by Starting a new blog from scratch can be quite a daunting task in itself. From thinking of a niche to setting up WordPress to posting content every week, a lot of people scratch their heads at the mountainous tasks ahead of them and ponder, “Is blogging really a passive or active income?“. Check out our post about the difference between PASSIVE VS ACTIVE INCOME.
The challenge doesn’t just stop there however.
As a content creator, perhaps your purpose of creating a blog is for your voice to be heard, or to simply just share your passion. But whether you want your blog to be monetised or not, what you want is REAL TRAFFIC and VISIBILITY. Websites grow because of its supporters. Isn’t it a rewarding experience when people visit your site and actually read your content? Affirmations will give you the proper push to keep on going and create more content.
For new blogs though, getting traffic can be quite a struggle especially for those who don’t have any prior experience in digital marketing or SEO. To tell you the truth, some blogs don’t get actual traffic until after 6 months! That translates to 6 months of grueling work and effort while feeling disheartened because you think that you are getting nowhere. When I was first starting out, it’s been 3 months and I still have zero traffic. Imagine the disappointment!
Amateur bloggers immediately quit and tell themselves that, well, since no one’s reading my content then it doesn’t work!
Don’t be a quitter!
Don’t give up too early on something that might be a goldmine. When you jumped head first into blogging, you should’ve framed your mind into thinking that you’re in it for the long-term haul. There’s absolutely no shortcut to success.
Successful bloggers make it because of CONSISTENCY, PERSEVERANCE AND HARD WORK.
While it’s perfectly normal to have zero traffic in the beginning, this post is meant to help you gain REAL VISITORS to your blog even if it’s new. By REAL, we meant people who are intent on reading content because your post might be offering a solution to them, and in turn, they can become fans or subscribers of your blog.What you don’t want is paid traffic because you’ll just be tricking yourself into thinking that you have actual audiences. Paid traffic will hurt your chances of being monetised by Adsense too.
Getting traffic doesn’t have to be incredibly expensive too! Heck, you can even get visitors for free. You just have to be strategic about it.
So how do you get real traffic for your new blog?
1. Social media
Do not underestimate the power of social media. They’ve grown into the giants that they are right now because they have the most valuable asset any company would be jealous of- an extensively wide user base that is expected to grow at an extraordinary pace in the following years.
Since social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr to name a few already have a wide base of active users worldwide, all you have to do is to tap on the opportunity.
Facebook pages and groups
Create a Facebook fan page for your blog or website. Since you’ll start from zero, have your family and friends like your page. From then on, you can grow your facebook fan page organically by having the friends of your friends like your page as well.
Post interesting and unique content consistently but don’t bombard your followers with too much content. Limit your posting to once or twice a day only. Make sure that you’re posting high quality images, videos, and infographics as they’re proven to easily capture the attention of your followers.
To gain drive traffic to your website, post a link of your blog post to your facebook fan page. Or, if you have a budget to spare, you can use facebook ads to target your potential fans according to demographic like location, age, gender, languages, interests, behaviours, etc. Ad placement can be very tricky and not to mention very costly if you don’t know what you are doing. Your goal is to be able to immediately capture the attention of people viewing the ad.
Facebook groups is one of my favourite ways to easily get traffic to your website. Facebook groups are community driven and it’s niche-based so it’s guaranteed that there’s a high level of engagement amongst the members of the group. Since you share the same interests, the probability that those members will click on your posts will be high. Be active and be sure to comment in the other members’ posts as well.
Other than joining facebook groups, you can also create a facebook group of your own. Pick a topic, invite members or simply make your group public for a couple of days or weeks. If it has gained traction, you can make your group private to have “exclusivity” amongst your members. To keep the engagement high, post consistently as often as you’d post in facebook pages.
Instagram can also drive massive traffic to your website. However, the only place where you can post a link to your website is in your BIO. Instagram is image-focused so be sure to post unique and stunning images related to your niche. If it’s informative, you can make infographics or post videos related to your topic or niche. In every post, write “More info in BIO” so your followers would be pointed to click on the link in your profile. Don’t forget to place hashtags in every posts. Hashtags will make your posts more discoverable. What I do to not make those hashtags look like eyesores is that I post them in the comments.
You can also place urls in Instagram Stories. Upload a photo -> Click on the the chain icon -> Click +URL-> Type in the url -> Publish the story!
Ever wondered how those popular mommy blogs make it big? It is because of Pinterest aka one of the most overlooked underdogs in the history of digital marketing.
People have this misconception that Pinterest is a place where only middle aged women thrive and post their veggie recipes or diy arts and crafts. While it’s not so far from the truth, people highly underestimate the amount of traffic that it could actually bring to your website. And it’s fairly easy to use too!
Like Instagram, Pinterest is highly visual; the main difference however, is that Pinterest’s “pins” are highly clickable and it highly encourages CTA or (Call to Action) as the pins resemble buttons.
Simply create boards with keywords related to your niche, pin highly engaging and stunning images and content related to your website, increase your Pinterest followers, like and comment on your followers’ pins and boards, and share content from your website!
