Last Updated on June 23, 2020 by ellduclos
Do you struggle when it comes to growing your blog traffic? I get over 100,000 blog views a month on my first blog and when I first started my blog I never thought it would be possible. Maybe you are feeling a similar way? You swear you have tried it all but you just aren’t seeing the blog traffic results you want. That’s why I am sharing exactly what I did to get 100,000 blog views. I want to make sure you are doing all you can to drive traffic to your blog. If you are ready to learn how to grow your blog traffic to 100,000 monthly blog views, then continue reading!
Disclaimer: Affiliate links are used and you can read my full disclosure here.
How to Get 100,000 Blog Views a Month
It’s pretty crazy to wrap your head around the fact that you can get over 100,000 blog views a month. Here’s the thing, when you have more blog traffic, your opportunities increase. The potential to make more money increases. Maybe that’s not a main focus of yours and that’s okay. Before I reached my 100,000 blog views a month mark I was still able to make money blogging, however, once I reached a larger audience, the ways I could make money increased.
I was able to apply to Mediavine Ads which became a game changer for me. I received $800 that month just from Mediavine!
More eyes on your content and the possibility of getting noticed by brands you want to work with can increase too!
My point is, more blog views can definitely equal more opportunity. In this post I am going to break down all the different ways you can grow your blog traffic because having a solid content marketing strategy in place is SO important.
Start with having a solid foundation
If you want to get 100,000 blog views you need to have a solid foundation, otherwise it will crumble. What makes a solid foundation for your blog?
A proper blogging platform
If you want to get those blog views it’s important to make sure you are creating your blog on the best platform for your blogging goals. In my opinion, the best platform for bloggers who are wanting to get 100,000 monthly blog views is a self-hosted blog.
Here’s why:
- Best for SEO (which i’ll be mentioning later on in this post)
- Fast site speed – If your site speed is super slow, your readers will bounce. Low site speed can also mess with your SEO. (how you rank in google searches)
- You have complete ownership over your blog.
- You have limitless customization and access to plug-ins that help take your blog up a notch.
- It allows you to create an e-mail list that you can personally customize and so much more!
Overall, having a self-hosted blog is the best option if you are trying to grow your blog traffic and make money blogging. I use Siteground as my self-host and have for almost 3 years now. They have fast server speeds compared to most self-hosts and I love their customer support.
Having a fast loading site is important! You can test your site speed here.
Quality content
It’s also important to have quality content. If you don’t have quality content, your readers will not be returning to your blog. Having a content marketing strategy is key but without quality content to market, your content strategy won’t be as effective.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
If you want to get 100,000 blog views it is important to make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. SEO is a HUGE topic that overwhelms bloggers (including me!) It’s also a slow burner that won’t show crazy results right away. A lot of bloggers put SEO on the back burner (oops that’s me again) This can cause a lot of extra work for yourself which is why I recommend making sure you are using proper SEO right from the start.
I have a few basic tips to share but if you are looking for something more in-depth I recommend the Stupid Simple SEO course. I purchased this course this year and it’s a HUGE help. It breaks SEO and keyword research down the best way possible. It’s definitely an investment but It’s been worth the money.
A few things to remember with SEO:
Keyword Research
When it comes to writing up your blog post you want to write for your audience first and search engines second. The most important step to SEO is keyword research. Before I type up a blog post I do keyword research using the Keysearch Tool.
This tool allows me to see how competitive a keyword is and how often a keyword is searched. I try to stay away from extremely competitive keywords as they are harder to rank for. Long tailed keywords work the best because the reader is usually looking for a specific answer and is more likely to make a purchase. Long tailed keywords also tend to be less competitive.
An example of a long tailed keyword would be: “chocolate chip cookie recipe” as opposed to “cookie recipe”
Another example: “must read personal growth books” as opposed to “must read books”
Essentially long tailed keywords are more specific if that makes sense.
Let’s dive into the Keysearch tool a bit. I will use “must read books” as an example. When I search “must read books” you can see that it’s fairly difficult to rank for. You can also see to the right, there are related keywords.
