31 Simple Ways To Get Traffic To Your New Blog

Did you know that there are some simple, yet effective ways to get traffic to your new blog?

I know…

For a new blogger, this seems like a huge mountain to climb. But, it doesn’t have to be.

By using some simple strategies, you can increase your blog traffic significantly over time.

The best part? All of these tips are free (except for one!), and most are non-tech (except for one or two!).

So let’s dive in and start to get traffic to your blog!

Part 1: Content Creation

Content is the heart of your blog. With the right strategies, there are many ways to get traffic to your blog with your content.

#1: Have a Core Niche

First, we want to start on a strong foundation.

In the blogging world, the word “niche” is referring to the main topic or focus of your blog.

In other words, all your blog posts you create will be centered around this core niche.

When your blog has a core niche, you will get more targetted traffic to your blog.

Why?

Because, with time, Google knows what your blog is about.

And more importantly, your audience knows what your blog is about.

With every blog post you publish, you gradually establish authority in your niche.

And that means you will attract a more targeted audience who are looking for the type of content you write. These are the readers who are more likely to come back to your blog, subscribe to your email newsletter, and buy your products.

So How To Establish Your Core Niche?

The best way to start is by finding a topic you are passionate about and are willing to write about it for years to come.

From there, create and optimize your blog content to appeal to your target audience and help them solve their problems in your core niche.

#2: Write Helpful Content

Content is king.

And nothing beats thought-through, well-written, and educational helpful content.

When your content is truly helpful to your readers, you will attract your tribe who keeps coming back to your blog. You will also get more shares and comments on your posts.

But, is it okay if you don’t always write helpful content?

Yes, of course. Not every piece of content needs to be educational. But, your entire blog shouldn’t all be inspirational. Writing helpful educational content in your core niche should be the main focus of your blog.

#3: Write Long-Form Content

Buzzsumo analyzed 100 million articles and found content between 3,000-10,000 words to be the most shared on social media.

Image Source: OKDork

So writing long-form content is a way to increase your chance of having your post being shared and is a great way to get traffic to your blog.

Now, of course, I’m not talking about writing fluff just to make up the words.

I’m talking about writing quality content that is long-form.

Does Every Post Have To Be Long-Form?

No, not necessary.

If your niche doesn’t allow it, say a DIY craft or food niche, then shorter content with lots of images do best.

However, if your niche is more educational and business-related, then having those long-form cornerstone content or pillar posts on your blog will set a great foundation for driving traffic in the long run.

#4: Write Attention-Grabbing Headline

“On average, 5X as many people read the headline as read the body copy.” – David Ogilvy

No matter how correct this average is today, one thing we can be sure of is that headlines do matter.

Having an attention-grabbing headline will get more people to read your blog.

One of the most popular and attention-grabbing posts are list posts. Here are a few examples:

15 Simple Ways to Spread Kindness in Your World Starting Today (Positivity Blog)
32 Legitimate Ways to Make Money at Home (The Penny Hoarder)
31 Stupidly Easy Make Ahead Freezer Meals for Moms with Toddlers (Smart Mom Ideas)

And as a new blogger, list posts should be one of the blog posts you write on your new blog.

People love list posts, and they love large list posts. People like to save them and come back to it again and again.

Use attention-grabbing words on your title, such as:

Simple
Easy
Stupidly
Life-saving tips

These words tend to grab attention and help to drive traffic to your blog.

Need more help? Co-Schedule Headline Analyzer is a free tool that can help you to create better and more engaging headlines and help you to attract more readers to your blog.

#5: Make Your Content Scannable

If your content is difficult to read, people will leave your blog quickly and they won’t want to come back!

Have you visited blogs and you left quickly just because their content is so hard to read?

I know I have.

So, you want to make it easy for your readers by making your content easily scannable.

How To Make Your Content Scannable?

To make your content easy to read for your readers, do these:

Choose fonts that are easy to read
Leave the big words in the dictionary! You want to use everyday normal language.
Use proper H1, H2, H3 headers
Use bold, underline and italic for your text as appropriate
Have enough white space, so people can rest their eyes
Add relevant images and infographics to break up text and support your info
Use shorter sentences
Have shorter paragraphs (maximum 5 – 6 sentences)
Use bullet points (like this!)

#6: Add Visuals To Your Content

Adding relevant visual contents (such as infographic, images, video, charts, graphs, tables) not only help your readers to understand your material, they will also get you more shares, earn you more likes, and ultimately get you more traffic.

