13 Essential Tips to Help You Increase Blog Traffic and Earn More

When you start out blogging, you may think that it’s as easy as writing the blog then posting it. Surely, there are people who do that — for fun.

If you have any wish for people to see your blog, interact with it, share it, comment on it or even be keen to sign up for services or buy products linked to it, then you need to know how to make the most of your blog.

But, what does “make the most of” mean? Well, in an ideal world, over time your blog should increase in traffic, thus earning you more money.

If your blog is not currently increasing in readership, nor making you money, then put simply: you’re not making the most of your blog.

Luckily, we’ve gathered together 13 of the most essential tips out there for bloggers. These tips will help you increase blog traffic and earn more — whether you’re aiming to make blogging a small side hobby or a full-time career.

1. Craft Something Better

If you’re wondering how to get visitors to your blog, then this is one the very first things you need to do. It is essential. The number one tip to increase blog traffic to your site is to craft better content than your competitors.

It may sound, simple, but it actually takes a lot of attention to detail and know-how. The first step then is to know thy competitors.

In order to do so, you can use easy tools such as Google Alerts which can send a report to your inbox every time a competitor is mentioned online. You can also use it for tracking the effectiveness of different keywords.

The key here is to find your competitors, see what they’re doing right and then do what they’re doing better. This may come in many forms. Perhaps you decide to add in more appealing visuals, or funny GIFs to lighten the mood, or extend your posts to 3,000 words and beyond.

Whatever method or methods you choose to implement in order to surpass your competition, make sure that you’ve done your research, so you minimize time wasted. Then, get to crafting superior content to increase blog traffic while also upping your earnings.

Learn how to craft better content for your blog right now with this guide.

2. Improve Readability

When considering how to get visitors to your blog, consider readability. It is extremely important for the reader to be able to easily skim through your article, taking away the main message.

To increase readability, consider doing the following: shorten sentences or paragraphs, use numbered lists and use illustrative or funny images with each point. 

Learning the tricks of readability can be difficult. Click here to learn the easy way! 

3. Become an Affiliate

When talking about gaining new traffic, there’s also usually a reason behind this need for more people to see your work — earning money.

Whether you’re blogging for small passive income or angling to make this your full-time blogging career, there is a simple way to start earning with each blog you post. It’s called becoming an affiliate.

How affiliate programs work is simple. You can sign up to become a specific business’ affiliate, they will have a look through your blog and then decide if you’re the right fit for one another.

If so, they will pay you a cost per action (CPA) when you mention them by name in your blogs. IT’s often free to sign up to be an affiliate and also a great way to make money while blogging as normal.

Of course, only choose affiliate programs which align with the spirit of your blog or brand. Here are a few of the affiliate programs we use:

Example Affiliate Programs

SurveyJunkie – This company pays people to take surveys in order to help brands create better products and services. It’s great to mention for: easy ways to make money, how to make money from home, top tips for making money online, etc.

Ibotta – This company helps people get cash back on items they purchase. Shopping through their app then taking a photo of your receipt is all it takes. They give cash back via PayPal, Venmo or gift cards. Mention them for: get paid to shop, easy ways to make money, etc. 

Ebates – This company provides up to 40% cash back when you shop through their app at select stores. Those stores pay them, and they pay you a part of that. Consider mentioning them for: earn money to shop online, ways to earn money without much effort, etc. 

Sweatcoin – This app converts your outdoor steps into ways to earn tech, sports or fitness kits, services or experiences. Mention it for: make money while you exercise, interesting ways to earn, etc.

Help Finding Affiliate Programs 

FlexOffers – This company helps set up people with proper affiliate marketers and campaigns. This is great to use if you’re looking for many affiliate opportunities in one place. 

ShareASale – This company advertises businesses which are looking for affiliate marketers. That’s you! Find companies, products and services that align with your blog’s theme, apply, write and start earning every day. 

MaxBounty – This company connects affiliate marketers to vetted high-paying advertisers on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis. They have 200+ advertisers and 20,000+ affiliates.

Click here to learn how we make over $30,000 a month from blogging, and you can too!

4. Create Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is essentially content which will never go out of style. It will always be relevant. Think of “How to…” and “X Ways to…” articles.

Because these blogs are always needed, they constantly generate new viewers. As such, it will always produce money (if you have prepared for it), just as evergreens always have their leaves.

When crafting an article, try to choose topics which are currently needed but also won’t go out of style tomorrow.

If you do write an article and a few months or years later it has some outdated information, you can always update it to provide new content to increase blog traffic. 

Learn how you can grow your blog from $0 to $10,000 per month. 

5. Know Your Keywords

Part of how to get more traffic to your blog entails being very aware of which words you use when you craft your blogs.

When many people look for the same words they’re known as keywords. Knowing which keywords your target audience is looking for is a really helpful way to make sure you’re crafting a blog post which will be seen.

A simple way to get more traffic to your blog is to use Google Keyword Planner, which is a tool for finding keywords. With it, you can find out paid and organic competitor keyword data as well as monitor your own website.

Keep in mind that you do need to sign up for a free AdWords account to use Google Keyword Planner. But, after that, you’ll be on your way to keyword heaven.

Need help building your blog? Click here for our top tricks and tricks when writing!

6. Crosslink Your Content 

Another way I get traffic to my blog for free is by crosslinking within my blogs. Crosslinking means that I will link previous articles on my blog within the current blog.

