How To Reset WordPress Blog Traffic To Your Advantage

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Let’s face it. Traffic usually gets a bad rap. Bumper to bumper, slower than a slug, traffic. But put the word ‘Traffic’ in the context of your blog or website and the ears of every blog-crazed internet marketer will perk right up. Trying to increase WordPress blog traffic can be difficult, especially for the newbies. This is why articles like this exist, to let the professionals help you figure it out.

When it comes to blogs and blogging, every owner craves traffic. Lots and lots of traffic. Getting traffic to your website is what just about every serious internet marketer or blog owner aims at, and yet, it alludes to many. The question: “How do I get more people to visit my website?” is the one that can keep you up at night. You read and read and think and plan, but it’s still not easy to determine exactly what works.

SEO? Social Media? Excellent content? YouTube? Plug-ins? There’s just so much information and suggestions out there and while most of it is useful, it requires resources that you might not have an access to at the moment in time.

You can spend hours and hours reading how to increase traffic to your website, but by the end of the day, the only result is a pounding headache. Just look at the number of articles that pop up in Google when you type in ‘How to increase traffic to your blog’. Over 400 million results! Talk about information overload!

And the truth is, more than half of what you’ll read online about SEO is just plain general talk. Most of the information you are going to read is outdated. Many who implement the suggested tactics will find it has damaging effects on their blog and readership numbers. So what do you do? How do you increase your blog’s traffic, while turning those unique visitors into customers without being annoying?

Build Up An Awesome Content Base

We know. You want a magic trick to start increasing your WordPress blog traffic with hundreds of thousands of viewers. But let us just state something here: There is no fast way to increase traffic. Unless you’re someone well known with a large following from some other avenue, online or otherwise, you’re going to be trudging up this hill for a while. The reality is that you can’t launch a site with little to no content on it and expect to be getting 100,000 unique visitors in your first month. In fact, you shouldn’t even expect such numbers in your first year. Granted, there are exceptions to this, but in general, this is not what happens.

Even well-known people like Neil Patel stated that growing his viewers for his sites like KISSMetrics took well over a year, and Growing QuickSprout took him over four! Now, there are methods that help move things along, but everything will take time. And what works for one person, will not always work for another. Every blog is different. The audience you’re targeting will be different from that of many other blogs. There are avenues you can try, but this tip should never be forgotten.

Building your content is the first step towards more traffic. 

This can be overwhelming to think about, we know. There are examples of all those ‘blogging geniuses’ out there telling you that your posts should be 800 words long, and others who say they should be well over 2000. You’re told that you should focus on keywords, and spend hours to find the perfect one for your post.

In our experience as both bloggers and blog readers, there is one tip that we’ve come to learn to follow. Write for your readers. Don’t think so much about what Google wants. Google is always changing.

Don’t drag your content on and on just to get it to a specific word count. This will annoy readers and bore them to death. Instead, think about what your audience wants. They’re the ones who will become your customers and your mini internet marketers. Do they like shorter posts or longer ones? Whatever they like, they’ll most likely tweet about it or share it on Facebook. Pay attention to that and adjust accordingly.

Does Google tweet your blog posts? No. No, it doesn’t. Studies have shown that adding content to your site up to 5 times a week, especially when you’re starting, can boost traffic. Need help pushing out that kind of content? Find a quality blogger to help ease the load a bit.

Few tips on how to create good content:

The readers can always tell when a non-expert writes about something they have no real knowledge of. Does that mean you have to be a professional in a field of your blogging interests? Yes and no. You should, at least, be somewhat aware of whatever topic you choose to write about. The main point is to do a thorough research before you even open you WordPress site. Read up, have a list of trusted sources to link in your blog and format it in an attractive way.

Formatting is very important. Word count is not the only thing that can bore or tire a reader out. Using conventional font is what everybody knows to do. But you should never forget about paragraph and sentence length, images and videos to help visualize the topic of your interest, good grammar and sentence structure. Furthermore, it’s crucial that you put appropriate headings. Not just for the formatting sake, it’s important for the SEO.

If it’s difficult for you to keep everything to a top notch, you should probably install a plug-in to your WordPress website. Special plug-ins help you with both, SEO and readability check. However, they cost money. So if you are a new blogger with little to no budget to spare you should do everything yourself. It’s going to be difficult but you can get some traffic, hence income, and use it for a plug-in installation later. This kind of investment will never go to waste.

