If you have been following along so far then it is safe to say that you have the blogging foundations down and have already covered the blogging essentials. Now we’re starting to get to the meaty part, getting more traffic.

 

Most people immediately want to know how to make money. But the thing is, you can’t make any money until you have readers. What you first need is an audience. You need pageviews.

 

You will hear a lot of bloggers with a lot of differing opinions on this. Some will say you don’t need a ton of pageviews in order to have a successful blog. Well, the majority of the bloggers who say that HAVE pageviews. That’s why they are successful.

 

However, it is true that there are ways to be successful without a ton of pageviews. The most likely way is to really hone in on other aspects of your blog, like list building and email marketing. But as we will discuss later on, you should be doing this anyways.

 

But regardless, gaining pageviews, readers, and a loyal audience is one of the hardest aspects of blogging.

 

You will quickly find that having a beautiful website and even creating great content is not enough to have a successful blog. The key is you need to learn how to market your content. I hardly refer to blogging as simply blogging anymore. I like to call it internet marketing because that is exactly what you will be spending the majority of your time learning. In all honesty, creating content is super fun and almost easy for me.

 

The hard part?

 

Getting eyeballs on my content. Getting readers. Getting more blog traffic. What you want to do is build an audience and ultimately, build a long lasting and self-sustaining business.

 

Do you dream of inspiring and influencing others with your words? Then internet marketing is what you need to learn in order to get there. These tips will help you not only have a successful blog, but help you to inspire and make a difference in the lives of others.

 

How to Get More Blog Traffic: Let’s Get You Some Pageviews!

 

Everybody Meet my Frenemy Pinterest

Pinterest is where you need to be in order to get more blog traffic. I made the mistake of thinking that by having a large Instagram following I would begin to see the pageviews start pouring in.

 

That couldn’t be more wrong.

 

Instagram is great for a TON of reasons, but pageviews? Not quite.

 

Here is the lifespan of new content on popular social media platforms:

• Facebook – 5 hours
• Instagram – 48 hours
• Twitter – 18 minutes
• Snapchat – 10 seconds
• Pinterest – 3 to 6 MONTHS!! (and I can tell you from personal experience, Pinterest’s lifespan can be even longer than that)

 

GUYS. THIS. IS. HUGE.

 

Pinterest is such a gem because it is not only a social media platform, but it’s also a search engine. You know who else is a search engine? Google. Which also happens to be the other platform you need to focus on for pageviews – but we’ll discuss that more later on in the post.

 

Pinterest Background Info

Pinterest is probably starting to sound super amazing right now, so you might be wondering why I call it my “frenemy”. Well, just like every other social media platform, Pinterest went through a growing phase where they were pushing new users to sign up for the platform. Pinterest essentially promoted for free blog posts and other work uploaded by content creators.

 

During this time tons of bloggers grew their blogs really fast.

 

Unfortunately, somewhere around February 2017, the game changed. Pinterest began limiting the reach of blog posts, and the fun, easy traffic began to dry up. Facebook did this, Instagram did this, and so it was inevitable that Pinterest would eventually do it, too. 

 

However, have no fear! I didn’t even sign up for Pinterest until September 2017 – and I still reap the benefits of being active on Pinterest. Pinterest is my #1 source of traffic and I grew my blog from 500 pageviews a month to over 20,000 pageviews a month within 5 months.

 

So, it can be done. Just be aware that if you are reading Pinterest growth tips written before September 2017, I would take the advice with a grain of salt.

 

How to Increase Your Blog Traffic with Pinterest

Anyone who has even a small bit of success with their blog will agree that Pinterest is where you need to be spending your time. I didn’t do ANYTHING with Pinterest for the first 9 months of having my blog.

 

And guess what?

 

I didn’t grow AT ALL for the first 9 months of my blogging career. It’s truly that simple.

 

Pinterest is where I would start first when wanting to gain blog traffic. The reasons for this is because you will receive blog traffic the fastest by investing some time in Pinterest.

 

I wrote an entire post about how to increase your blog traffic by using Pinterest, so definitely check out that post for a much longer and in-depth explanation about Pinterest.  After implementing everything I mention in that post I started seeing results within a month. The hardest part after setting everything up is being accepted into group boards, which you can read about in the post.

 

Invest in the Right Pinterest Tools

I made a LOT of mistakes when it came to this whole blogging thing. The biggest one I made is refusing to invest in my blog.

 

So, if you want know the secret to growing your blog and ultimately to blogging success, you need to invest in the proper tools. I mistakenly thought I could gain all of the knowledge I needed through prayer and free resources found on the internet and Youtube.

 

The thing is, free information will only get you so far. The biggest problem with these free tools is that the internet and social media changes fast, and 80% of everything you read is out of date. That means you are learning methods that worked 2 years ago, but is old news in the blogging world.

 

You need to stay on top of it, or you will fall behind. Or worse, you will be wasting your time.

 

I have honestly taken more than the three courses that I’m about to mention, but these are the ones that I deem the MOST helpful.  I guarantee that if you decide to purchase, you will not be wasting your money by investing in them.

 

1. Pinning Perfect by Melissa Culbertson

Hands down Pinning Perfect is the perfect course to learn the ins and outs of Pinterest. If you want to start your Pinterest-strategy the right way, then this course is for you. It is very thorough and covers everything Pinterest-related really well, leaving few questions unanswered. Melissa also has a fantastic email response rate if you do have questions, which is amazing. Sometimes you purchase a course, and then never hear from the course creator again, which can feel frustrating.