It’s like blog inception — a blog link within a blog which was a Google search link.

Why do this? It’s simple: Google better understands the importance of your content and has an easier time indexing it. This translates to — you guessed it — increased blog traffic!

For example, many of the bolded and underlined links in this article are crosslinks. They take you to other blogs on this site, both to help you find the pages you need and help this site tell Google it’s important.

Click here to learn how to gain a lot more traffic to your blog using simple steps! 

7. Include Examples 

Another way to drive traffic is to make your blog an authority on the matter of which you’re speaking.

How? Add in examples and case studies.

Case studies need to be relevant, informative and easy to understand for any reader. Use an image of the data, if possible, then explain it in simple terms. This lets the reader know that you’ve done your research and know what you’re talking about.

Examples can be sources from anywhere as long as they fit the theme. Personal anecdotes and experiences are often best, as they allow the reader to connect with you emotionally, perhaps having experienced something similar once. 

Ready to learn how to elevate your blogging game? Click here to learn how. 

8. Optimize Social Sharing

Once you’ve written a blog which goes above and beyond, keywords and all, then it’s time to make sure it’s being seen on social media. There are many ways to go about this.

You can share on all of your platforms, going into each one to publish the piece. But, that can often take a lot of time.

Another way to get traffic to your blog is to boost your social media shares using Warfare Plugins which place easily seen and aesthetically pleasing share buttons below your article.

Not only does it allow you to customize the colors to your liking, but it also formats to every screen size, whether its desktop, tablet or mobile.

This means that when people read and like your article, they can immediately and quickly share it on their own social media platforms, rather than going through the trouble to copy and paste, which may lose a lot of interested readers.

Learn the right ways to share your blogs so they reach as many people as possible. 

9. Up Your Email Marketing Game

Once you have pieces written and published on your blog, another way to get more traffic to your blog is to up your email marketing game.

If you don’t already have an email list, you need to make one as soon as possible. An email list is a way to connect potential clients with your upcoming services or products.

To make an email list, the first probable step is to create an awesome signup form. So, how do you make it awesome?

Provide an incentive they will want, create something that draws them in and make the whole thing easy for them — clicking a single button or entering their name and email easy.

The more creative you are in snagging these email subscribers, the better. Having a wider audience to send targeted offers and products toward will significantly widen your chance for success.

If you need any help at all, ConvertKit — email marketing made for creators — can help. It can help you grow your audience to grow income, better understand your audience and increase conversions.

Email marketing is a whole different ball game. Click here to learn what you need to know!

10. Work on Building Backlinks

So, if crosslinks are referencing your blogs within your blogs, then backlinks are referencing your blog from another person’s blog. Essentially, you have a backdoor leading people from their blog to yours.

Due to their nature, backlinks are much more difficult to obtain than crosslinks. You can put crosslinks in yourself, but backlinks take more preparation and work, not to mention other people.

There are a few ways to go about building backlinks. You can write guest blogs for other sites, wherein you leave your blog info at the end of the article.

Or, if you find someone with a similar article to yours, but yours has newer material, you could offer to send them a link to your article with the new info, provided they cite your blog. This helps them keep their info relevant.

To get more traffic to your blog you can also use a feature like BuzzSumo, which monitors whenever someone mentions your brand. It also lets you know which mentions are without backlinks to your site.

You can then contact the authors of the posts and thank them for mentioning you. Then ask if they wouldn’t mind adding your site link. It’s an easy way to get a backlink when you’ve already been mentioned.

Click here to learn the basics of building your blog right now. 

11. Treat Headers Seriously 

Another way to drive people to your blog is to have a great header. If you can create an excellent title, then people will click.

Try to create longer titles, with powerful actions words that draw people in. If you’re unsure of the style you’re looking for, search for your keywords and see what your competitors are doing.

See what they are doing then do it better. For example, if they have “20 Ways to…” then make yours “50 Ways to…” If you look at their ranked content and see it doesn’t have images, then make sure to add images to yours. 

Click here to learn how to create a blog and tailor it until you reach perfection.

12. Use Better Visuals

You may not think visuals are that important. In fact, perhaps you don’t use any visuals at all.

This is a huge mistake. There are two instances where a blog needs visuals to be on point: the thumbnail and the article support.

Having an eye-catching thumbnail is one of the ways to get traffic to your blog. If the image is beautiful, colorful or interesting enough, it may significantly increase the chances that people will click on your article when they see it on social media.

The other way visuals are important has to do with improving readability. When a person reads a blog, images help to both reinforce ideas and also give the reader a moment to breath between text.

As such, sites such as PicMonkey allow you to edit photos and make designs which can elevate your original visual content quite a lot. Grab attention in the right ways by using better visuals, especially for thumbnails.

Learn how you can edit photos to completely change the look of your blog. 

13. Drive Traffic from Pinterest & Instagram

For many creators, especially those working alone without a team, it can be difficult to be consistent. But, consistency is key here. This next tip will help.

For those looking to use Pinterest and Instagram to boost their blogs, Tailwind is an excellent need-to-know resource. Essentially, it allows you to save massive time, reach out when your audience is most engaged, get hashtag suggestions and schedule posts.

Stay consistent and drive more people to your blog via social media!

Learn how to gain more blog traffic by maximizing use of Pinterest or Instagram.