate relevant links in your blog content to other pages on your website to keep people on your site longer and boost your SEO.
Get backlinks to your site. Backlinks (links to your site from other websites) show Google that your content is valuable. You can get backlinks by sending HARO pitches and writing guest blog posts.
Connect your site to Google Search Console. You can track your analytics and see how your blog is doing on Google Search Console. This helps you better understand what's working and what isn't. You can also request that Google index your new article after publishing it.
Once you create and implement a routine for your SEO strategy, you’ll start seeing results. SEO isn’t a simple task because it’s time-consuming. But, it does become natural over time and is one of the best and most affordable ways to increase organic traffic.
5. Optimize Website Speed
A recent study shows a 0-4 second loading speed is ideal for conversion. In other words, if a user clicks on your blog and takes 5 seconds to load, they’ll likely bounce (or exit out).
You can use PageSpeed Insights to check your website speed and identify any issues.
Here are some ways you can stay on top of your loading speed:
Reduce image file sizes before adding them to your blog. TinyPNG is a free and easy-to-use tool for this.
Don’t include more than one video in an article.
Cache webpages.
Avoid unnecessary plugins.
6. Start an Email Newsletter
While SEO focuses on search engines to reach your target audience, an email newsletter is another way to share your blog content.
I avoided starting an email newsletter for so long because I thought it would be too much work. Don’t be like me!
An email newsletter is an excellent way to grow your audience and stay in touch with them.
When people visit your blog, it’s often the first and last time. They come across one of your articles on Google or social media, read it, and then move on. If you have an email newsletter, people can stay in the loop with you, your business, and your blog.
You can send out a newsletter as little or often as you’d like. Many people stick to a weekly or even monthly email schedule.
When you publish a new article, you can share a sample of it with your email list, and then link the entire article.
Tip: Get people onto your email list by creating a free resource for your audience. For example, a travel blogger might create a packing checklist, or a skincare brand might share a list of harmful ingredients to avoid. Canva makes it easy to create a freebie like this.
To create your email list, you can use Flodesk. Flodesk has easy-to-use customizable templates and allows you to create opt-in forms for your freebies to sign up for the newsletter. You can share the opt-in form on your website and in your blog articles.
You can use a platform like Flodesk for email marketing and to share your blog articles.
7. Promote Your Articles on Social Media
Blogs have a long end game, and it takes time to see results. A great way to boost your traffic is to promote your articles on social media. It’s okay to go ahead and start doing this, even if you don’t have a large social media following.
You can share links to your blog articles on your Instagram stories, Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter.
I prefer Pinterest most for marketing my blog. Some might consider this a social media platform, but it’s really another search engine. People on Pinterest are looking for long-form content to learn information, so they’re likely to click and read a blog.
Tip: Use Canva to create graphics to share on Pinterest.
I recommend picking one or two platforms to start with – Pinterest and another. Think about where your target audience spends most of their time and share your content there.
You can always increase the platforms you use over time, but again, this can be a lot to keep up with. And most of your time should be spent creating valuable content.
8. Be Consistent
Consistency is necessary for blog traffic. If you write an amazing blog article perfectly optimized for SEO every once in a while, Google isn't going to show you off.
Why? Because for Google to find your blog relevant and valuable, it wants to see consistent content.
I recommend creating a schedule for your blog and sticking to it. Plan ahead for the month or quarter ahead, then re-evaluate.
Consistency doesn’t have to mean daily or weekly articles. It could mean you publish an article bi-weekly or monthly. That said, I do suggest a new blog post 2-4 (or more) times per month to start getting traction.
Tips for staying consistent:
Include blogging into your schedule. If you prioritize your blog and treat it like a job, you’re more likely to stick to it.
Plan for the month ahead. At the end of each month or quarter, create a content calendar. Include the date to be published, the topic, and notes for what to include in that article. I do this in a Google spreadsheet.
Hire someone to help you. You may only have time to write one article a month or none. Or you might want to write the content but need help editing, optimizing for SEO, and publishing. You can hire someone to help you.
Check out my SEO blogging toolbox for a customizable content planning template (and other helpful blog resources).
9. Update Your Articles
Check analytics and update old blog posts.
Probably the most overlooked blog traffic tip is updating your articles. There are about 7 million blogs published PER DAY. This means high-ranking content is constantly changing.
Every few months, say every quarter, check your analytics and see which blogs aren’t getting good traffic. Then, search for the keywords you're targeting in those articles and see what the highest-ranking pages look like. Use this to help you adjust your articles.
For some articles, you might need to update your keyword. That said, I don't recommend doing this unless you have to.
When you update your articles, you'll often find that you've gained more knowledge since you wrote them, which allows you to add even more valuable content.
10. Use Google Search Console
Use Google Search Console to learn about your site and audience.
Google Search Console is an excellent free tool for keeping up with your blog.
You can use Google Search Console to:
See how your blogs are performing
Learn about your audience (their location, devices, etc.)
Find out about your user experience
Discover what people are searching for before your content shows up in search results
You can use this information as inspiration for future content and to determine how you can improve your website.
Blog Traffic for Beginners FAQ
To help you further understand how to boost blog traffic, we’ll answer a few common questions.
What is good traffic for a new blog?
There are many different opinions on what “good blog traffic” looks like. Numbers vary depending on your niche, time dedicated to your blog, and goals. That said, the goal should be to continuously increase your traffic for your new blog.
Is it hard to get blog traffic?
With more than 600 million blogs on the internet, there’s a lot of competition for blog traffic. However, if you consistently publish SEO-friendly blogs to reach your target audience, it’s not too hard to get blog traffic.
How long does it take to start getting traffic on blog?
Once you have 24 blog posts, your traffic can increase by 30%. So, if you post 1 article per week, you should have decent traffic within 6 months. If you want to see results sooner, you’ll need to publish more content.
Final Thoughts: Blog Traffic for Beginners
I hope these tips for how to boost blog traffic for beginners have been helpful to you. While a lot goes into writing articles and managing your blog, the effort is well worth it.
If you create valuable audience-focused content, implement an SEO strategy, promote your articles on social media, and be consistent, you’re sure to see great results!
Don’t forget that blogs don’t equal quick success. However, if you implement the blogging tips I’ve shared, you’ll start seeing results in a few months and have evergreen marketing to help you earn money while you sleep.
If you want to learn about writing SEO-friendly blogs with confidence, check out my SEO blogging course.
