How to generate blog traffic? … is this a question that you ask yourself over and over? At least when you get ready to write the article of a lifetime? This article that is supposed to bring in loads of traffic to your blog or website. Then what happened? Nothing, right? So, let’s try to find out why and how to fix the problem …

You began with a passion – a little concept that kept you awake most of the night. Then, after racking your senses, you decided to put this thought into a project. Maybe after reading the famous book by Napoleon Hill “Think and Grow Rich“, that motivated you.

With your plan fresh in your mind, you decided to go ahead and to turn your passion into a reality. You got busy, you bought a domain name, registered for a web hosting, and looked for a stunning WordPress theme. And then, you created your very first website.

It was a good start …

You were about to do it, you listened to your instinct. Sparkling were your eyes; you could finally make a good shot and live the dream. But your plan was somehow damaged, since it did not generate traffic, the only trap blocking your path towards success.

Then, you almost panicked. However, you continued doing some research and discovered some new techniques, and learned how to generate blog traffic. But, the numbers were not there. What could you have done wrong?

And you began to doubt if at all you could transform your brand new blog into a productive blog without the essential ingredient of web traffic. You very quickly understood that this cannot be possible, then dismissed that thought.

Yet, you are not one that easily gives up, so you would not quit that early on, or ever. Maybe you didn’t have any other options, so giving up finally, was not actually an option.

But, don’t worry if it does not look like you, because a lot of that is in fact, my own story. If you relate to it, you will then understand …

How to generate blog traffic

Maybe you have landed right here because you decided to learn a few techniques on how to generate blog traffic for your lifeless WordPress blog.

Maybe you are here because you already have a few hits and would like to learn how you could have more traffic with your WordPress blog. Of course, you want more traffic, and you want it quickly.

Or, maybe you begun with a faulty plan and ended up here. Perhaps, you have not even created your blog yet. In this case you can learn how to create a blog in less than a minute.

No matter what brought you here, but today has to be your lucky day because you will learn just about everything you need to know to get more traffic to your WordPress blog or website.

So, let’s get started …

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

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I learned about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when I started to learn about Internet marketing. At the same time that I discovered WordPress, I learned the way of seducing the search engines in order to write and to optimize content.

Using my newly acquired SEO skills, I created content that ranked well in Google, bringing a lot of traffic to this WordPress blog of mine.

Google is my number one source of traffic.

This led me to my conclusion that SEO is the best method of attracting web traffic.

How?

First, for the benefit of the beginners, it’s important to say that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) implicates optimizing your articles (including your complete website or blog) to have it easily visible to be discovered by search engines like Google. That’s all.

The goal is to show up in the top ten spots in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Of course, the best would be to show up on the number one place. And, why not?

Then, secondly, SEO is split into two SEO groups called “On-Page” and “Off-Page“. The first involves all the SEO activities that you carry out yourself on your blog, and the latter includes all the SEO activities that are performed on third-party websites, for this reason these actions are called “On-Page” and “Off-Page“.

To generate additional traffic to your WordPress blog, you have to consider both sides. That is to say the SEO “On-Page” as well as the “Off-Page” aspects. But, what should you do technically?

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Search for keywords

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Insightful keyword research is the absolute base of a good SEO. When users experience an urgent problem, they visit their favorite search engine expecting to find a solution.

They punch in words and / or phrases into the search space, and if your article is optimized with these words, you are granted priority. What I’m saying is that if you’ve done your job very well, Google and some other search engines will show your work in the first place, and you will gain visitors to your website or blog.

If you look at it closely, you instantly understand that you need to anticipate which keywords or key phrases your prospects are using. So, this is where a serious keyword research becomes important.

Once you have established these keywords or key phrases, you will include them in your content to augment your chances of showing up first in the searches.

If you continue to publish optimized content and implement other suggested SEO methods, you will remain well positioned in the rankings, and you will have traffic for many days, months and even years to come.

But how can you approach this beast known as “Keyword Research”?

Where should you start? You can start experimenting with the well known tool “Google AdWords Keyword Planner”. It is quite accurate, but a bit complicated to master for a beginner. Or, you can try the most reliable free keyword research tool called Jaaxy.

