When you’ve invested time or resources into creating top quality blog posts, it’s bitterly disappointing when you get very little traffic.
And on a less sentimental note… Your blog is one of the most valuable marketing channels for your business:
- 60% of marketers say content marketing is “very important” or “extremely important” to their overall strategy
- Blog posts are the second most popular type of content among B2B marketers.
So, low traffic means little return on your investment.
Getting traffic to your blog should be the first order of business. To put it simply, more blog visitors mean more opportunities to raise brand awareness, and nurture and convert those visitors.
Now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the basic strategies for driving traffic to your blog – SEO, social and so on…
So, let’s take a look at some lesser-known, creative ways to increase blog traffic for free.
CONTENTS
- Take advantage of social share button features
- Reach out to blogs with roundup posts
- Place internal links strategically
- Treat meta descriptions like a sales pitch
- Submit your posts to niche aggregator sites
- Co-market with your connections
- Add links to your email signature
- Create audience-centric content
- Share content with your Slack groups
- A/B test headlines
- Accept guest posts
- Create useful resources
By the way, if you want to start your own blog, you should check out my breakdown of the best blogging platforms on the market for a lil help.
1. Take advantage of social share button features
It frustrates me to no end when I read an interesting blog post and want to share it on Twitter, but alas, the share buttons are nowhere to be found. You should have share buttons and hopefully, you already do…
But, perhaps, you’re not taking full advantage of your share buttons’ features.
I, personally, use Sumo Share and the plugin has some features beyond the regular buttons. For instance, there’s the option to add share buttons to your images and graphics:
This gives readers an extra opportunity to share your visuals on Pinterest, Twitter and so on.
And Sumo Share isn’t the only free plugin with extra, useful features that you may not have tapped into yet.
AddThis, for example, offers smart sorting. It orders the share buttons according to readers’ most recently visited social networks. This is a really cool feature as people are more likely to share your content on their favorite social channels.
Get the most from your share buttons by exploring the plugin’s specialist features. This will ultimately lead to more social shares and, therefore, increased traffic to your blog.
2. Reach out to blogs with roundup posts
Roundup posts can help you reach a wider audience that’s specifically interested in your niche.
For instance, my B2B content writing checklist was featured on a list of resources for small business owners in the B2B content marketing section:
To find roundups in your niche, use the right search strings on Google:
- [Keyword] + roundup
- [Keyword] + weekly roundup
- [Keyword] + monthly roundup
- [Keyword] + best posts
- [Keyword] + best articles
- [Keyword] + [Month/Year] e.g. chatbots + March
Choose sites with a good social following and domain authority. Then pitch your post to the site owner or editor.
Here’s the email I used to win my place in the above roundup:
This worked for me. But, if you want to up your chances of being featured I would recommend personalizing your outreach emails even further. For instance, you should not just mention that you found the roundup content useful but go into detail as to why.
3. Place internal links strategically
Strategically-placed internal links will improve SEO and therefore boost organic traffic. In one case study, NinjaOutreach increased organic traffic by 40% by establishing a strategic internal link structure.
To reap the benefits of internal linking, first locate your top-performing posts, i.e. high-ranking, high-performing pages. In Analytics, head to Acquisition > Search Console > Landing pages then sort by “Average Position”:
From your top pages, link to pages you’d like to give a boost to. This might be a recently-published post that doesn’t have much authority yet. Or posts that haven’t performed as well as you would have hoped.
Just don’t overdo it – always make sure internal links are relevant and natural.
4. Treat meta descriptions like a sales pitch
Meta descriptions are important. My pal Elise Dopson, increased search traffic by 54% after optimizing her meta descriptions.
They’re not just a technical SEO thing you need to check off your list. They act as ads for your blog posts.
After all, meta descriptions are what users see on the search engine results pages and underneath the headline when you share your posts on social.
So, along with your headline, they encourage clicks.
Yes, it’s important to include keywords, but also tell users how they will benefit from reading your post and use enticing copy. Here’s an example from one of my recent blog posts:
Really try to sell your content to encourage more people to click.
5. Submit your posts to niche aggregator sites
This is another easy way to increase visibility within your niche.
Choose relevant content aggregator sites, not general ones. Otherwise, things will start to get a bit spammy.
There are a couple of excellent sites I use, which cover the spaces I work in (marketing, B2B tech and SaaS):
1. GrowthHackers – A community where users share content on growth hacking, content marketing and other digital-related topics.
2. Zest.is – An app with curated content for marketing pros.
These sites send a decent amount of referral traffic to my blog posts and it doesn’t cost a thing.
Research aggregator, bookmarking and content curation sites to find communities that will appreciate your blog content.