Some Interesting Facts

Here are some interesting facts according to HubSpot:

32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their business, with blogging in second (27%). (Social Media Examiner)
When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (Brain Rules)
11% more B2C marketers than B2B marketers say visual content is the most important type of content today. (Social Media Examiner)
Infographics have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers in the last four years — now at 65%. (Content Marketing Institute)

How To Create Visuals For Your Blog

There are many ways you can create visuals for your blog.

For example, you can use PowerPoint to create graphs, charts and tables.

You can use your phone or a camera to record videos. Or if you prefer to record your laptop screen, then you can use software such as QuickTime App (Mac) and Camtasia (Windows).

To create infographics and images, you can use an amazing free tool called Canva.

Below is an infographic I have created using Canva. It only took me about 15 minutes to create it and it helps my readers to understand the concept more easily.

#7: Add Internal Links

When you add relevant internal links to your blog, you make it easier for people to find your best content. They will have a better experience on your blog and will stay on your blog longer.

Plus, having internal links also make search engines to index your content more easily.

However, don’t link posts just for the sake of linking. You want to make sure that what you’re linking to are relevant. Otherwise, you’ll confuse your readers.

Quick Tips On Internal Linking

If you are a new blogger, below are a few tips to help you quickly create content that can be linkable.

Have a well-defined niche. We mentioned this earlier, but having a well-defined niche is really that important. It will help you to stay focused on your topics when you create content. This in turn, can create more opportunities for internal linking.
Keep an eye out for linking opportunities. When creating content, look out for opportunities to naturally link up your posts.
Add “You May Also Like” or “Related Read” in your posts. Bring awareness to your readers on your relevant posts by adding in “You May Also Like” and “Related read” in all of your posts.
Make your links pop. Make sure that your readers can easily see your links by using a color that pops or having an underline on the link. If they don‘t see the links, they won’t click on them.
Add links to older posts. Often we remember to add internal links to our new posts. But updating your old posts and linking them to relevant newer posts can also help to improve user experience.
Add links to your popular posts. Your Google Analytics will tell you which are your most popular posts. They are the ones that are most read and driving the most traffic. So make sure you inter-link your new posts to your popular posts. This will help to give some “SEO juice” to your brand new blog posts and drive more traffic.

#8: Link To Others – Outbound Links

I used to worry about linking my content to other blogs. Thinking that my audience will leave and never come back.

Boy! Was I wrong!

As it turns out, linking your blog to other people‘s blogs is a powerful strategy to help your blog’s authority.

If your blog is new, Google has no idea what your blog is about and it needs to learn what it is all about.

It uses signals like outbound links to help determine what your niche is and decide if you are a trusted source of content.

So, it’s best to link to other bloggers’ popular content that’s related to your niche.

Again, you are strengthening YOUR blog’s trust and authority by linking to other sources in your niche.

#9: Blog Consistently

Nothing attracts more readers than an amazing blog with lots of rich, relevant and helpful content.

Plus, when you blog consistently, over time, search engines also will know that you are a serious blogger in your niche, and more likely to rank your posts higher, getting more traffic to your blog.

A Special Note To My New Bloggers

If you are a new blogger, I know sometimes the idea of creating hundreds of posts on your blog can be overwhelming.

Just remember that Rome wasn’t built in one day.

Take a baby step and keep taking the next baby step.

When you create amazing content consistently on your blog, your readers will notice and keep coming back for more.

So, the rule of blogging is – if you’re new, you have to create content more often than if you’ve been blogging for a while.

As a new blogger, try to create new blog posts every week. Find a schedule that works for you.

If that means once a week, great, stick with it. If you can manage 3 posts per week or post every day, more power to you. Stay consistent.

This means carving out dedicated time and using that time for blog writing.

However, don’t rush out mediocre content just to meet a blogging timeline.

If you found yourself doing that, it’s time to adjust your blogging schedule to make things more manageable.

You can do this!

#10: Encourage Your Readers To Share Your Content

Ask!

Ask and you shall receive.

I mean seriously, always ask your readers to please share your content if they’ve enjoyed it.

Now, not everyone will share, of course. But if you ask, you will likely get more shares than if you don’t ask at all.

Make It Easy For Your Readers To Share

Make your posts easily sharable by adding social sharing icons.

For my site, you can see that I have added social sharing icons on the side of my post and on the bottom of every post.