Try it now ➸

Starting with a main keyword you wish to research, just drop it in the search box and you will be offered a number of keywords and phrases worth working on. It will return the search volume and get you other keyword ideas. This tool will only show you the information you really need, as opposed to loads of useless data that other keyword research tools do, just to impress you.

You will as well come across some great ideas for your future blog content while doing a keyword research, so there is a real reward.

With those newly discovered keywords, you are ready to create your optimized content that will show up in the search engines. The recommended keyword density to attain is 2.5%, which means that if your blog article is of 1,000 words, your keyword should naturally be included around 25 times.

There are different schools to this, but in any case, do not go beyond the 4.0% mark, otherwise Google might flag your work as spam.

Personally, I prefer to follow the recommendations of most experts …

That is, to make sure that you add your keyword in the title of your article or page, at the very beginning of your post, in at least one of your subtitles, and towards the end of your content.

Also, ascertain that your keyword or phrase is in the URL, so that the search engines can find it easily. Then, if you can, include a few keywords in your file names of your images and include the ALT attribute. And again, if you can, include your keyword in the ALT too.

Every article or page you post must have titles, tags, and meta-descriptions as the search engines use this information to decide how to rank your work. Even if you’ve never created an article on WordPress before, adding titles like h1, h2, h3 … h6 should not be difficult for you, as it is all in the visual editor.

On the other hand, adding meta to titles and descriptions (also known as metadata) is not so easy. But do not worry, you will optimize your articles and pages easily by using WordPress plugins or extensions for SEO such as WordPress SEO by Yoast or All In One SEO.

Make sure your blog is visible in search engines. For that, go to “Settings”, then “Reading”, and un-check “Ask search engines not to index this site”. If not done, all your SEO efforts will be wasted.

The Strategy with Internal Links

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As you might have noticed while reading this article so far, I have linked some phrases with other posts I have already written on this blog. By creating such links to your articles, you give an opportunity to your readers to discover more of your valuable posts.

If they only go through your present article and leave, you would record a high bounce rate and lose some SEO points, and therefore traffic. It is definitely right to believe that search engines love internal links.

While linking to other articles, you are most likely to have more of your posts read, and shared socially, or otherwise. When visitors share your posts, you increase your traffic and if this continues to happen, your traffic continues to grow.

Email Marketing

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Most experienced bloggers, and me included, affirm that one of their biggest source of traffic is their list of subscribers to their newsletter.

For this reason, you must encourage your visitors to sign up for your newsletter. Motivate them to do so by offering them a free guide, membership, eBook, etc.

Anything it needs to help you build your mailing list. Then, you must not stop there, offer them some good content via regular emailing and do not forget your blog.

Over time, your subscribers’ list will become a valuable source of traffic, and income.

Your email marketing activity will become a lot more fun and easier to work on if you have the correct tools and knowledgeable partners to assist you. WordPress, being an excellent platform to work with, which is vastly used by beginner and professional bloggers alike, there are two or three plugins that you can use to make your email marketing efforts work. But, you must be aware that the more plugins you download onto your WordPress blog, the slower it will become, and download speed is not only annoying to your visitors, but it is very much taken into account by Google when it comes to ranking.

You can use email marketing services, also known as autoresponders, like GetResponse, AWeber, MailChimp, etc. They usually integrate well with WordPress. I have used many of them throughout my online career, and I must say that my favorite mail service is AWeber by far, because of its ease of use and deliverability rating.

By all means, DO NOT use free or cheap autoresponders as you will be disappointed once you find out that a large number of your emails have not reached their intended recipients.

The Power of Social Networks

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You most likely know that it exists a very large number of social networking sites out there. These social platforms stimulate a huge volume of traffic. This is hot, and all you need to do is be part of it and claim your share of the market.

How to do that?

You should start by creating both a personal and a business account on some of the social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc., just to name the most important ones, and the MUST HAVES.

Your goal will be to share every single one of your articles and pages on these social networks. If you can find a lot of people who are willing to follow you on these platforms, then you have won half of the battle.