Then directly to the bottom you can see the websites that rank on the first page. I love this because it gives you a glimpse at how much domain authority those sites ranking have. It will also let you know if they’ve used that keyword in their title, meta description, and url. If they haven’t, you can try to do so to “swoop in”. Keep in mind, if they have high domain authority and tons of sites linking back to their post, it will be difficult to out rank them.
As you can see the first website ranking for this keyword has a domain authority of 86 and has 796 links with 135 link backs to this post from high authority websites. Even though they don’t include the keyword phrase in their title, description, or url, they still rank high because of the link backs to this article and the domain authority the website has.
Getting backlinks for specific posts that you want to rank high on google is HUGE! You need to keep in mind though, quality over quantity.
Ways to get backlinks
There are a few ways to get backlinks. A popular way for bloggers to get backlinks is through guest posting. You can guest post on someone else’s blog who has a high domain authority and is a similar niche. This is when you write a blog post for them and they credit you and link back to your site. This is also a great way to get new eyes on your blog.
Another way to get backlinks is through roundup posts. For example, perhaps you are a food blogger with a cookie recipe. If another food blogger is working on a round up post of the best cookie recipes, you can have them add a link to their round up post that links to your cookie recipe blog post.
Try to collaborate with other bloggers in your niche. For example, as a beauty blogger I worked on a collab post with other beauty bloggers where we each shared our favorite gift ideas for under $50, $40, $30, $20, and $10. We each got assigned an amount and then linked back to each other’s gift guides on our blog post.
Now check this out!
I love that the Keysearch tool tells you when a keyword is trending throughout the year. You can see that “must read books” has busier search months and slower search months. Your blog traffic isn’t going to be exploding at all times and that is okay.
There’s helpful youtube videos that show you how to use the Keysearch Tool as well because there are tons of other awesome things you can do using this tool.
Interlink your content
Another important part of a good search engine optimized site is making sure you are interlinking your related content. This is great for helping with decreasing your bounce rate as well. Bounce rate is how quickly someone leaves your blog once they are on it. It’s pretty common for bloggers to have a higher bounce rate. If you think about it, most readers are searching for an answer and once they find it, they leave.
In order to help with your bounce rate you can interlink related content throughout your blog post. You can also suggest related content to your readers at the end of each post. Interlinking helps google crawl and index your content.
Yoast SEO
My last basic SEO tip would be to install a helpful SEO plugin. I have used Yoast SEO from the start and I am so used to using it, I can’t part ways. It is a free plugin and once it’s installed you can put in the keyword you want to rank for. Yoast well give you the green light if they think your post is properly optimized to rank for that keyword. If not, you will get a red or yellow light and they will make suggestions on how you can improve your post.
Yoast is just a guideline and tool to help you. Just because you have the green light doesn’t mean your post will automatically rank for this keyword.
Like I said, for more in-depth tips and strategies you should definitely grab a copy of Stupid Simple SEO when it becomes available next! Jump on his waitlist, it will be worth it.
Pinterest marketing
This is my number one source of blog traffic. If it weren’t for using Pinterest to market my blog I would not have hit a 100,000 blog view month as quickly as I was able to.
Pinterest is a visual search engine and it has the potential to bring you thousands of blog views a day with proper strategy. Many bloggers tend to push Pinterest to the side because they don’t have time for it. It can be time consuming but it really is a game changer and the quicker route to growing your blog to 100,000 views without using ads.
I had pins bring me thousands of link clicks.
AND I am able to rank on Pinterest searches. Here are a few examples:
Also keep in mind that if you practice proper Pinterest SEO, your pins have the ability to RANK on google search as well. For example: “Habits of wealthy women” , I have tons of my pins ranking under images on google.
If you want to learn how to grow your blog traffic using Pinterest then you need this course.
Social media marketing
Another great way to get 100,000 blog views is with the help of social media. I think it is safe to say that social media is popular and people are using different social media platforms everyday, why not use them to help you market your blog?
I have a love/hate relationship with Instagram, especially when it comes to using it to grow my blog. However, I try to use Instagram as a way to build connections with my audience to keep them coming back to my social media and blog for more.
