Last Updated on May 3, 2020 by ellduclos

2019 Content Marketing Strategy to Explode your Blog Traffic

If you have been asking yourself these questions: How can I grow my blog traffic? What more can I do to help my page views increase? What is the key to growing my blog traffic? … Then you came to the right place!!! Many start off their blog thinking that the blog traffic will just trickle in as soon as they post. UNFORTUNATELY, it doesn’t work like that. There is a lot of content marketing that goes on behind the scenes to get the views you want. Today I want to talk about ALL the ways you can increase your blog traffic.

*** NOTE: You don’t need insane views to make money blogging, BUT it doesn’t hurt to grow your audience. Know that once you do have the views, you need to learn how to turn that audience into a trusting and engaging audience! 

Here’s a little background about my blog. I started my blog back in April 2017, so not even 2 years ago. The first 8 months of growing my blog was definitely difficult as I was going through trial and error practicing what worked and what didn’t! I finished off 2017 with around 60,000 page views which I achieved in 8 months. It may not seem crazy, BUT for me it was a lot at the time! I was so excited that my new blog was able to get seen!

Now, in 2018 I am ending the year off strong with a total of 240,000 page views for this year!

This is insane to me! My blog isn’t even 2 years old yet! Monthly I am currently receiving about 40,000 page views a month and it continues to grow. This took a lot of hard work and dedication, and it definitely wasn’t easy. What I am trying to say is, IT IS POSSIBLE to get eyes on your content if you:

1. Believe you can &
2. Have a content marketing strategy in place

You may feel completely alone and lost when it comes to growing your blog traffic and having a content marketing strategy BUT, that’s why I am here to help! I am going to share all of my tips with you! EVERYTHING I do that helped grow my blog traffic!

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Disclaimer: Affiliate links are used in this post, I only recommend products and services I use and love!!! You can read my disclosure here. Also note that just because it worked for me, doesn’t always mean it will work for everyone! Blogging takes a lot of trial and error.

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Content Marketing Strategy Tips

1.Pinterest

I am going to start off with Pinterest because in my opinion it has been the BIGGEST source of traffic to my blog. If it wasn’t for Pinterest, I probably wouldn’t have the blog traffic that I have.

If you are like me then you probably have been using Pinterest to plan your future wedding or saving recipes that you want to try but probably will never make, am I right? … WELL… what about using it to help grow your blog traffic!? Did you even know that was possible?

If you have been following me for a while then you probably already know this… BUT if you are new here, let me tell you, Pinterest is a power tool for bloggers!!!

When you are scrolling through Pinterest looking at pretty pins, you will notice that almost EVERY SINGLE ONE of those pins leads to a blog post. Not to mention, Pinterest is a visual search engine! If you use proper keyword strategies on Pinterest and get your pins to rank high on searches, that’s easy traffic to your blog!!!

I am getting hundreds of blog views a day currently from Pinterest and sometimes thousands! (especially around the holiday seasons when Pinterest is MOST active!)

Now you are probably wondering, how the heck can I use Pinterest to grow my blog traffic? Well I put together a helpful course that goes over everything a-z about how to properly set up your Pinterest, how to create Pins that get clicks, and how to properly pin on Pinterest to grow your blog traffic!

You can read more about what’s included in my affordable course here.

Some Pinterest Key pointers:

1. Create pretty pins that get CLICKS! I find that when my Pin graphic is 600 x 900, has a title that makes you want to click to read more, is easy to read with a pretty font, and isn’t just a pretty image without a title, it gets more clicks!!

Here is just one for an example: 

You can see my clicks to this pin and the pin is 600 x 900 in length with a font that is easy to read! “10 Tips for a Sunday Well Spent” I made this pin easily in Canva. I also find that using images that are high quality get more attention which is why I like to use pretty stock images for creating pins!

I usually get mine from Creative Market and/or Ivory Mix!

2. Make sure you have a business Pinterest account with your website claimed and rich pins set up! This will help your pins reach a larger audience!

3. Make sure you are pinning consistently throughout the day! The more consistent you are with your pinning daily, the more your Pinterest grows… which means more eyes on your pins! In the beginning I always suggest pinning 60-70% other’s pins and 30% your own. (my course will go over all these strategies in detail to help make more sense of it all!)

4. I also know that it can be stressful to try and keep up with the pinning which is why I use Tailwind to help me! My Pinterest gets 1.5million – 2million monthly viewers and I definitely wouldn’t have gotten to this point without the help of Tailwind!

Basically, Tailwind is a pin scheduling tool that you can use to schedule your pins so you don’t have to constantly pin on Pinterest manually. What I love most about Tailwind is that it also tells you the ideal times to pin (when your audience is most active)

My course will also go into detail on how to effectively use Tailwind so you won’t be confused or lost when you start using it!

75% of my blog traffic comes from Pinterest so that says a lot about how powerful Pinterest really is…

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Related: 10 Pinterest Tips

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2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

What is SEO? It is Search Engine Optimization which means properly optimizing your blog posts so that you rank higher on search engines! The key is to show up on the first page of google when someone searches a topic related to your blog post.