Build Authority

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This can be a bit of tricky at first. For starters, one of the best ways to build authority online is through guest posting. Finding a site with a decent readership in your niche of choice can build your online “street cred” and help with traffic to your site. Let’s be clear though. Don’t be spammy if you try this. You can’t write a crappy article in hopes of getting gold. Matt Cutts of Google went on a bit of a rant about spammy guest posts, and though he apologized for slamming bloggers, he meant what he said.

Authority growth is tricky because it’s a bit of a egg and chicken type of situation. To make this understandable let’s look at a simple example. Supposedly you have written a blog and you need readers to click on your (out of the thousands of other) WordPress blog to get the traffic. You are a relatively new blog and there are thousands of competitors, majority of which will be above you on the Google landing page. Your aim should be to be one of the articles on the first page results when readers type in the keywords you used in your article.

Here’s the thing: keywords are the literal key to getting more traffic.

However, because the competition is so fierce, try to use the ones that are not that difficult to rank, but get considerable amount of searches per month. Second thing you should focus on, is linking. Link authoritative websites (like Forbes, for instance) and blogs into your own so that you can become one that people will be linking back to in the future. This is how building authority really looks like. Don’t forget to only link relevant content to stay within your niche. You can also link your own content here and there. That way the chance that readers will check out other blog posts on your website increases ten fold.

Don’t be a Spam Artist!

If you write a guest post, think of the audience out there as your future audience. Be informative, helpful, and a bit humorous–if you can find a way to sneak jokes into your writing. People enjoy humor, and if you will captivate them enough, to get them check out your website from the Author Bio box. Which will result in more clicks, hence more traffic.

No repetitive content about one and the same thing or in the same style. No writing about unhelpful products or reviewing something that doesn’t actually matter. You should interest your readers to come back for more. Be precise and to the point. And make sure your guest posts are easily readable. Apply the writing tips mentioned above to write decent guest posts.

Even if you don’t get a DoFollow link out of it, if you can have a link back to your site that is NoFollow, on a site with a large readership, it can be well worth it. Especially in terms of increasing your WordPress blog traffic in the long-run.

Master The Art Of The Bait And Hook

The Bait and Hook is a technique that can work amazingly well if you know what you’re doing. A great title can increase your Click-Through-Rate and help increase your traffic. So what is the Bait and Hook technique? And how does it work? First of all, it’s twofold. The “Bait” would be the title of your blog post that shows up in Google Search. The “Hook” would be the first few lines of your post and it will make or break all your efforts.

Did you know the average attention span of people online is between 5 and 8 seconds? That’s less than that of a Goldfish. You have that short amount of time to lure them in, get them on the hook and reel them out. This is an art that people like Jon Morrow have mastered.  But be warned., your Bait Title should always relate to your content, or you’re going to see a HUGE bounce rate. It will pretty much undo everything you want to accomplish.

It’s like hooking a fish on your line only to have the line break. Your first few paragraphs can have a large impact on whether a visitor will stay or leave your page, but your whole post should keep their attention. Pictures, Gif’s and Infographics are a great way to keep them engaged and they will also help increase your social shares.

Why it can be a bad idea:

Bait and hook technique gets a bad reputation among readers when the inexperienced writers focus on the ‘bait’ part and ignore the ‘hook’. Think about the Google first page articles when you type in the keywords of your choice. They wouldn’t be there if the keywords in their titled did not match the content. Meta description and the title should be in accordance to the content if you want to get any real engagement from your readers. Otherwise, there’s a 100% they will click back just as fast as they clicked on the link to your blog.

It does not always happen deliberately though. A writer might genuinely want to blog about a certain topic, but if they aren’t careful, or inexperienced, they may get astray and end up writing about something else. Even if this is the case, and it was completely accidental, most readers think you are trying to promote something instead, of being helpful which irritates them. So pay attention that you stick to the topic mentioned in the title. And everything linked or featured in your article is relevant.

Rebranding Your WordPress Website

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Rebranding is always a good idea in case things don’t work out. Many bloggers are afraid of lettings things go (that would be deleting or rewriting already existing articles) but they shouldn’t be, really. Rebranding can mean lots of things. Aside from deleting or rewriting existing articles that didn’t do well, you might want to change their formatting or fix them according to new demands in SEO writing. Updating and removing old stuff is another step in rebranding your WordPress website. You can also use a WordPress plugin, just look into what works best for your website).

