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how to get more blog traffic
April 9, 2014

How to Get More Blog Traffic + Keep Readers Engaged

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Hi friends! I have a great guest post to share with you tonight: 12 Tips for How to Get More Blog Traffic + Keep Readers Engaged. This post was written by my friend Danielle Zeigler, a business coach who assists with business strategy, social media management, SEO, and blogging. Danielle has been helping me improve SEO for my blog over the past few months now, and I’ve found what she taught me so helpful that I asked if she’d be willing to share some of her best tips with all of you. I know a lot of you are also bloggers, so I hope you find this post helpful! Thank you to Danielle for sharing with us, and if you’re looking for some help with your blog or business strategy, check out her services on her website: Danielle Zeigler Coaching!

Take it away, Danielle!

how to get more blog traffic

So – you’re on Facebook, have a consistent blogging schedule, and vaguely know what SEO means. Now what? Dig into these tips to take your traffic to the next level.

Don’t Lose Your Readers

1. Minimize your load time to keep readers engaged. Kissmetrics.com says, “40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.” Excessive ads, buttons and photos can slow it down. Consider what each item is worth and experiment with placement, WordPress plugins, and even removing things that may be hurting your traffic numbers.

a. Check out these 5 ways to speed up your WordPress site.

load time

Up Your Social Media Game

2. Expand beyond Facebook and Twitter. Instagram and Pinterest are excellent for food + healthy living bloggers.

Here are some Pinterest-specific tips to get more traffic:

  • The best time to pin is between 2-4pm and 8pm-1am.
  • Verify your website so you can track your analytics.
  • Use images with text (your post title). Picmonkey.com is great for this.
  • Join “community” boards on Pinterest
  • Pin guides and tutorials for a 42% higher click-through-rate
  • Use hashtags, just like you do for Twitter and Facebook. Either search hashtags before you use them or try Hashtags.org to find popular tags.
  • Make sure your pin link works, and make sure it leads to the actual post and not your homepage.

3. Start using StumbleUpon – immediately. SU has helped me triple client’s web traffic, so I highly recommend it. Use these tips to maximize your presence:

  • Fill out your profile and interests.
  • Make lists to organize your shares.
  • Share more than your own content. Get active. Share content from your favorite bloggers, resources and other pages you think will do well.
  • Follow other users and interact, much like you do on social networks.
  • Make it easy for readers to share your post on SU. Make sure it’s in your line-up of social sharing buttons.

StumbleUpon

4. Repurpose old blog posts to get the most out of each post. You have new followers all the time who haven’t read your posts.

  • Use a Twitter Plugin like “Tweet Old Posts”, or schedule posts to multiple channels with something like Hootsuite. If using Hootsuite, this gives you a chance to pull different quotes from your post and schedule for the future. Get creative! It doesn’t always have to be your post title. Ask questions, use teasers, and play with other titles you thought about using.

5. Maximize traffic through sharing at optimal times on social channels. You can use Hootsuite or a similar automation tool to schedule most of these. Best sharing times:

  • Facebook: 1pm – 4pm
  • Twitter: 1pm- 3pm
  • Pinterest: 2pm-4pm and 8pm-1am
  • LinkedIn: 7am-9am and 5pm-6pm

Cozy up to SEO Tactics

6. Take a few minutes to do keyword research. Use Google Keyword Planner + Google Trends to find the best way to phrase your blog title and which keywords get the most traffic.

7. Use an SEO Plug-in, like “Yoast All in One SEO”, to make sure you cover the basics.

  • Fill out the title tag with 60 characters. This is usually your blog title, so make it appealing and share-worthy!
  • The meta-description is not used by search engines, but can encourage people to click your link. Google shows around 160 characters.
  • Use keywords in your URL and H1 tags. These re-enforce what your post is about to search engines.

preview

8. Break up your text with sub-headings. These help readers scan your post, and all heading tags signal to search engines what your blog post is about.

9. Spend time thinking of a good title. Titles with the most clicks often include:

  • “How-to”
  • “Mistakes”
  • “Secrets”
  • Questions (people are typing full questions into Google more often now – Anne’s “How to Make Brussels Sprouts Delicious” post does well here!)
  • Lists

10. Link to related posts within your blog post + have related posts available underneath. These keep readers engaged in your content and increase your page views.

  • Use a plug-in like YARPP (Yet Another Related Post Plug-in)

related posts

11. Complete the “alt text” for your images. Use keywords that are related to your post but also describe the image. This is another signal to search engines about your blog post topic, and this helps categorize images in searches.

health magazine

12. Install Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools. These aren’t as intimidating as they may seem! Reasons to utilize these tools:

  • See which posts are performing the best. You can also install a WordPress Plug-in, such as Jetpack, to see your stats right on your dashboard.
  • Monitor your referral traffic. Which social channels are doing the best? If you’re advertising, is it worth it? Are other bloggers linking to you? If yes, go thank them! 🙂
  • Webmaster Tools can analyze the technical aspects of your blog, like broken links and pages. Not only do these annoy readers, search engines also pick up on them and will penalize your ranking.

What tools and tips have given you the most traffic growth? Anything to add to this list?

—

Thank you so much for sharing these tips with us, Danielle! I’m going to add some of these tips to my to do list, too. And in the spirit of this post, here are some related posts I’ve written in the past that you guys might find helpful. 🙂

  • How to Start a Blog on WordPress
  • Tips for New Bloggers
  • How to Work with Brands as a Blogger

Also, you’re interested in learning more about the basics of SEO, check out the guest post Danielle wrote for my friend Lindsay recently: SEO 101 – How to Increase Organic Search Traffic for Blog Posts. It’s really helpful!

