Last Updated on May 4, 2020 by ellduclos

7 Unique Tips to Grow Your Blog

What another glorious afternoon for a little tea spilling. YES that’s right, I am about to share with you 7 tips that have become my new MUST HAVE, MUST SHARE tips for blogging “success” (aka – growing your blog and biz) These are some tips that I have been using from the start, OR some tips that I have recently discovered to truly help improve my blog + biz.

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Disclaimer: Affiliate links are used – here is my full disclosure.

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Tip One – INTERLINKING

When I first found out about interlinking it was like that AHA moment! You know that thing called bounce rate & that other thing called SEO… YEAH well, interlinking plays a HUGE part in this.

What is bounce rate? Good question. Bounce rate is how long your audience is sticking around on your page for. The goal is to keep your audience glued to your blog – AKA BINGE reading your posts. If your audience pops on and then leaves after reading one post, well, that can affect your bounce rate, which is where interlinking comes in to play!

ALSO note, for good SEO it is important to interlink throughout all of your posts!

So.. what’s interlinking and how can it be done?! SUPER EASY.

Let’s say you write a post on 10 Favorite Spring Pieces, OKAY COOL, now you want to think about any previous posts that you created that could relate to this post (maybe 10 favorite fall pieces? Spring time essentials? etc.) and LINK it somewhere in your post!

I have been playing around with where to link to my posts. Sometimes I will choose to link key words, for example if I say something like “I was able to turn my blog into a full time career.” I would link this sentence to my blog post that talks about this topic!

I also try doing something throughout my posts like this

Related: How to Grow Your Blog Traffic 13 Ways

All in all interlinking is KEY so don’t waste any time! Go back to your old posts and get to interlinking!

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Tip Two – FIX YOUR SITE SPEED

Another tip that has to do with SEO and all that jazz is making sure your site speed is A+ ! But seriously, you don’t want a site that is slow to load as this can affect your SEO and because your audience doesn’t have time to wait for your site to load either.

A great thing that I always recommend doing is going self – hosted with Siteground. Their server speed is phenomenal and had made a huge difference when it came to my site speed.

Not to mention being self hosted is really ideal if you are turning your blog into your full time career! It gives you complete ownership over your blog, you have no monetization restrictions, and that SITE SPEED IS UP! YASS. Win win.

Oh and did I mention you get thousands of plug ins to choose from – LIKE WP SMUSH which helps to “smush” your photo size when you upload them, which also increases site speed! THE BEST.

Maybe you are worried about transferring your site because you think it could be a headache?

The best part about siteground is that they do site transfers for you all included in the price so no additional cost! Just reach out to their Live chat and they will help you right out! Their live chat is like my best friend, they have helped me with so many things! 24/7 fast responding live chat. The best.

Their packages start at $3.95 a month via my link.

If you want to see how your site speed is you can check it out here with my favorite tool. Usually aim for 75% or above!

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Tip Three: Don’t Sit on Pinterest – TAKE ACTION

I am telling you right now, which I am sure you are getting tired of me saying this but PINTEREST IS KEY. Why? Because it’s a free marketing tool and it hits your target audience if used properly.

Since utilizing Pinterest to grow my blog traffic, I have seen a huge increase in sales + traffic. I used to read all the “YOU NEED TO USE PINTEREST NOW.” posts and would think “yeah right.” Until one day I got real and I got serious.

My blog traffic increased from 5k monthly to 5k weekly in LESS THAN A MONTH.

All of the strategies I use to grow my blog traffic with Pinterest can be found here. (If you are a complete newb when it comes to Pinterest that is OKAY because this will walk you through it all!)

I can definitely thank Tailwind because it has played a HUGE part in my Pinterest “success”. Tailwind is a  Pin scheduling app that helps me to basically put my Pinterest pinning on “auto pilot” so that I can pin even in my sleep! It’s important to be as active as possible on Pinterest if you want to grow your Pinterest account and blog traffic!

I use the annual plan for Tailwind because it allows me to schedule unlimited amounts of pins!

 

ONE OTHER THING TO NOTE:

Have a PINNABLE image on your blog post! AKA an image that is at least 735 x 1102 that you would use for a pin on Pinterest. Having it available for your audience to use when they share your post to Pinterest is VITAL. & If you really don’t like having long pins being shown on your blog posts you can actually HIDE the image easily. First make sure you are in the “text” section of your blog post editor not the “visual” section. You will see an image code which is the code to the image you have inserted into your post. Next insert this code right before the image code:

<div style = “display:none;”>

Then after the image code close it out with

</div>

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Tip Four – Purchase Stock Photos or Take Your Own

This is big for me! Now I know you all love your free stock photos on Unsplash + Pexels buuuuut as much as that’s nice there is still a few issues with free stock photos like this:

1. You aren’t completely covered from copyright, you could run into issues still. SO BE CAREFUL.
2. Your images aren’t as unique on social media because they are constantly being used by numerous amounts of bloggers out there! Especially if you use free stock photos on your Pinterest pins… Pinterest gets confused by all of the same images floating around, so your reach for that pin can become affected if you aren’t using a “unique” image like your own image or an image that isn’t used as frequently.