Reddit can be quite intimidating. It’s mostly text-heavy compared to other social networking sites that are mostly visuals. Despite its not so friendly looking interface, Reddit has over 330 million users from all over the world and 130 thousand active communities and it’s still growing tremendously every year. It’s one of the oldest social networking sites and it has proven that it has the most loyal user base 2005.
To leverage on its existing user base, as a blogger, it’s important to know how Reddit works. You could search for communities or niches depending on your blog. Subreddits (seen as r/subreddit name) can act sort of as a keyword you’re targeting. Go to the subreddit related to your blog, join the community, posts comments or add a post.
You can gain BACKLINKS from a post but make sure that it is highly valuable since Reddit communities aren’t particularly keen on seeing in-your face advertisements or straight up promotions and links to your blog. Always make sure that you’re abiding by the rules in that particular subreddit.
2. Blog Commenting
What you want is traffic and what better way to increase it than to gain more exposure from other blogs. Not only do you increase the engagement rate in that blog you’re commenting on, but you’re also increasing traction and SEO to your website. It’s a win-win situation for you and for the other blogger.
However, it’s a big NO to just haphazardly put a one word comment on a blog post just for sake of commenting. Similarly when you’re writing content in your own blog, your comment should be insightful, relevant and valuable for the blogger as well. You don’t want to be seen as a spam because that’s counterintuitive if you want to drive traffic to your own blog.
Another alternative is to ask questions regarding the blogger’s post, or ask things that might be of help to your blog as well.
I personally use Gravatar to make posts on my WordPress site and to comment on other people’s blogs. Gravatar helped me establish my own PERSONAL BRAND so I am easily identifiable even if I comment on other blogs too.
3. Guest blogging
Becoming a guest blogger or a contributor to another blog is one cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website. It’s good for establishing credibility for your BRAND and it also helps your blog gain BACKLINKS that could massively improve your SEO and organic Google search ranking. It also helps in spreading BRAND AWARENESS and might potentially catapult you into an AUTHORITY in the long-term.
Similarly with blog commenting, I use Gravatar to make my name easily identifiable in all blogs I’m guest-posting and commenting on.
To guest blog, look for blogs or websites that are on the same niche as yours. Gauge their engagement rate by looking at the number of social media shares per posts, number of comments per posts or number of visitors by day. It’s ideal to guest post on a blog with a high engagement rate.
Guest blogging is perfect for networking and building relationships with people in the same community. Remember, in business, networking is key to success!
Medium
Medium is a publishing platform akin to Blogger, Wix or WordPress. it’s a simple and easy to use website where writers and bloggers post high quality content for their readers. In my opinion, Medium stands out as the perfect site to guest post on because it is known for its well-written and world class publications.
If you’re just starting out, Medium is perfect for you as it already has a large user base and it will give you just the right exposure and credibility for your brand and your blog.
Do not, however, just copy paste the content from your blog to Medium. This might cause SEO issues and Google might mistake your content as copy-pasted.
4. Quora
Quora elevated the basic Question and Answer platform and transformed it into a website that is highly informational, educational and valuable for people looking for well-thought out answers to their questions. Not only that, Quora also paved way for writers and bloggers to gain exposure simply by allowing them to easily answer questions related to their niche.
When people ask questions, it’s either they’re looking for solutions to their problems, or they’re looking for information to improve on their knowledge about their topic of interest. As a blogger, this is a perfect opportunity to easily drive traffic just by answering their questions- look for content in your blog that could help answer these questions then place a link of that blog post it on your answer.
Similarly with guest blogging and blog commenting, you’re building your own personal brand so it’s imperative that you’re always writing valuable content!
I try to answer the most recent questions on quora and those with questions with the most number of views per day. That just means that there are a lot of people looking for answers to that specific problem.
5. SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimization are strategies that ensure that your blog or blog posts rank on search engines like Google search, Yahoo or Bing.
In my previous post, A Comprehensive Tutorial on How to Start A Successful Blog for Beginners in 2020, I discussed the importance of keyword research when finding a niche for your blog or blog post. Keyword research would determine if your topic has a high competition or not, and the higher the competition for that specific keyword, the harder it will be for your website to rank high on search engines.
What you want in the long term is for your blog posts to rank high in those search engines as it is the most cost-efficient way to get real traffic.
There are several keyword research tools that you can use to determine the difficulty of your keyword such as Google Keyword Planner, SemRush, Ubersuggest, Keywordtool.io, etc.
Once you’ve finished your keyword research tool and you’re now in the process of posting content, If you’re using WordPress for your blog, there are several plug-ins that will ensure that your posts are SEO friendly. You can use YoastSEO to add meta descriptions, check website speed and readability, and optimises keywords.
Write… and write… and write…
Nothing beats CONSISTENCY. And I can’t stress this enough, write HIGH QUALITY CONTENT. Become an expert in your niche and traffic sure will come back to you.
But don’t forget to actually enjoy blogging. It may feel like a drudgery at first, but with the right strategies you’ll be able to drive traffic to your blog.
Good luck!
Do you have any comments or questions? Please feel free to write down below!