 

2. Pinterest Strategies by Carly Campbell

Pinterest Strategies is incredibly insightful, but also super affordable. Carly was determined to grow her blog with Pinterest by manually pinning, and she somehow cracked the code. She grew her blog from 0 to over 200,000 pageviews within 9 months, which is a crazy awesome feat.

 

After reading her ebook I started manually pinning and had two pins go viral within the same month, so her techniques are definitely effective.

 

I stopped manually pinning last month, and now do a combo of manually pinning and using the Tailwind scheduler. If you’re going to use a scheduler definitely use Tailwind, they’re simply the best. 

 

3. PIMP (Pinterest Improvement Master Plan)

I would absolutely consider the Pinterest Improvement Master Plan a must, however, only take it after you have a firm understanding of the basics of Pinterest. It seriously will blow your mind. There’s so much information packed into this course, I had to rewatch the videos about 3 times.

 

This is the only course I’ve taken that really goes beyond the basics and breaks down how and why Pinterest works the way it does. Jennifer has said she’s increasing the price soon, so if you want it be sure you snap it up!

 

Let’s Talk SEO

Besides Pinterest, the other biggest and most effective way to get more blog traffic is by optimizing your blog posts for SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization and is achieved by optimizing your blog posts with keywords to help them rank in search engines such as Google.

 

Keywords are a word, or a string of words, used to make it possible for people to find your site via search engines. Long tail keywords are a string of words that are typically less competitive to rank for.

 

I’ve written a lot of posts on San Diego, however as you can imagine “San Diego” is a really tough keyword to rank for. Because of this, it’s easier to find long tail keywords that are less competitive. A long tail keyword that I rank for is “San Diego Instagram Spots”, which also happens to be my #1 post. It’s not my #1 post because it’s a super awesome blog post (although it is pretty good), but instead it’s because I rank on page 1 of Google. And as we already discussed, Google provides that nice, steady blog traffic.

 

As you can imagine, ranking on page 1 in Google is not an easy feat. Search engine optimization is more of a long-term blogging game, which is why I recommended starting with Pinterest for faster blog traffic. With SEO, often times it can take up to 3-4 months to see any effects of your hard work. However, it is definitely worth learning and optimizing your posts for SEO because search engine blog traffic is more reliable and steadier than Pinterest blog traffic.

 

How to Optimize Your Post for SEO

To begin I recommend you install and activate the free plugin Yoast SEO to help you optimize your posts.

 

Next you will need to determine what keywords you want to try to rank for in Google. Keysearch is what I use and highly recommend for doing keyword research. Keysearch is a keyword research tool that takes the guessing game out of searching for long tail keywords. By using this tool, you can quickly determine if you have a chance of ranking for any keyword you choose.

 

If you discover your chances are slim of ranking for the keyword you want, Keysearch conveniently gives you lots of similar keywords that may be easier to rank for.

 

PS: Get 20% off of Keysearch (use code “KSDISC”) with my link to get a feel for how it works.

 

Once you choose the keyword (or long tail keywords) that you want to rank for, you need to include it in multiple places throughout your post. The Yoast SEO plugin will help you so you never forget to include your keyword in any of these spots.

 

Some of the big spots are:

• At least 3 times throughout your post (intro, somewhere in the middle, again at the end)
• Use the H2 and H3 headings to include your keyword
• Blog title
• URL slug
• Meta description
• Image alt attributes

 

Of course, there is a lot more to SEO than what I have just explain. That is why investing in a course is crucial. 

 

Here are a few courses that I would HIGHLY recommend:

 

1. Stupid Simple SEO – I cannot stress enough how amazing this course is. Learning SEO is notorious for being complicated and confusing, but the way Mike lays everything out for you, it’s easy to absorb and apply. This course is jam-packed with information and is definitely worth every penny. Highly, highly recommend! See here for course details and current price. 

 

2. The BBC (Billionaire Blog Club)

The Billionaire Blog Club (or the BBC) was founded and created by Paul Scrivens, who is making upward of $30,000 a month and owns multiple blogs in multiple niches.

 

If you can only have one person as your blogging mentor, you want it to be him.

 

So, what is the BBC?

 

Instead of being just one course, the BBC is truly a club. You get A LOT with this membership.

 

Unlike other courses you will find, the BBC is not a resource for one specific aspect of blogging, but instead encompasses ALL of the important aspects of blogging including (but not limited to) Pinterest, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and of course SEO.

 

I found his SEO course to be nicely laid out and I felt he thoroughly explained the strategies behind SEO in an easy to understand kind of way.

 

I’d suggest taking Paul’s free 12-day blogging bootcamp to learn more about what he offers. 🙂

 

Pinterest and SEO are the two best sources for getting more blog traffic. Once you take the time to implement these processes and learn more about these strategies, you will start to see the blog traffic come rolling in. 🙂

 

 

We are nearing the end of the How to Blog series, but we can’t wrap it up without telling you how to make money with your blog. 

 

Did you miss anything in this series? Read more below!

• Are you Feeling Called to Blog? (read the intro to this series!)
• How to Start a Blog: The Ridiculously Easy Step-by-Step Guide 
• The Blogging Essentials: The 5 Things Your Blog NEEDS to Have
• 8 (Sneaky!) Tips for Writing GREAT Blog Posts, Every Time
• 10 Ways to Increase Your Pageviews with Pinterest
• How to Make Money Blogging for Beginners

 

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