6. Co-market with your connections
Collaborate with your connections to gain access to their audience.
You can utilize any partnerships or connections where it would be beneficial. But, this works particularly well if you have a digital product that integrates with other digital products.
Take a look at this example from Zoom and Hive:
Hive also syndicated this content to their blog.
Here you have two products that work really well together to serve a specific purpose, in this case, to facilitate remote working.
You can do something similar by considering the key benefit of using your product in tandem with your partner’s product. And then create blog posts that focus on that benefit to get readers from your partner’s audience to join yours.
7. Add links to your email signature
An email signature makes your communications look as professional as Oprah in a pantsuit. We all know that.
But, not enough people utilize the real estate that’s on offer in that space.
Link to your blog content alongside your credentials. Not only will it bring more traffic to your site, but it’ll bring better traffic. Visitors that enter your site through an email signature link have on average a 36% lower bounce rate and stay on your site 3x longer.
I usually link to my most recent blog post in my email signature:
But, if you want to get really fancy, you can segment your email recipients and link to the most relevant content for each particular group. At the end of the day, people are more likely to click on a post that interests them specifically.
8. Create audience-centric content
First and foremost, you must create content that serves the needs of your audience. Given Google’s focus on satisfying search intent, the search engine will reward you for it.
So, think about your audience’s pain points and the kind of information they seek out on the regular. Also, find real questions that your audience is asking. To do this, you can use:
- Google’s PAA box
- Quora
- Forums & Reddit
- AnswerThePublic
This will help you generate blog post ideas based on the search queries your audience is actually using. If you can create quality content that satisfies those queries you will rank better on Google and get more organic traffic.
9. Share content with your Slack groups
In recent years, Slack has become more and more popular. Currently, it has over 12 million daily active users. Thus, there’s great potential for you to extend the reach of your blog posts on Slack.
The first step is to find and join relevant Slack communities. Use public lists and databases, such as Standuply.
Also, ask your colleagues, peers or social media network to share open Slack communities.
You’ll then want to start making connections and getting involved in discussions. Once you’ve established your presence, you can share your content in appropriate threads to attract visitors to your blog.
Make it useful and relevant to the topic of conversation so as not to be spammy.
10. A/B test headlines
You have a real opportunity to get more traffic by testing and tweaking your headlines. After spending a month A/B testing headlines, SEJ’s Danny Goodwin concluded,
“The more headlines you write and test, the more chances you have to discover the right headline. If you aren’t testing, you’re potentially missing out on traffic, rankings, leads, shares, and revenue.”
Google Optimize is a free tool that you can use to run A/B tests. Create variants within the platform, Google will send 50% of traffic to each variant and you can view the results in the “Reporting” section.
A less scientific but easier route would be to run your own social media experiment.
Share two headline variations on Twitter. Then head to your Twitter analytics to see which tweet gets the most engagement. This will give you a good idea as to which headline your audience will respond to more.
11. Accept guest posts
Guest posting on other authority sites in your niche is likely a part of your content strategy. But have you thought about accepting guest posts on your blog, too?
It might not be the first strategy you think of, especially if you have a blog for your business rather than an editorial blog.
But think about it this way… When I get guest posts published, you know I’m sharing them on all my social channels:
If the guest blogger is hoping to raise awareness for their company, product and/or personal brand they have a serious incentive to promote the guest post. This ultimately means getting more traffic to your blog for free and with very little work on your end.
Make sure your spam radar is on. Don’t accept guest posts from individuals who are just looking for an easy link. Choose guests that have authority and a decent-sized audience.
To get guest bloggers on your site, add a “Write for us” page detailing your requirements. Or reach out to influencers in your niche and invite them to create a guest post for your site.
12. Create useful resources
This might not be new advice for some. But, I think it is an underestimated and under-utilized tactic for driving traffic.
Create a blog post that resembles a useful resource page, as opposed to a traditional blog post. This type of content is audience-centric, super actionable and will likely create returning visitors.
I don’t know about you but I have a few bookmarked resources that I go back to time and time again.
What kind of resources should you create? You might create a list of useful links or a collection of resources. Here’s an example from Owl Labs:
Things like checklists, templates, cheat sheets and other useful materials also work well, as in this example:
The goal is to create a resource from which users can take something and apply it in real life. These kinds of blog posts are so useful they can’t help but attract links, shares and ultimately more traffic.
Final Word
To get more from your blog as a business and marketing channel, you must work on increasing traffic. And when you’ve got the basics down, it’s time to try some new techniques.
It’s all about extending your reach, tapping into interesting, new channels and creating the right types of content to get more visitors to your blog.
Let us know your lesser-known or unique techniques for driving traffic in the comments below.