You can easily add social sharing icons using plugins such as Grow by Mediavine (used to be called “Social Pug”), Social Warfare, Shareaholic.

#11: Monitor Trends & Write Newsworthy Content

Do you notice a trend in your niche?

If so, writing content on that topic can help you gain more traffic to your blog.

Want to know more about how to write trendy topics for your niche? Check out this article.

#12: Optimize Your Posts for SEO

One of the best ways to get long-term organic (free!) traffic to your blog is to optimize your posts for SEO.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the process of optimizing your website to get free, organic traffic from search engine results.

There are a few search engines in the World, but Google is by far the most commonly used. Other search engines include Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, and a few others.

SEO can seem complicated and overwhelming. So, I have summarized a few key tips here:

Download Yoast SEO Plugin
Narrow your blog niche
Write high quality and scannable content
Use keywords
Include internal links
Improve Site Speed
Create a site map

For more info, check out this post for 7 Stupid Simple SEO Tips for New Bloggers.

#13: Mention Influencers In Your Posts and let Them Know You’ve Mentioned Them

When you’re new to blogging, you’re starting from scratch. However, there are bloggers in your niche who already have influence.

So what can you do?

When you write your next blog post, consider linking to relevant and complementary posts written by influencers in your niche.

People love to share stuff that makes them look great. So, when you say great things about them in a post, there is a chance that they may share that with their audience. Of course, not always, but sometimes.

You can contact the influencers on the platform they’re most active with. This could be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Otherwise, you should be able to find their email on their website too.

Part 2: Your Blog’s Design

OK, we’ve covered many different ways to get traffic to your blog with content creation.

Now, let’s look at how having a great blog’s design can also be a good way to get traffic to your blog.

#14: Design a Pretty Blog

Design matters.

When you have an aesthetically pleasing blog, people are more likely to come back often.

Plus, with so many blogs online, you want to take care of your blog’s aesthetic so that it represents YOU, attract your audience and stands out from your competition.

(And, you’ll likely be more motivated looking at a pretty blog than an ugly one. Just sayin’)

WORDPRESS THEMES

The good news is that it’s actually simple to have a beautiful blog!

You don’t need to be tech savvy or be a designer to make this happen. That’s where WordPress THEMES come in.

Themes are pre-made professional looking templates you can use on your blog to make it look pretty and professional in just minutes.

There are many free themes available. But if you’re real determined and you want to create a particular look and feel for your blog, you can check out premium themes. Premium themes typically start from US$40+.

If you‘re curious, I bought my theme here. I really love it! It’s a premium theme, so I did pay for it.

But I’d say it’s well worth my money and the support from the theme designer Louise is really top notch. If you’re interested, sign up HERE to get a 10% off coupon before you purchase.

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#15: Remove Distractions on Your Blog

A big part of traffic generation is keeping the traffic you have, so ask yourself this question – “are there any elements on my blog that I don’t need?”

Is your sidebar too busy or cluttering or confusing? Is your blog easy to navigate for your readers?

Everything on your blog should have a purpose that is focused around helping you achieve your goals.

If they distract your readers, remove them.

#16: Make Sure Your Blog is Mobile Friendly

The days when internet browsing was done exclusively on desktop computers are long gone.

Today, more people are browsing the internet via their smart phones.

So if your blog cannot be viewed easily on smart phones, you’re missing out on a lot of potential traffic.

When you select a blog theme, look for the word “responsive theme”.

If the theme is responsive, that means it was designed to automatically adjusts its size, images and features according to your reader’s screen size and orientation. This is what you want.

How To Make Sure That Your Blog Is Mobile-Friendly?

You can easily check your mobile-friendliness via a free tool called Google Mobile-Friendly Test.

#17: Make Sure Your Site Loads Fast

Imagine you have your blog beautifully done…

BUT, each time your reader clicks on a link, it takes 21 seconds for the page to come up. Guess what, you will lose your readers!

People are impatient these days and in many cases, they will simply click back and visit some other blogs if you make them wait too long!

SIMPLE WAYS TO CHECK YOUR SITE SPEED

To check how quickly your site loads, you can use free websites such as GTmetrix, Pingdom, or Google Pagespeed Insights. Personally, I like using GT Metrix the most.

Simply put in your website URL on the above websites. They will analyze your site speed and provide a detailed report.

Aim for under 3 seconds.

If your site runs slowly, what should you do?

Great question!