I actually took a SUPER helpful course that taught me SEO strategies that I would have never been able to learn on my own. This course is taught by Dana Nicole whom I love, and she knows her stuff! You can check out her course here!

I am definitely NO PRO when it comes to SEO but I do know some basics that are EXTREMELY important to keep in mind…

One thing I will say is that self hosted websites tend to rank better when it comes to SEO. If you haven’t started self hosting your blog yet, I definitely recommend it! You can use my favorite self host, siteground!

I went with Siteground because they have free site transfers and an amazing support team that helps you with everything! If you sign up for their “Grow Big” plan and then reach out to their LIVE CHAT (which tends to be hidden but it’s important you use their live chat and not their ticket service), let them know you are wanting to transfer and they walk you through it all! They made my transfer process a lot less painful! BUT as soon as I made the switch, not only did my site speed increase, but I started to get organic traffic from search engines too!

You can start self hosting for as little as $3.95 a month via my link. If you sign up for at least a year in advance you get a better discount! (keep that in mind – and you need the grow big plan for free site transfers.)

Besides self hosting there are SEO strategies that will help you rank higher too.

1.Guest Posting

This will help increase your DA (domain authority) and build trust within google to help you rank higher! Guest posting is when you basically write a blog post for another blogger’s website and in return they will link back to your blog on the post! Pretty much giving your blog “back links”. you want to have a lot of back links to help get your google juices flowing and grow your domain authority! I also suggest making sure you guest post on blogs that are related to your niche to make sure you are attracting your targeted audience!

2.Post Consistently

I find that the more often I post, the better my traffic is! Especially in the beginning, if you want to get your google juices flowing, try to post 3 times a week!

3.Interlink

You should interlink on all of your blog posts! This means that you are “linking back” to related posts that you have already published. For example, I have a blog post on 7 unique ways to grow your blog traffic, so I will interlink it here. Hope that makes sense! PLUS, interlinking your content also helps your bounce rate go down which means your audience is staying on your blog longer! WIN!

4.Use Keywords

You want to think about what keywords you want your blog post to rank for and make sure to use those keywords:

• Throughout your blog post
• In the alt text of your images on your post
• In headings on your blog (YES make sure to use headings! H2 especially!)

Doing keyword research will help a ton too! Again, the course that I took explains all of this a lot better than me! (:

5. Use Yoast as a Guideline

If you are self hosted you get access to plugins which are life savers! I love using the YOAST SEO plugin as a guideline! Once you choose your keyword, Yoast will tell you if your blog post is optimized properly and if it’s not, it will tell you what you should fix to help you! Again, this plugin is JUST a guideline!

 

I know it’s a pain in the butt however, you should definitely go back to your old posts and update them to make sure they are properly optimized for SEO!!! It will make a HUGE difference.

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Related: How to Update Old Content to Grow Blog Traffic

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3. Facebook Groups

If you have been following me since day one then you know how much having my own community has helped my blog grow! When I first started my blog, I also decided to start my own free Facebook community! This community is called Boss Girl Bloggers. It’s a place where like minded women come together to learn how to grow as bloggers and entrepreneurs! This group grew to over 30,000 members in just 1 year! I am so so grateful for my community and I love having a place where I can connect with my audience on a more personal level!

If you haven’t created a community for your audience yet, I definitely recommend it! In fact, I find that my Facebook group brings me more engagement than my Facebook Business page.

I put together a post with helpful tips on how to start and grow your own Facebook community. You can read it here!

Besides having your own group, you should also try to join other groups and engage in those too! There are many Facebook groups out there that will have daily share threads, like BGB where I post; blog post share threads, collab threads, social media follow threads and more to help you grow your blog and connect with other bloggers!

Every time you post a new blog post you should share it on your Facebook business page and on the share threads in Facebook groups you are a part of!

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4. E-mail List

Although I don’t focus on e-mail marketing as much as I could, it is still important! Your e-mail list for the most part will be people who REALLY want to hear from you and value the content you are putting out, otherwise they wouldn’t be subscribed!

In my personal opinion, e-mail marketing has died out a bit only because there is so much spam out there. I know for a fact the younger generations look towards social media for updates as opposed to their e-mail BUT older generations are definitely still using e-mail on a regular basis.

Just don’t get discouraged if your click through rates are low or if people aren’t opening your e-mails…it happens! BUT here are some e-mail marketing tips!

First, you need an e-mail list builder if you don’t already have one. I use Mailerlite and the reason being is that it’s SO EASY to use! I like nice and easy.

Once you have your e-mail list builder you should create an opt-in (freebie). This will help you grow your e-mail list quicker! Think about your ideal audience, what can you offer them for free?

For example: When someone subscribes to my blog, they receive a free blog traffic crash course.

Freebie ideas

• Guides
• E-courses
• Coupons
• Printables
• Planner pages

When you are e-mailing your subscribers keep this in mind:

• Be personal! Your audience will appreciate it.
• Don’t over do it! I find that most don’t want daily e-mails. Once a week is usually plenty. I find that if you do a weekly newsletter that has links to all the blog posts you put out, rather than e-mailing every new post, they will like that better
• ASK your subscribers what they prefer. Of course everyone’s audience is different so ask your audience what they prefer and also ask them what content they’d be interested in.
• Send your audience exclusive deals! Surprise them with a freebie that only they get for being subscribed to you!
• Don’t just sell to your list! You will lose your subscribers quickly if all you do is throw your products and affiliate links at them.

