Running a blog can be a lot of work, particularly if you’re trying to boost your online user base.
Getting more traffic is essential because you can leverage that traffic for revenue. Whether you use sponsors, affiliate marketing links, or sell products yourself, having a high number of site visitors ensures that you can keep your blog running and up-to-date.
So, with that in mind, let’s look at how you can use SEO techniques to increase your web traffic.
These techniques are straightforward, and they can yield some incredible results.
Let’s get started.
1. Use Reddit and Social Media for Keyword Research
The first step of any SEO strategy is coming up with keywords related to your blog.
For example, if you’re writing about content marketing, keywords examples can include:
And so on. However, there may be a disconnect between keywords you come up with and those your audience uses.
So, if you’re optimizing for keywords that don’t get a lot of search traffic, you won’t get as many visitors.
Fortunately, you can scour websites like Reddit and other social media platforms to see specifically what people are talking about.
This tactic is especially valuable for long-tail keywords.
You can use your current keyword list to find groups and then search for posts within those categories.
Sometimes, you might be able to discover brand new keywords that you wouldn’t have considered otherwise.
2. Develop Captivating Content
One crucial element of Google’s ranking algorithm is the amount of time users spend on your blog.
So, the higher your bounce rate, the lower your ranking.
To improve your bounce rate, you need to make sure that your content is captivating and relevant as soon as users look at your page.
Here are some tactics to ensure that users stay on your page longer:
Don’t have a meandering opening paragraph that takes forever to tell you what the article is about. Hit the ground running and make sure readers know what to expect.
Break up your text with images, headings, sub-headings, bullet points, and more. The easier it is to scan, the more likely that users will stick around to read your blog.
When utilizing photos and graphics, make sure they’re relevant and targeted. Generic stock photography is better than nothing, but it might not illustrate the core premise of the blog post. Also, don’t forget to use keywords in your alt tags.
3. Look at Existing Adwords Ads
Google Adwords is an excellent platform for reaching new customers and gaining web traffic.
Instead of developing an ad and running it through A/B testing, you can simply look at current ads for your keywords.
Since these ads have already been optimized, you can see which elements work best and develop yours accordingly.
Understanding these components can also help you optimize your blog content design.
4. Reformat and Boost Existing Blog Content
One of the challenges of running a successful blog is the pressure to develop new and improved content all the time.
However, you can get more mileage out of your existing posts by re-running and re-promoting them later.
You may also have to reformat your old posts for SEO purposes. Reformatting can include adding content, updating your keywords, or changing the layout and page flow.
If you are updating the material with new information, highlight that when promoting the piece.
This way, even long-term fans of your blog will want to see what details have been added, thus driving more traffic back to your site.
5. Look at Competing High Traffic Blogs
Just as you can pay attention to Adwords for formatting and design elements, you can look at your competitor’s blogs to see what they’re doing right (and wrong).
Scrutinize their page content and see which aspects you can use for your blog.
An excellent way to find high traffic blogs is to see which links rank highest for keyword searches.
You can also use third-party analytics sites like SEMrush to see the number of visitors coming to a competing blog.
6. Optimize Your Pages for Google’s Core Web Vitals
Google launched Core Web Vitals in 2020, which focuses on the quality and usability of a website.
Since this update is so new, your blog may not be optimized for it yet.
There are three elements to this update, including:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Google pays attention to how long it takes to load the largest piece of content (i.e., text or image). Ideally, it should be less than 2.5 seconds.
This piece looks at the delay between clicking a link or button and something happening. Your FID score should be less than 100 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
If your content layout shifts while a user scrolls through, you’ll get hit.
A free web vitals report will tell you what needs fixing and how to do it.
You need to optimize all your pages for your site to rank as highly as possible, yielding more traffic.
7. Audit Your Site and Archived Blog Posts
SEO is an ongoing strategy, so you need to make sure that your blog is always up-to-date.
Your old blog posts may not be optimized, so you should audit them to ensure that they follow basic technical procedures.
Examples can include:
- Meta Titles
- Alt Tags
- Title Tags
- Meta Descriptions
- Anchor Text
- URLs
In many cases, fixing these minor issues can deliver substantial results for your SERP ranking, driving up your traffic.
SEO requires a lot of time and effort to get it right
But, in the end, it does work.
Remember to always write pleasing both search engines and humans, and soon enough you will see your blog’s traffic spiking.
If you want extra help doing that, here’s a tip.
Read our complete guide on Search Engine Optimization and find out the easiest ways to reach top Google results!