As you enter the world of social networking, your actions should be led by a general rule. Your aim should be to provide value at any time, and by all means …

DO NOT to spam people!

Speaking of which, WordPress comes with the great Jetpack plugin which has a module “publicize”. Once you have activated it, Publicize will share your articles to your readers on social networks automatically.

Unfortunately, although this plugin is a great one to have, by activating all of the Jetpack’s features it will significantly decrease the speed of your blog, leading to a greater bounce rate, which will eventually reduce your traffic. Be careful and activate only the functions you need, or select a plugin with less capabilities which will not reduce your website’s download speed.

But, sharing your articles on the social media sites is not enough. You have to go further and make it really easy for your readers to share your content also. Have you ever landed on a blog or website with no social sharing buttons at all? If yes, did you copy the link and shared it with your followers?

Sounds incredible right?

I know it’s irritating, as it shouldn’t be necessary to copy and paste the link, because the webmaster or blogger could easily install a social plugin. There are many plugins that allow you to have share buttons for social networks (SumoMe, Flare, Addthis, Shareolic, etc.). The one I am using on this blog is AddToAny. I like it because it is very discreet, I don’t like those that will follow the reader and keep attracting the attention away from the subject, rather annoying, to me. And remember what I have mentioned earlier, when selecting one that you like, make sure that it will not slow down your website too much.

If you produce great content and some of your fans or influential followers in turn share it on their social networks, and then another one and again another one, your post could very well go viral and return a load of traffic. This is what I call “Social Power”.

How to improve your blog’s speed

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Generating more traffic to your blog will prove to be useless if you cannot keep incoming visitors. If your visitors have a poor experience on your website or blog because of its slow downloading speed, they will remember you and will never come back, which will result in your numbers to drop like a stone, even if you bring in a lot of fresh visitors.

Being a webmaster, you should be focusing on two important numbers:

1. new visitors
2. and returning visitors

If a considerable portion of your readers keep coming back to your website or blog, then good for you, it means that you are doing the right things.

But …

If you get a lot of new visitors and your bounce rate is increasing or remains high, you have to adjust your strategy entirely. Because it is useless to have thousands of visitors and no-one ever clicks on your CTAs (Calls to Action). What I mean is, what is the use of attracting the whole planet, if they never return once they have left?

Improving your website’s speed can have a serious impact on your traffic and return rate. If your website downloads very quickly, your visitors will enjoy their experience and as the purchase is all about emotions, you will already have one foot in the door. You will not waste any traffic and more readers will be inclined to remain long enough on your site to be attracted to your CTA.

You can correctly measure your WordPress blog’s speed with tools like Google PageSpeed ​​Insights, Pingdom Tools and GTMetrix, to name a few. Any of the tools listed will give you a pretty good idea of your blog’s loading speed and will also offer suggestions to improve it.

Google will reward you in the rankings if you have a fast website, so yes, it’s a bonus for you!

Post good content on your blog regularly

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Regularly write good content on your blog and you will be loved by the search engines and appreciated by your readers.

To create good content, you need to make sure it is at least pleasant to read and definitely error free, for the sake of clarity. Badly written content, filled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors will drive away your readers. And, trust me, they will never come back.

A blog that regularly publishes good content seduces search engines, which means that more users will find you. And also, the regularity of your publications will create a certain loyalty among your visitors, which will make a huge difference to your traffic.

So review your articles prior to publishing them and abide by your writing schedule. Do not have a drafting schedule yet? You will find some useful plugins that will do a great job.

Guest Blogging

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Guest blogging or having a guest article featured on another blog can benefit you in several ways:

• This will get you more traffic on your blog
• It positions you as an authority
• If you are writing a guest article on blogs in your own niche, you will gain a wider audience
• You can make it an income source
• It might get you professional partners
• You will learn a lot from it
• It could get you discounts or gifts from your partners. Why not?
  etc.

Write guest articles to bring value, not just to gain back-links. As most experts suggest, the main goal in writing a guest article should be to deliver quality, the back-links that will come out of it, is only a reward for a job well done.

There are expert freelancers that you can find on Fiverr who will do an excellent job for you if you need it. Just go to Fiverr by clicking on this link ~~> search for Guest Bloggers.