Image Source (below): Lead Pages

A FEW QUICK WAYS TO IMPROVE SITE SPEED

Site speed improvements can get pretty techie. But below are a few quick fixes:

Remove unnecessary plugins. Plugins can add functionalities to your site. However, having too many plugins can slow down your site.
Reduce image size. Optimize the images in your blog. For my site, I’m using ShortPixel Image Optimizer plugin to help automatically reduce my image size without affecting quality.
Install a Cache Plugin. Installing a cache plugin such as W3 Total Cache (free), WP Super Cache (free) or WP Rocket (premium) will help you increase your site speed.
Get rid of spam comments. Spam comments are super annoying and they slow down your site. There are many plugins on the market that can help you monitor and get rid of spam comments. The one I’m using is CleanTalk. It is the most affordable (only US$8/year) and effective one I can find on the market.
Choose the right web hosting. Not all web hosts are created equal (#truth). I know because I’ve found out the hard way. The web hosting I now recommend to my friends is SiteGround. SiteGround goes out of its way to build the best technology for the fastest site speed.

HIRE HELP

What if you don’t want to deal with any of these techie stuffs or you need further help?

I totally get it. This site speed stuff is overwhelming for me too.

If so, consider hiring help. It’s well worth your money! You really don’t want to mess with any coding or technical stuff yourself if you are a newbie.

If you are a beginner and don’t have much of a budget, I recommend you to work with Tasha.

Tasha’s packages start at only US$15 and she will help you to optimize your site speed.

I have worked with her before and she sorted out my site speed issues quickly. She was really helpful and professional, and responded to all my questions quickly too. I highly recommend Tasha!

Part 3: Telling The World

Wonderful! Now that we have created amazing content and have good blog’s design, we want to tell the world about our blog!

There are many ways to get traffic to your blog through social media and some good old-fashion strategies. Let’s dive in!

#18: Tell Your Friends & Family

If you are a new blogger, start with sharing your blog with your friends and family!

You’ve taken the time to start a blog, so be proud and share with the world!

Sometimes, your best supporters are your friends and family. Who knows, they may even share your blog with their friends too.

#19: Add Your Blog’s URL to Your Email Signature

One of the simplest ways to add awareness to your blog is to add your blog’s URL to your email signature.

So each time you send out an email, you increase the chance of someone visiting your blog.

#20: Go Social

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, there are so many new social platforms being added every year.

So how do you know where you should go?

The quick answer is: Go where your audience is hanging out.

If you are a new blogger, start by promoting your content on social network you’re already familiar with. That would be the easiest way to get you started (as blogging itself can already be overwhelming!)

And then gradually expand to other social networks as you gain more experience with blogging.

Test, test and test!

Over time, you’ll find that some platforms work better for you than the others.

Do more of what’s working and less of what’s not.

#21: Start an Email List

One of the best and most dependable ways to bring traffic to your blog is by starting an email list.

The algorithm of social networks can change frequently and social networks can come and go, but your email list is always yours.

So, do start your email list!

You can do so by using email service providers such as Mailerlite, Mailchimp, Aweber, or ConvertKit.

#22: Promote on Pinterest

Getting a new blog to rank on search engines can take some time, typically 6 months to a year, even with the right SEO strategies.

So, while it’s still smart to optimize your blog for SEO as early as possible, you should integrate other strategies to drive traffic to your blog in the meantime.

One of the most popular traffic strategies for new bloggers is by using Pinterest.

Many people think that Pinterest is a social media. But in fact, Pinterest is a search engine, just like Google.

Interesting Stats on Pinterest

300 million active users each month (as of April 2020)
84% use Pinterest when they’re trying to decide what to buy
98% have tried something new they found on Pinterest
77% have found a new brand or product

#23: Create Videos on YouTube

With more than 1.8 billion users every month on YouTube, it is a very powerful platform.

Creating videos for your content and linking them back to your blog can be a very effective way to attract new audiences to your blog.

Everyone has different learning styles.

Some prefer to read (so they prefer texts on a blog), some prefer to listen (so they prefer Podcasts), some prefers graphics (so infographics are awesome) and some prefer watching videos (so YouTube is perfect).

So by diversifying and including more median to your blog, you’ll attract more audience and engage them in more meaningful ways.

Part 4: Reaching Out & Collaborating

The more you help, the more you connect, the better you’ll do in the blogging world.