I find that Instagram doesn’t make it easy to add links but I like to add links to my Instagram stories since I do have the swipe up feature.
I share a ton of tips on how I grew my Instagram following to over 24,000 in this free course
I think Twitter is extremely underrated in the blogging community! The potential to grow an engaged audience using twitter is CRAZY. I can receive hundreds of blog views from one single tweet. It’s all about building personal connections on twitter.
A few helpful twitter tips:
- Positivity shines through negativity
- Be active, tweet daily but don’t over do it
- Engage with other’s tweets
- Follow people who inspire you
You can re-share old evergreen blog posts on Twitter! I put together a list of helpful in-depth twitter tips in this post.
When it comes to marketing your content through Facebook there are a few ways. My favorite way is through Facebook groups.
Joining Facebook groups is a great way to connect with other bloggers when you are first starting out. You can also use Facebook groups to find other bloggers to collab with. A lot of Facebook groups will have threads that allow you to share your blog posts with the group members too.
I will say it’s been a game changer to have my own Facebook group. I started Boss Girl Bloggers 2 and 1/2 years ago and it’s since then flourished into over 37,000 inspiring women who are all helping each other learn and grow.
Having my own Facebook group has allowed me to connect with my audience on a more personal level. It’s also allowed me to promote my products and services in a more personal way as opposed to just through my blog posts.
I have a dedicated post that explains how I was able to grow my group with some of my best kept tips!
You can also market your content through your Facebook business page. I personally haven’t had as much success with this but some bloggers love doing Facebook ads on their business page for specific blog posts, or opt-ins.
When it comes to using ads I suggest only paying for ads if you know there is a return on investment. If you are just trying to grow your blog traffic, it wouldn’t be worth it. Pay to promote things like opt-ins, blog posts with lots of affiliate links, a product or course. You want it to be beneficial otherwise it’s wasted money.
Email marketing
Let’s talk about how email marketing can help you grow your blog traffic to 100,000 blog views. The first step is to make sure you have an email list builder. I personally use Mailerlite and love how easy it is to use. I have a blog post here that explains how to start a blog and set up an email list. If you need help setting up Mailerlite on your site then check that post out!
Having an email list is important because if social media were to ever go away, at least you can still connect with your audience through email. Even with social media still around you can still connect with your audience on a personal level through email marketing.
Here are some ideas of emails you can send to your subscribers:
- A welcome series
- Weekly/Monthly newsletters
- Announcements about product launches
- Exclusive content that only your subscribers get to read
- Behind the scenes emails
- Surveys to get to know your subscribers better and what they want to read more of
These are just a few ideas. Get creative! When it comes to growing your subscribers you want to make sure you entice them with an “opt-in freebie” This is something you offer your subscribers for free in exchange for them subscribing to your blog.
Some freebie ideas:
- e-course
- e-book
- step by step guides
- exclusive discount codes
- printables
- journal pages
- a monthly challenge
- 7 day challenges
It’s important to think about your niche and tie your freebie in with that. For example, many stock photo websites will offer a handful of free stock photos when you subscribe to their email list. This is also a great way for their audience to test out the quality of the stock photos before making a purchase.
Use google analytics
Google analytics is the best way to track your blog views. I love that it will give you details on who your audience is and what they like. At the end of each month I look at my google analytics to see which blog posts brought in the most blog traffic to my site.
It’s important to continue putting out content that my audience is attracted to. If I have a post about relationship tips that brings me the most traffic that month, then I know my audience will probably enjoy another post related to relationships.
Have a blog post series
This is just a fun tip that can bring in consistent traffic if you have an engaged audience. You can try to create a blog post series that entices your audience to follow along. This could be a weekly or monthly series. You can also market this series to your email list!
Examples of blog post series:
- 7 day challenges (self-care, organization, money saving, blogging, personal growth challenges)
- 5 week challenges (create a similar challenge but spread it out as 1 new post for 5 weeks)
- Blogmas and blogtober are challenges where you create a blog post everyday in the month of October and December. I have blog post ideas for both of these challenges. You can read my blogtober list here and blogmas list here.
