What are the things you can do to grow your blog? As your
blog grows, it helps you make more money.
You don’t need a massive blog with millions of page views
and visitors to make money. You can make a good income with a small, niche site
as long as you’re adding value to your visitors.
My adoption website NRFA.org is a very tiny niche. It
doesn’t get much traffic at all, but it still churns out a nice profit each
month.
Yes, the more visitors you have, the more you can make. You
certainly want to do anything you can to drive more traffic to your site and
build your email list. The following are some of the top tips to grow your blog
traffic. You can explore each of these tips further as you continue on your blogging
journey.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the practice of writing your
blog posts so they rank higher in search engines. Its quite a science and way
too much to get into.
There are all kinds of books, courses, and websites
dedicated to search engine optimization. You can spend hours just learning the
basics.
Install the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin
The Yeast SEO plug-in is a free WordPress add-on that helps
you write blog posts that are search engine optimized. It’s installed on over 1
million blogs ? because it’s that good.
It’s an easy way to get started learning SEO. The plug-in
shows up right in WordPress below your post editor. It will give you
suggestions on what to fix for better SEO. Plus it gives you tips on improving
the Readability of your post.
Make a note that as you get further along in your writing ?
maybe a couple of months from now ? you revisit this topic.
Guest Post
Guest posting is where you write a blog article for someone
else’s website. There are two very important reasons for guest posting:
1. You can drive a ton of new traffic to your website
I guest posted an article on The Penny Hoarder and got 155
email subscribers in 48 hours, and 2,500 new page views.
I also guest posted on Ultimate Guitar and got one email
subscriber.
You never know what results you’ll get. But you do have to
try occasionally to find out.
2. To get links to your website
One of the factors in how high you rank in Google and other
search engines is how many high-quality websites link to your website. It’s
part of the secret sauce, and Google doesn’t tell us how important it is, but
it is important.
For example, Forbes is a very reputable website. Articles
published on Forbes.com are more likely to rank higher than articles published
on MyDogLikesToSleep.biz (or whatever). Google ranks Forbes articles higher in
search results (generally) because of Forbes? reputation.
If I can get quoted in Forbes or become a contributing
author on Forbes.com and the quote/article includes a link to
ScottAlanTurner.com, Google will see that link. My website posts get ranked
higher in Google because it?s associated with Forbes.com.
The fancy term for this strategy is called backlinking. The
more links you have from other reputable websites to your website, the higher
you will show up in search results.
The easiest way to get those backlinks is to guest post.
Make It Easy To Share Your Content
All of your blog posts should have buttons that allow your
readers to share your posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
etc.)
And it’s got to be easy!
Here are two tools I have used and recommend.
SumoMe
Another feature of the free SumoMe tool I mentioned in the
email list building lesson is the free sharing tools it includes. It’s free!
Social Warfare
Social Warfare is the sharing plug-in I currently use on my
website. I used SumoMe at one time and then I switched to Social Warfare. For
the life of me, I don’t recall why. I think Social Warfare had an email button
and SumoMe didn’t at the time.
You have to decide which features you want and then pick the
software that meets your goals.
Share Other Bloggers Content
If I re-tweet or re-post content from Money magazine, it has
zero benefits to me because Money magazine is a massive company that doesn’t
care who I am. If the article was good it does benefit my followers.
If I re-tweet or re-post content from a popular blogger ?
(Stefanie O’Connell for example) ? my readers and followers benefit because I’m
sharing valuable content from other people.
NOTE: I’ll get into this in the section on Helping Other
Bloggers, but be sincere in your help. If you only seek out to get something
out of someone else, you won’t form a relationship with that person. I’ve liked
Stephanie’s blog and content since I first saw it. She has an amazing story of
being broke in New York City, and she’s built this amazing personal finance
business in just a couple years. I help Stephanie because I like Stephanie, not
because I want or expect to get anything out of the relationship.