So in this session, we’ll talk about some reaching out and collaboration strategies. These are great ways to get traffic to your blog.

#24: Be Helpful on Facebook

Facebook is a great place to really get to know your target audience and help them.

When you are just starting out, join Facebook groups in your niche and observe what questions others are asking. If you know the answers, feel free to reply and provide your expertise.

When your blog grows, you can also start your own Facebook group and connect with and help your audience more intimately.

#25: Guest Posting

One of the most effective ways of getting traffic to your blog is by guest posting. In other words, writing guest posts in other blogs.

This strategy is effective because of several reasons:

Get in front of readers who may not know about you previously
Build relationship with other bloggers with similar audience or in your own niche
Help more people with your content
Establish authority in your niche
Likely you will get a backlink from the blog where you’re guest posting
You may be mentioned in the guest blog’s social media platforms for the article you contributed

This is a great long-term strategy for building your blog traffic.

#26: Invite Others To Guest Post On Your Blog

Similarly, you can also invite others to guest post on your blog.

This strategy is effective because of several reasons:

Your guest is helping you to create high-quality content for your blog
Provide relevant, useful content (which you may not be an expert in) to your audience
Build relationship with other bloggers with similar audience or in your own niche
Your blog may be mentioned in your guest’s social media platforms

As you can see, inviting others to guest post on your blog is also a great strategy to draw traffic to your blog and build relationship with other bloggers.

#27: Get on a Podcast

Podcast is a growing trend right now.

More and more bloggers are supplementing their blog content with a podcast.

And as a new blogger wanting to increase website traffic, getting on a podcast may be easier than guest posting and is another great way to drive traffic.

I’ve been on quite a number of Podcasts (see one below). And I find that the best ways to find guest podcast opportunities are via Facebook groups.

Join Facebook groups in your niche. Check your groups and pay attention to bloggers with a podcast. Reach out to them and ask if they need a guest for their show about a particular topic.

Podcasting is also a bump up from guest posting because a podcast can be streamed on other sites like Spotify or iTunes and increases your exposure to a new audience.

Other benefits of doing a podcast rather than a guest post are:

- Less overall effort – while a guest post can take the average blogger 10 hours to perfect, a podcast is no more than 1.5 to 2 hours with little preparation in advance
- It humanizes you – your audience will gain a new level of trust if they hear you talk and listen to you! You are truly authentic and helps build trust with your audience.
- You reach a new audience – many people prefer to listen rather than read so by being a guest on Podcast, you can reach new audiences.

#28: Make Yourself Heard in Comments Section

Chances are you already visit a few blogs within your niche on a regular basis, so why not join the conversation?

Commenting on other’s blog doesn’t necessarily provide an immediate boost to traffic to your blog right away, but making yourself heard by providing useful, insightful and thought-provoking comments on popular blogs can be a great way to get your name out.

If done right, this can drive more traffic to your blog over time.

As always, focus on being helpful. And don’t just drop spamming links on other blogs.

#29: Network With Other Bloggers

As a new blogger, one of the best ways to increase blog traffic is to connect and network with other bloggers in your niche.

Join Facebook groups in your niche and get to know other bloggers. Read their blogs and joined some of their email lists.

These actions help you to get to know other bloggers in your niche and over time you could reach out to them. The more you connect with others, the more you grow your network.

Over time, you will find opportunities that are not available else where.

Part 5: Additional Tips

Here are a few more additional ways to get traffic to your blog.

#30: Advertise

Yes, advertise.

If you have the budget, advertising could be one of the fastest and most targeted way to get in front of your audience.

Understand where your audience is hanging out at. If they’re on Facebook, advertise on Facebook. If they’re on YouTube, advertise on YouTube. Paid search with Google is another example.

#31: Update Old Blog Posts

Since you’re still new to blogging, you don’t have to worry about this just yet.

But this is such a simple and yet powerful strategy, so I want to at least put this at the back of your mind.

Hubspot calls this tactic a “lost tactic no one is talking about.”

It’s true, many bloggers focus on writing new content and often forgot that they already have a rich library of old content that can be optimized for more traffic.

This could be updating your old posts, adding new images, infographic, or video to the content, or simply creating a new pin to promote the content on Pinterest.

Get Traffic To Your Blog Today!

There ya go! 31 simple and effective ways to get traffic to your blog and help you make money blogging.

Now it’s your turn. What is your best tactic for growing your blog traffic? I would love to hear your tips. Please leave a comment below!