If done properly, the guest blog will reward you with traffic for many years ahead. I can guarantee you.

Networking

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Internet has facilitated networking (creating and managing networks). You can count on, for example, Google Hangouts to network with other publishers located on other continents.

At the same time, it has put aside the human element, allowing networking more quickly, but with a lack of privacy, which sets strong relationships for those who do business.

Face-to-face interaction also contributes a lot in producing web traffic. Participate in some events and meet your readers in person. You can even go further and organize your own events, you will definitely witness a rise in traffic.

And, if there is some kind of media coverage, you can bank on getting even more success; just remember to speak about your blog or website somewhere.

Track your traffic

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Unless you do not have a blog or website, you must necessarily attract readers; even if you only have ten blog posts. Each blog with some suitable content will get some traffic.

Considering that you probably have a ton of items (or have planned to publish a ton), you have to attract some traffic. If you do background checks and study the traffic you are attracting, you can identify areas that need improvement.

Perhaps a particular type of article has better results than anything else. Perhaps, your traffic comes from a certain country and you are targeting a different location. Maybe you do not use the right keywords. Maybe this, maybe that; you understand?

You can only get more traffic by playing on your strengths and / or eliminating your weaknesses!

Study your traffic and make the necessary adjustments. If you do not know where to start, your stats screen on WordPress is a great place to start. You can also use tools like Google Analytics.

A beautiful design for your blog

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A design that hurts the eye will send your visitors away, because, well, who likes what is ugly? If nobody wants to stay on your blog because the design is dreadful, tell me my friend, how are you going to produce more traffic?

Choose a beautiful, unique and professional design that gets attention. That way, you will not have to struggle to get traffic. It’s as simple as that.

Make sure you have your “responsive” blog for mobile users. In case you do not know, mobile traffic is now surpassing desktop traffic.

Comment on other blogs

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Internet is built around the concept and philosophy of linking to resources to form a fabric of information that makes us benefit from everything.

By playing the lone wolf, you deprive yourself of the chance to discover unknown territories and develop yourself. When people leave comments on your blog, is it not cool? Don’t you want another person to find your blog post and leave a great comment?

Well, if you want more people to find your blog and leave comments, you have to show up on their blogs and also leave a comment.

It will not get you a lot of traffic but it is good karma. You will have opportunities to meet other people who are interested in the same things as you. Do your best to add value to the conversation, be nice … and do not spam!

When creating content on your blog, put links to relevant resources from other blogs. You will probably eventually get links back to your blog, especially if you are creating good content.

Want to give it a try?.. Write a useful comment at the bottom of this article, in the comments section. Thank you … and you won’t regret it, promised!

Organize contests

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Organizing contests is a good way to generate more traffic to your blog.

For example, if you have a special deal on WordPress themes, you can make people participate in the contest. By telling them to “like” the contest on a Facebook page or by sharing the Twitter link to friends.

You can even ask your readers to subscribe by leaving their email addresses.

The more the word is spread around, the more traffic you will have on your blog.

A bonus

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This article could go on and on, and last for an eternity. So let me write a few extra tips which I will develop in later articles:

• Stay in your niche to not confuse your readers.
• Systematically share your new content manually on the main social platforms.
• Anticipate in communities (like on Facebook or Google+) or forums in your domain.
• Reply to blog comments because your readers like that.
• Choose the right topics on your blog.
• And do not give up, creating traffic can take time, but the rewards will be enormous.

If you wish to learn more about starting your own online business from home, click on the banner below …

You might also like to read the below articles that I have selected for you:

• How To Create A Niche Website ?
• Where To Find Ideas To Write About In A Blog
• Why Is Self Motivation Important – Believe In Yourself

And remember that you can subscribe to my newsletter so that you will be instantly notified by email when a new article is made available for you to read. Just follow this link ~~> Subscribe to my Newsletter!

Thanks for reading

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I hope that this article will show you how to generate blog traffic. If you have any tips on the subject we would love to hear from you. And, if you have any questions, please use the box below and I will respond as soon as possible. If you enjoyed this article please share it socially and leave a comment below, I will highly appreciate it!

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