- anne
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32 comments
  • Kim @ Hungry Healthy Girl
    April 9, 2014 · 6:55PM:
    Great tips! Thank you so much for sharing!!
    Reply
  • Lauren @ The Bikini Experiment
    April 9, 2014 · 6:57PM:
    This is so helpful! Thanks for sharing!
    Reply
  • Jojo @ RunFastEatLots
    April 9, 2014 · 7:09PM:
    Great post! I'm bookmarking this :)
    Reply
  • Jess@dearhealthyness
    April 9, 2014 · 7:17PM:
    Super thankful for this post!! A great resource for any blogger!!
    Reply
  • Fiona @Get Fit Fiona
    April 9, 2014 · 7:20PM:
    So many great tips! Thanks for sharing them.
    Reply
  • Danielle
    April 9, 2014 · 9:00PM:
    I'm glad you all found it helpful! Thanks for posting, Anne!
    Reply
  • Emily @ The Swallow Flies
    April 9, 2014 · 10:24PM:
    This is SO helpful! I have TONS of work to do on my blog this weekend. Thank you. :)
    Reply
  • Jenmarie
    April 10, 2014 · 1:09AM:
    Thanks for the tips! There were a few listed here that I had not thought or heard of before! Pinning :)
    Reply
  • Runner Girl Eats
    April 10, 2014 · 6:34AM:
    Thank you so much for sharing this! Great post.
    Reply
  • Chrissy @pinkpolishandrunningshoes
    April 10, 2014 · 1:16PM:
    Great post! Thanks for sharing :)
    Reply
  • Roadrunner April 10, 2014 · 2:08PM:
    This is really impressive!
    Reply
  • Eleanor@ Ideal Curriculum
    April 10, 2014 · 2:09PM:
    Great tips! Now to implement them. Thanks for the post!
    Reply
  • Lean Lena
    April 10, 2014 · 2:16PM:
    Thank you for sharing! Great tips.
    Reply
  • Heather
    April 10, 2014 · 2:19PM:
    These were great tips, thank you for sharing them. I especially love the Google Keyword Planner and StumbleUpon tip!:) THANK YOU!
    Reply
  • julia April 10, 2014 · 2:29PM:
    The advice about using twitter to tweet old posts might also be a great way to LOSE readers! haha. I might be in the minority, but personally, I want new info on twitter, not just auto-generated links to old posts that are trying to get more clicks.
    Reply
    • Anne
      April 10, 2014 · 3:11PM:
      I agree about auto generated tweets, but I like when people occasionally tweet links to old recipes I might have missed!
      Reply
  • Jen@ Pretty Little Grub
    April 10, 2014 · 3:33PM:
    Thanks for having Danielle share theses tips. As a newbie blogger I am eager to learn more ways to drive traffic. I am bookmarking this for sure!
    Reply
  • Julianna @ Julianna Bananna
    April 10, 2014 · 8:33PM:
    great post! love all the tips.
    Reply
  • sally @ sweat out the small stuff
    April 11, 2014 · 8:12AM:
    I can't say how perfect the timing was to read this resourceful post. I've been wanting to put more time into my blog to perhaps make it part of my job vs just a hobby. I am embarrased to say I didn't even have social share options at the bottom of each post! Slowly but surely....also planning on hitting some blog conferences for some more key info. Thanks, as always Anne, for sharing great tips yourself and having guest posts like this.
    Reply
  • Sarah @ Sweet Miles
    April 11, 2014 · 4:47PM:
    This was fantastic! We tell our clients these things all day long while we're designing their websites at my full time job! And the best part is that all of this EASY to implement, and not intimidating!!
    Reply
  • Tara | Treble in the Kitchen
    April 14, 2014 · 6:43AM:
    I love Danielle!! She is so great and these tips are great!
    Reply
  • Whitney biber
    April 15, 2014 · 9:35AM:
    great tips! thank you!
    Reply
  • John @ Garage Gyms
    April 18, 2014 · 2:09PM:
    Very good tips indeed. Even if you think you know it all, you don't. Sometimes, a reminder is just as good anyway, we all slack on some of the specifics as time goes on. After seeing stuff like this post, I am inspired to go back and fix things I know need fixing. Thanks!
    Reply
  • Stephanie @ Whole Health Dork
    May 6, 2014 · 1:43PM:
    A bit late, but thank you so much for posting this! I'm still new-ish to the game and while I blog out of passion, I wouldn't mind more readers so there can be more of a dialogue. I feel like I'm writing to myself a lot of times, which is fine, but I love engaging with people!
    Reply
    • Anne
      May 6, 2014 · 2:47PM:
      Definitely - you have to do it because you love it or it won't be sustainable, but it certainly does help to get feedback. I'll come over and say hi! :)
      Reply
      • Stephanie @ Whole Health Dork
        May 7, 2014 · 6:46AM:
        Aw, thanks! That means a lot to me because I know how busy you are. :-)
        Reply
  • Elywen
    October 31, 2016 · 1:34AM:
    Thanks for this, very helpful indeed!, keep it up
    Reply
  • Kimberly @ Pannali Travels
    January 12, 2019 · 10:04AM:
    Great tips - so comprehensive for new and experienced bloggers alike.
    Reply
  • Keith
    December 21, 2019 · 10:52AM:
    Love the blogging tips! You're right, every second counts so the content has to be worth their time. Keep it up Anne!
    Reply
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anne mauney fannetastic food
Hi, I’m Anne! I'm a Washington D.C. based Registered Dietitian, mother, runner, and lover of travel, adventure, and the great outdoors. I've been blogging since 2009, sharing a mix of lifestyle content, recipes, and fitness tips. Come for the recipes – stay for the fun!
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anne mauney

I’m Anne, a Registered Dietitian and mother. I've been blogging since 2009 and love showing others that eating nutritious foods and staying active can actually be fun rather than overwhelming!

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