“My Blog Traffic is Not Increasing” – Here’s What To Do

“Struggling to grow my audience and website traffic.

I have a new site; I started the first week of January (2020). I promote organically and paid through Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Organic promotion through Twitter. I use Medium, Blog Lovin as well. I have an SEO program but I heard that Google keeps new sites off until after 6 months.

I recently started posting on Quora too. Not really sure what I’m missing. 3 to 4 posts a week. Emails to subscribers…”

Question by Shana Seigler


Lol, it hasn’t even been 50 days. It’s going to take some time.

In fact, it will take about a year or more till you see the result that you want to see.

So, having patience is really the most important thing here as a blogger.

Have patience and be consistent. My blog Spell Out Marketing picked up only after 18-20 months.

You’re already doing a lot of things to get traffic. And that’s great.

How to increase blog traffic

You Can Rank On Google “Quickly”

Foremost, “Google keeps new sites off until after 6 months” is NOT true.

You can have your site rank on SERP in as less as a couple of weeks.

It comes down to your SEO strategy.

There are two ways to go about ranking higher on Google SERP:

ONE: Pick relevant topics, do content gap analysis, and then create blog posts that are better than those ranking high already.
TWO: Do keyword research. Pick long-tail, less-competitive keywords. And then create content around that. (Use Ubersuggest or SEMrush to research on keywords-cum-topics)

Of course, even if the content is killer, it won’t automatically rank higher within days.

There are many dynamics to it, right from backlinks to DA to internal link building.

So, while it’s not easy to rank on the first Google page “quickly”, it is very much possible no matter how new your site is.

A Thing About Boosting a Post on Facebook

If you’re boosting Posts on Facebook to drive traffic to your blog, you won’t necessarily see much of a result.

Not that it’s not possible but I have personally seen Facebook ads are much better for lead generation and not to drive direct traffic to blog.

Besides, such traffic to the website doesn’t make much sense – unless you have a solid conversion strategy that leads to financial ROI.

Because people will see your ads, click, consume content on the landing page, and many of them will leave without giving you their email. They might not even remember the name of your website.

Moreover, many of them would see your ad and NOT click on it. So, your boosted post will have high reach but poor engagement.

Instagram, Quora, Emails

Instagram is good for (personal) brand building whose result you’re going to see in the long-run.

Posting on Quora, too, won’t bring you direct traffic. It’s for personal brand building, provided you’re leaving thoughtful answers. You will see the result in the long run.

About Email marketing, go hard at it.

Have multiple opt-in forms on your site. Have a good lead magnet. And let your visitors know that you want their email address.

Recommended Read: An Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing (Beginners + Advanced)

Talking about Medium, I highly implore you to read this article on Spell Out Marketing – Insider: Where to Position Medium in Your Sales Funnel?

Here Are 10 Things You Should Do

All said, here are 10 things you should do to increase your blog traffic:

  1. Know the exact audience base or segment that you want to target and focus on at the beginning.
  2. Focus on evergreen topics in your niche and create optimized, highly-resourceful content. Do keyword research and content gap analysis to have a better outcome. (It’s going to take some time of course.)Recommended Read: What is a Pillar Content (And How It Can Increase Your Traffic)
  3. Create as much content as humanly possible on all the major – and relevant – channels. (Blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Quora, Medium, more.)Recommended Read: How to Create Content Fast (Without Hurting its Quality)
  4. Build an email list and keep the subscribers engaged through non-promotional emails.
  5. Focus on your brand name and push it prominently across your website. (In the top bar, footer, in blog posts.)So, the visitors know which site they are on. This helps in brand recall.
  6. Talk to industry-people on social media. Ace your networking game.
  7. Consistently make changes to your site to improve its UX dynamics.
  8. Check out your successful competitors and learn from what they are doing.
  9. Work hard to have visitors stay on your site for as long as possible. (Through anchor texts, “Recommended Read” and other tactics.)The more time they are on your blog, the higher the chances of them giving you their email. Besides, higher engagement is the cornerstone of organic brand building.

    Recommended Read: 19 Practical Steps to Reduce Your Site’s Bounce Rate

  10. Have a lot of patience. Literally. It will take many more months, if not years, before you see an interesting and desired result. In the end, all the hard work will be worth it.Recommended Read: A Letter to Patience

Conclusion

While you should know what you ought to be doing to increase blog traffic, at the same time, you must know what you should NOT be doing.

There are too many things you can do. Since you’re only one person, you must prioritize. And then re-shuffle that priority list regularly based on the results you’re seeing.

Trying to focus on everything is a bad idea.

Not every method or channel would bring you the same rewards.

You should focus on those that are more beneficial to you and care less about those that are bringing you less return.

Time management is key.

Also, remember…

There are tens of sources of traffic generation. You only need a couple to work for you.

I hope this answer helps.

Recommended Read: 15 Things That Will (Silently) Destroy Your Blog

Happy Blogging! 🙂

Asif Ali

The guy behind Spell Out Marketing. A certified content marketer and professional blogger with 5+ years experience in the domain. Find me on Medium here. Let's talk about inbound marketing, business and side-hustle on Twitter. (And oh, if you're on LinkedIn, let's connect!)