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5. Twitter!

I can’t believe I am adding this to my content marketing strategy. I would have never thought that Twitter would ever play a huge factor in my blog traffic growth, BUT here I am writing this. I recently started to focus on my twitter about 6 months ago.

When I first started twitter I was so lost thinking that I could never grow an audience on there. I almost gave up on the platform. One day I decided to give it a second chance and switch up my strategy because I am a HUGE believer in “If it doesn’t work… don’t change the goal, change the strategy!” … 6 months later I grew to almost 5,500 twitter followers who actually engage with my content!

I love the twitter blogging community! I find everyone to be so supportive and sweet! If you were like me, thinking that Twitter will never work for you, change your mindset! Twitter actually BEATS Facebook some days when it comes to bringing me blog traffic!

They say on Twitter an engagement rate between 0.09 – 1% is considered to be high .. Well my current engagement score is 4.6% ! Of course it still seems low but for Twitter that’s actually extremely high because tweets don’t last very long on the TL.

Here are some of my analytics:

In the past 28 days my tweets received over 1 million impressions! To me that is just crazy, I don’t know if this is good or not.. of course just like anything else, views, impressions, etc always go up and down! So don’t stress it!

But now you might be wondering, how can I build an audience on Twitter that actually engages with my content?

Here are some tips:

• BE ENGAGING! If you want to get engagement, you need to be engaging. Don’t make it all about you. Make sure to go out of your way to engage with other tweeters too!
• Make your tweets relatable. I find that the more relatable my tweets are, the more attention they get!
• Don’t just post your blog articles and run… If your tweets consist of only blog posts, you probably won’t have a great engagement rate! You need to have your personality on your twitter too! Your followers want to know who you are!
• Don’t be afraid to put your personality out there! Your audience will be attracted to YOU. Be yourself!
• Tweet every hour. I know it sounds excessive but when you tweet, they don’t last very long. The more often you tweet, the more you get seen. BUT don’t be super annoying and tweet all the time. I usually do once every two hours or so, sometimes more, sometimes less. Play around with it and see what works for you!
• Have a profile picture that is welcoming! I find that if you have an image of you, your audience will relate to you more and it feels more welcoming!
• Try not to get involved in the drama because Twitter can definitely have it’s drama! Be positive!
• Look at trending topics and tweet about trending topics when you can (if it relates to your niche)
• Ask your audience questions to get them to interact with you!
• Participate in Twitter chats, those can be super fun! Maybe even host your own!

 

Every time I have a new blog post I will tweet it and use a popular hashtag & RT account! I find the less often I tweet blog posts, the more attention they get when I do share them! So make sure you aren’t just spamming the TL with all your blog posts constantly!

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6. Create Quality Content

This is basically a no brainer BUT if you have quality content your blog traffic will continue to grow because your audience will keep coming back for more!! Not to mention, your blog will begin to spread word of mouth!

I am not saying to stress out over creating a “perfect” blog post, BUT make sure that you are putting out what you feel is your best content. Don’t put out fluff! I find the more detailed and longer my post is, the better! (BUT, my niche is also motivational/lifestyle posts and educational blog posts that provide marketing and blog strategies)

If your niche is beauty and fashion your posts might not be as long but they can still provide quality content! If you use images, make sure they are high quality. If you have a theme on your blog, make sure it appeals to the eyes! If you say you are going to provide tips on a topic, make sure you REALLY provide those tips!

I even have a blog post that goes over how to make sure you are consistently putting out your BEST content!

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7. Post Consistently

Like I said earlier, posting consistently REALLY helps to grow your blog traffic. I know it can be extremely difficult to stay consistent but I do share some helpful tips here.

One thing that I notice is that usually your audience doesn’t mind if you post randomly throughout the week, it’s when you take long breaks away from posting content when your audience starts to wonder what is going on!

If the end result you are going for is making money with your blog, then posting consistently will help to grow trust with your audience which will eventually help you make sales in the future!

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8. Have Share Icons

This is so important when it comes to a content marketing strategy and growing your blog traffic! If you don’t have share icons on your blog posts, you are limiting your reach and ruining your blog traffic! I use the socialwarfare plugin for my share buttons!

This makes it easy for your readers to share your blog post on social media if they enjoyed it! Which means, MORE CHANCES TO GET YOUR BLOG POST SEEN!

I also have a post that shares 9 ways to increase your blog post shares which you might also find helpful!

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Now that you know a little bit about how I get my blog traffic, you might be wanting to take your blog to the next level and MAKE MONEY from the audience you do have!

I share all about having a content marketing strategy that SELLS – here

OR

You can check out one of my latest posts that shares how I became a full time blogger within a year of blogging! IT IS POSSIBLE!

I hope you found this all helpful, let me know in the comments what you think! I love hearing from you!!!

 

Until next time,

Ell