Create easy to read content
Lastly, in order to keep your audience around you want to make sure you are creating easy to read content! If you have a lot of text and don’t break your text up, it becomes overwhelming. Readers love scannable content which is why I like to break my content up with headers. It also makes it easy for google to crawl your posts as well.
Try to make your content engaging. Throw in your personality and be relatable.
I hope these tips are helpful! Getting 100,000 blog views a month is not an easy task and it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Don’t get discouraged if it’s taking a little bit longer for you to reach 100,000 blog views. Every niche is different and what works for one blogger doesn’t always work for the next.
In the mean time, learn how to monetize the audience you do have. I have an in-depth post that shares how I make over $50,000 a year from my blog. You don’t need a huge audience to make money blogging.
Would love to hear from you in the comments as well!
so helpful as always!
Thank you Renae!
Wow! What a super comprehensive post! Thanks for breaking down each social media, I appreciate your advice and story for each one!
Thank you so much Madelyn!
Thank you for sharing your tips and your strategy on how you got to 100,000 blog views. That’s such an achievement. Congrats, Ell! Such an inspiration. 🙂 I’m focusing on Pinterest more now to grow my blog traffic but in terms of SEO I do love using Yoast plug-in as well. 🙂
Izzy
https://www.izzymatias.com
Thanks so much Izzy and keep up the good work as well!
This is a very helpful post! I’m new to blogging so I feel like I’m constantly searching sites for any blog advice I can, and I’m going to save this one for future reference! Thank you so much for posting and giving tried and true success tips 🙂
Thank you so much Lauren! So glad you found it helpful!
Very indepth post about growing blog traffic! Love all these tips! The hard part is which one to focus on. Right now I’m spending most of my time growing my Pinterest views. Its a challenge since I work full time, but I make it work. Thank you so much for sharing all this great information!
Thank you so much Ann! It can definitely become time consuming. I try to set aside the time I can and make the most use out of it! Take it one step at a time (:
Really loved this post, thank you for taking the time to write so much great info! 🙂 I’m currently working on expanding my own website, so this was super helpful!
So glad you found the tips helpful! Thank you!!
Another epic post hun!! I love learning about blogging from you, you’ve helped me so much already!! Hopfully one day Ill get to your level!! xx
mrssleejones.com
Thank you so much! That means a lot to me!!
This blog post is so interesting! I am back to blogging after two years of on and off, and I am really into learning more about SEO and gaining more visibility and engagement! Thank you for this and for creating the “Boss Girl Bloggers” group!
Thank you so much Lily! That means a lot to me (:
It was really informative 🙂 I just bought your Pinterest course.
Thank you so much! I hope you find the course helpful!
so helpful thank you, though I don’t know a lot about self-hosting.
You are very welcome! I have tons of tips on my blog about self hosting.
Girl, you are blessed. I can’t wait to get 100,000 views per month on my blog.
Thank you so much! You will definitely get there! Don’t stop learning and don’t give up!
By far one of the most helpful blogging posts I have read since I have started my blogging journey! I’ll be referring back to this for sure.
Thank you so much Annalise! This makes me so happy to hear 🙂
This is very helpful, thank you!
Thank you so much Angie!
Helpful tips giving some background on how you grew your blog traffic. Appreciate this.
Checked out your site after reading your Twitter comment. Sorry you lost your 5K of content due to Word crashing. Been there.
Thank you so much Ben! I ended up recovering part of it thankful but it was definitely a moment of panic!!
I love this. Thanks Ell!
Thank you so much Jen!
Excellent post! thanks for sharing amazing tips ! I’ve been blogging for 3 months now and I love it, I Use Pinterest to drive more traffic to my blog and really it works amazing 😉
Thank you so much! So glad it helps you too!
Great article, I’m happy I’m finding out Pinterest is so good for bloggers because I really don’t like social media! Thanks for sharing your amazing insights, this will come in handy!
Yes! I love Pinterest!!! Thank you so much!
Great post! It’s rare for a blog post to be this helpful! ☺️
Thank you so much!!