Need help getting your pins to go viral? Then this is for you!

All in all, I purchase my stock photos and have found that pins with purchased stock photos or my own photos tend to get a lot more attention than pins I create using free stock photo images.

A few of my favorite places to purchase stock images

1. IvoryMix – They have a membership that I love and they are constantly adding to their inventory.
2. Pixi Stock
3. Styled Stock Society – my favorite out of all of them
4. Creative Market
5. Etsy

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Tip Five – Be Sincere, Network, Engage.

The funny thing about social media and blogging is well, you have to actually be SOCIAL. If you try to grow your blog without engaging with others at all, it’s probably going to slap you in the face and bite you in the butt. YIKES.

It’s so important to network, engage, and socialize! There are so many different ways to do this.

INSTAGRAM

Oh yes, the platform we love to hate and hate to love right? It’s no joke that getting engagement on Instagram is struggle city lately, BUT there are ways to make it work. SO here are some ways to REALLY get social on Instagram.

1. Go through your following list daily and interact with those you follow. Check out their newest posts (like and comment) AND WHEN I SAY COMMENT I MEAN BE SINCERE. Because let’s face it, who likes to get a comment on their new photo that says “nice shot.” errrr NO. Put some effort into your comments. READ THEIR CAPTIONS and engage with their captions. If you want someone to engage with you, you have to also engage with them too. It’s not a one way street.
2. Anytime someone comments on your photo – comment back. This seems like a no brainer but so many choose not to do this. Anytime someone comments on my photo I will go to their profile and comment on their recent photo. SPREAD THE LOVE. & also, it doesn’t hurt to reply back to their comment too! Don’t ignore your audience!
3. Get talking on the Instagram stories. I know this can be intimidating for some, especially if you are an introvert. BUT it’s time to step out of your comfort zone, pick up that phone and talk to your audience. Putting a voice to a face can really help create connections with your audience. Not to mention, they can then put a voice behind your writing as well! And did you know Instagram stories actually helps your Instagram engagement? MHM!

Related: 10 Ways to Spice Up Your Instagram Engagement

FACEBOOK

Okaaaay, I love Facebook because my community is on there. You can get real close with your audience via Facebook and here’s how!

1. Create a community (Facebook group) for your audience to join! I did this just about a year ago in May 2017 I created Boss Girl Bloggers. In just a year I grew my community to over 30,000 female bloggers and entrepreneurs. It was one of the BEST things I could have done for my blogging journey. I think I can safely say I wouldn’t be where I am today without my community. Having a facebook community for your audience gives you a way to communicate with your audience on a more personal level. I love getting to talk to my readers one on one, and help answer questions for them! In order to grow an engaging “successful” community you really have to be dedicated! I share all my Facebook group growing tips here. & feel free to join the community!
2. Engage in Facebook communities. Maybe you don’t have the time to create your own community, that’s okay…Instead join other communities related to your niche and get to engaging in them! Many communities will have daily threads where you can share your blog posts and social links, this is a great way for you to meet other bloggers! You can also offer a helping hand and communicate with other members in the group! Expand your reach.
3. Make sure to have a Facebook biz page! You can easily create a new page on Facebook if you haven’t already created one for your blog/biz. I know it’s hard to grow a Facebook biz page, no lie there. Here are some helpful tips: Post on your biz page at least once a day and make sure it’s an engaging and captivating post! Have a call to action such as: Comment below, or ask a question that your audience can answer. You know what I mean!? (this is important for Instagram captions as well) ALSO anytime someone interacts with your facebook biz post, reply to their comments and interact back. Did you know that LIVE videos on Facebook tend to help grow your Facebook biz page reach? AGAIN, all about going out of your comfort zone!!

NETWORKING + GUEST POSTING

Have you heard of guest posting yet? If not, LISTEN UP! Guest posting is HUGE, it not only can help with your SEO because you are getting backlinks, but it also can introduce you to a new audience and help you grow!

Guest posting is when you create a blog post for someone else’s blog. They will then feature your guest post as a new blog post and link back to your blog! I have weekly collaboration threads in Boss Girl Bloggers that helps my members to guest post on other’s blogs. A great way to expand your reach!

Also – Network with other bloggers in your niche. Example: I did a gift guide collaboration with a few other beauty bloggers! We would do gift guides and then link back to each other’s gift guides.  It’s really not that hard to collaborate with other bloggers, all it takes is a little bit of reaching out!