It’s not possible for you to cover every single aspect of
your topic. At some point, you have to share other peoples content. You’re
going to get sick or want to go on vacation and won’t be able to write. Where
will you turn? Other peoples content.
Link Your Posts Together
If you write ten different blog posts about different ways
to make a sandwich, make an effort to link between your posts if it’s relevant.
For example:
? You have
a blog post on making sourdough bread
? You then
write another blog post on making an amazing grilled cheese sandwich
If your grilled cheese sandwich uses sourdough bread, link
to your sourdough bread recipe.
There are two very important reasons for linking your posts
together:
1. It keeps
the reader on your site and makes it more likely they will read more of your
posts. The more they read, the more page views you get, which increases your
blog traffic.
2. Search
engines see posts that link to one another as better than a post that has no
internal linking. Your post will rank higher in search engines. Ten posts about
bread recipes that don’t link to one another aren’t as good in the eyes of
search engines as ten posts about bread recipes that do link to one another.
Don’t go crazy ? only link to other articles when it makes
sense.
Pin on Interest
Pinterest is one of the top traffic sources for many blogs.
When I sat through a Pinterest session at a recent conference, I was blown
away.
Bob over at Seedtime Personal Finance showed us how he was
using Pinterest to generate over 1,000,000 page views in a year to his website.
HUGE!
I’m no expert on Pinterest, nor do I want to be. I bought my
wife Katie a course on Pinterest, and she set everything up on my blog. I’m now
getting 1,500 visits a month to my blog from Pinterest.
While that’s much less than the 80,000/month Bob is getting,
that’s still 1,500 people a month I may never have reached. I could do much
better, but Pinterest is not a high priority for me.
Melissa over at Blog Clarity has the Pinterest course I
bought. It’s very inexpensive compared to how much time it would take you on
your own to seek out a bunch of free information on becoming a Pinterest
expert.
Help Other Bloggers
Are you more or less likely to help me because I’m giving
you all this great information for free?
You got that right ? you’re more likely to help me. That
help might come in the form of:
? Telling
people you know about my website
? Promoting
me on your social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
? Sharing
my content with others
? Linking
to my blog from your blog
? Giving
me a testimonial
? Referring
me to someone you might meet in the future, even if it’s a year from now
A rising tide lifts all boats.
Other bloggers? Even if they blog about the same topic ? are
not competition.
You wouldn’t believe how big the pie is, and there is plenty
for everyone.
You can try to go it alone and not help anyone. The result
will be it will take you 2-3 times longer to grow your blog. But if you
sincerely set out to help others, they will, in turn, help you.
Warning: : When I say be sincere, I mean it. People can
smell an insincere pitch a mile away. I was guilty of this when I first started
blogging. If you start out becoming friends with other bloggers first, sometime
in the future they will help you with your eBook launch, promoting your blog,
your course, giving you an introduction to someone ? whatever ? because you’re friends.
A few months after I started blogging I went to a podcasting
conference and ran into Philip Taylor (PT) of PTMoney.com. PT is a great guy.
He introduced me to a bunch of people in the personal finance space that had
been blogging and podcasting for years. He and I have become friends ? I’ve
even had him and his family over for dinner.
If PT ever asks me for help with anything, you can bet I
will say yes. Because friends do that for one another.
Always give more than you get.
Action Items
A bunch more great of ideas, right? Lets keep it simple.
1. Add social sharing buttons to your website
Hopefully, you?ve already added SumoMe to your website to
start collecting email addresses. If you haven’t ? go ahead and install it.
Add the free SumoMe Share tool so your visitors can share
your content with their friends, family, and others. The more people share your
site and content, the more viral traffic goes back to your site.
2. Identify one blogger you want to build a relationship
with
Start following them on social (Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Snapchat) and repost one piece of their content 1?2 times per week.
If you want to get gutsy, drop them an email just to say
hello and tell them why you like them. Sincerity wins.
3. Install the Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress
Once you get this free plugin installed, it will help guide
you in your writing of search-engine friendly blog posts.
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