Posted on: April 16, 2008
If you find your blog traffic levelling off, there are a number of things you can do to jump start your traffic. The first and foremost is to increase your post frequency and post on topics that are relevant to the theme of your blog. Based on my own experience here, I have seen the number of visitors increase when I post consistently. Otherwise, if you wait too long between posts, people may start to forget that your blog even exists. However, when you are working on increasing your post frequency, beware also of the pitfalls. Don't focus too much on quantity and compromise on the quality.
Sometimes short posts are fine if they convey a good message and provide resources for the readers. You don't have to pad your posts with words just to make it longer.
Another good way to increase traffic is to network with other bloggers. When you are referencing a source, be sure to leave a trackback so that the other blogger knows that you are giving them some link love. Don't be too stingy on linking to other bloggers who have something good to say. Doing this not only helps other bloggers, but more importantly, it helps your readers find other related posts where they can read more about the topic you're writing about. If your readers feel that you're genuinely there to educate and share, they will come back.
You should always be learning. Find out what works. Read up on good blogging practices.
If you have an email subscriber list, you can compile a short summary of your weekly posts and send them out to your readers. This is something which I've not been doing but I should. With the number of blogs out there, you have to rise above the noise and do EVERYTHING you can to capture your readers' attention.
Running out of blog post ideas?
Another thing you can do is supplement and add to the discussion. If you have a list of blogs that you regularly read like I do, you can pick out a few posts where you have more to contribute to the topic and write what you think about it. You can provide insights based on your own experiences and provide an extended list of resources. Then remember to provide a trackback to the original post. This way, the readers from those posts can also follow the trackbacks to your post.
Comb through your analytics
Check out the search terms that are bringing organic traffic to your blog. Then you can expand on the list and write more about those topics. Chances are when people are actively searching for a particular phrase, there's more about that topic that they want to hear about. For example, a while back when I was active in Google arbitrage, I noticed that there were a lot of searchers that landed here based on that term. So I wrote a few more posts on related terms like traffic arbitrage, AdWords arbitrage, PPC arbitrage and so on. You get the idea.
Participate in other blogs in your realm
Be an active participant in the ongoing conversation at other blogs. When people notice that you have something good to say, they will usually click on your name on the comment to find out more about your blog. This is also a good way to build relationships with other bloggers. They will appreciate that you add value to their blog by posting thoughtful comments.
Follow the news
Keep up with the latest ongoings in your niche market. For example, for this blog, I focus on internet marketers, SEOs and affiliate marketing. So it makes sense that I keep up on things and find out what the latest buzz is in these areas. When a popular new product hits the market, I can purchase it, use it and write a comprehensive review about it. How many times have you heard about a new product and went to Google to type “product name + review” to search for what people are saying about it?
When you are writing about a new product or some breaking news, you might just get ranked on the first page for that search term that a lot of people are searching for.
Write multipart posts
I've seen some bloggers do this. They'll title their blog post as “Some Topic: Part I” and break up their posts to spread them over a few days. The benefit of doing this is that people will expect Part II and Part III and come back to your blog to see if you have posted the continuing parts. This is the old cliffhanger trick that you see on TV. You come to the end of the show and it says, “to be continued...” so what do you do? Of course, you'll have to tune in the next week to find out what happened. When you're doing this with your blog post, you can place a teaser at the end to let your reader know what to expect the next time.
Hope that you've enjoyed these tips. :)
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