 

Related: What to do Before and After Publishing a Post

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Tip Six – SOME SEO JAZZ BITS

The other day I decided it was time to focus on my SEO (Search Engine Optimization, so you can rank higher on search engines)  Something to note is  that SEO takes time, you won’t appear on the first page of google over night, but it helps to get started on it early. So now I want to share with you a few important SEO tips:

1. If you are self hosting your wordpress you have access to plug ins and one plug in I recommend for SEO help is YOASTSEO. This plugin is a great guideline! After you write up your post you can go down to the bottom and put in a keyword. Once you put in the keyword you will get either a red, yellow, or green light. Red means your post is not optimized well for this keyword at all, yellow means it’s kinda optimized, and green means you are pretty good!  What happens if I get a red light? How do I fix it? Great question! It will give you a list of things you need to fix in order to make the light green. So read over the list and go from there. 
2. Alt txt in images. It’s super important that you have your keywords in your alt text! But also keep in mind, when someone pins this image to Pinterest the alt text and title of the photo is usually what pops up in the description of the pin. So again, go back to all the images on your blog posts and fill in your alt text with a sentence or two including some keywords! You can do this by editing the images. 
3. Have a good Meta description. Your “meta description” is the blurb that will pop up under your link on google. It’s essentially a description of what the reader will find if they click into your link. Let’s say you have a post on “How to bake chocolate chip cookies perfectly” You would want to make sure your meta description includes your keywords and also includes 3 sentences on what it is the post is going to be about. “Have you ever wanted to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie but can’t seem to get it right? Well, I am here to give you the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe and exactly how to bake them just right!” You can edit your meta description using the YOAST SEO plugin. At the end of your post you’ll see the Yoast SEO box, hit the EDIT SNIPPET. Example of what mine looks like: Now I just have to go in and edit to make it work.
4. Permalink: Having a good permalink (url link) to your blog posts are important. Ideally you would want something that’s not too long, but also includes keywords! JUST MAKE SURE that if you change permalinks after you post your blog post, you go back and redirect any old links to the new link that you created. You can do this using the “redirection” plug in. Don’t go crazy though! Too many redirect links can be bad for your site. I would suggest going forward to have short good permalinks created before publishing your post.
5. Utilize different headings and break up your text! Nothing is worse than having a huge block of text without anything breaking it up. It can be overwhelming to the eyes. I like to utilize H2 and H3 most of the time. I will have my title be used in H1, I will have key points in H2 (it’s important to have some keywords in your headings as well so that google can pick up on them.) and any subheadings to my H2 are in H3. USE HEADINGS PLEASE. It’s so important and it also helps to style your writing as well.
6. Interlinking + Backlinks: Like I mentioned before, interlinking is a must in your blog posts! & always try and get backlinks by collaborating with other bloggers and guest posting etc!

Take an SEO course to really up your game. I took the Stupid Simple SEO course it’s a game changer! He only opens enrollment a few times a year so jump on his e-mail list to get notified when his course is open again!

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Tip Seven: THINK LIKE A POSITIVE BOSS

What do I mean by this? One thing that I realized was a HUGE help in my blogging journey is that I kept my mindset focused on two things: “Being a boss lady + putting my positive pants on.”

If you want to see any sort of progress in your blog and biz, you need to start treating it like it’s your business already. Even if you aren’t making any money from it yet, STILL TREAT IT LIKE YOU ARE. You need to nourish your blog, it’s your baby. Here are some biz mindset tips:

CONSISTENCY

I know it’s hard to keep up with at times and breaks are always needed but one thing I like to tell myself is would I take multiple weeks away from my full time job? No. Therefore, I won’t take multiple weeks away from my blog either. My audience expects me to keep up with my blog, but don’t get me wrong…It’s okay to take breaks, take a vacation, take a weekend off, just like any job! Just PLEASE refrain from taking months away. It can be damaging to all of your progress, even if it feels like you made no progress.

For more ways to be a consistent blogger you need to check this out!

INVEST

It’s okay to invest in your blog, in fact it’s usually mandatory! I wouldn’t be where I am if I didn’t invest in self hosting, in tailwind and board booster, and so many other investments that I mention here. Don’t be afraid to invest in some good e-courses too. JUST MAKE SURE to research beforehand. There are some pricey ones out there that aren’t filled with much and some that are filled with a ton!

TRACK

Make sure you are tracking your progress! Looking to see what works and what doesn’t work is super important! If your traffic is down one day compared to the other, don’t panic! Figure out what you might have done differently that could have caused this dip. Let’s say your traffic increases dramatically one day, again figure out what it was that you did differently to get this increase in traffic! I love google analytics because it gives you the most details and statistics on your traffic including the major sourcing of where your traffic is coming from!

DON’T COMPARE

It’s vital to never compare your journey to someone else’s. It will only do more damage than good. We all have different factors to take into consideration when growing our blogs. For example, I may have been able to grow quicker than maybe a hard working momma with 3 kids! It’s all about how much time you have to dedicate, and if your time isn’t as much as someone else’s that’s okay! Everyone’s journey will reach their “success” eventually.

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I hope you enjoyed these tips!! I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Until next time,

xx

Ell