Think about how even on WordPress, you get regular updates every once in a while. Rebranding does not have to mean changing things up because something has failed. It means keeping things fresh and up to date. Who would want to keep using the very first version of WordPress? No one. The same applies to any blog or a website out there.

This process however, can cost you a lot, or a little, depends on where you stand. If you are the sole blogger on your WordPress website, meaning you are the writer and the owner of the blog, it can cost less to rebrand. Simply because you will be the one doing it. What you will have to spend a lot of – is time. Time on researching what should be done, and how you should execute it. Keep in mind, in the mean time, you probably won’t be able to add new content to your blog. And finally, since you are the one doing it, you have no one to blame but yourself. So do things properly.

On the other hand, you can hire professional bloggers who have a knowledge of WordPress blogging and SEO, to help you with rebranding. That way, you invest into the process, but you have the time to focus your energy elsewhere. In this case, make sure you seek help of a real professional that won’t waste waste your time and energy.

From A Marketing Perspective, What Role Is Played By Professional Bloggers?

In truth, professional bloggers play a huge role in engaging consumers, regardless of the industry or niche. Keeping consumers engaged is one of the most important parts of any marketing strategy nowadays, so there is no discounting the role of a professional blogger. 

There are two ways about it. You can become one or you have to hire somebody. This is the dilemma every newbie WordPress website owner has to face. Being a beginner puts you in difficult situation budget wise. Unless you are one of the lucky ones that can invest in hiring professionals without difficulty, pretty much the only choice you have is to master the art of blogging yourself. There are many free online resources that can help you in your journey.

If things still don’t turn out the way you expected them to, or you are busy and want to work on something else, you can hire professional bloggers at any time. Hiring others is also an option when your WordPress website starts generating lots of traffic. Since it is important to update blogs regularly you may need to seek the help.

From the non-owner point of view, on the other hand, mastering a blog post writing and becoming a professional blogger might be a serious career choice. Others can hire you to write for them. You can also have your own WordPress page on the side. It will serve you as sort of a portfolio for new opportunities. But it can generate traffic on it’s own (aside from the potential employees reviewing it) and benefit you that way as well.

Get Help From Social Media

Remember the link talk when we discussed growing your website authority? This is similar to that. If you want everyone else to share your blog posts you need to be the first one to do so. Share them on your socials. Start with the one with most following. Directly ask your followers to check out your blog, use hashtags and geotag options to help you reach out to as many potential readers as possible. Just sticking to Google won’t get you anywhere. Especially as a new blogger, you need to get out and let people know you are here and have something interesting to offer. It’s a bit like job hunting. Nobody will contact you first unless you are somewhat influential within a certain niche.

Getting help from social media works the other way too. Having your socials linked on your WordPress website will help you boost their engagements. Readers might want to follow you there or simply check them out. Don’t forget to link your socials at the end of every blog post or keep them alongside your contacts like email or phone number.

Use the help of as many social media platforms as you can. And by that, we mean as many as you actually use. Linking a platform you are inactive on won’t work. And you may want to decide on linking business or professional accounts instead of a personal one. It’s up to you and the type of niche you are in.

Takeaway

With that said and done, don’t completely forget about Google though. Social media, great content with its rebranding and building authority, these 3 methods are going to be your foundation for your online empire. Social Media works when used right. YouTube can be a good traffic source. Heck, even free podcasts work if you know how to masterfully place them.

Don’t be afraid to rebrand when needed, keep things updated and control your engagements to timely help your blog. And most importantly focus on creating and offering potential readers something of a real value.

Nothing trumps great content. Building authority in your field, and mastering the art of captivating your audience, all starts with it. Don’t be lazy to do your research before you even think about putting something out there. Don’t forget about linking to authoritative websites and research so that you can become one of them in the future. Do not neglect SEO requirements as this is how you rank on any search engine at all. Be mindful of where and what you invest in when starting your blog.

So dig in, research frequently and thoroughly, get your hands dirty, don’t be shy to seek help where needed, invest your time and resources and be patient. That way, your efforts will definitely pay off in the long run!

We believe in working smart, not hard, and that's been our life motto. We're self-taught learners who are passionate about sharing knowledge. We've created this website as a platform to empower individuals and businesses with marketing insights. Our team at Unlimited Marketing is driven by a desire to educate and provide accessible marketing wisdom. We believe in the transformative power of effective marketing, whether for personal growth or business success. Our mission is to simplify and make marketing knowledge easily accessible to all.