Blogging Tips

It’s possible to produce some of the best content online and still fail to see traffic numbers commensurate with the quality of your output. There are two primary reasons for this, and they come squarely down to promotion and SEO, in that order. Both are important, and when used in tandem can rapidly boost your page views. Just follow the tips that are outlined below to pull in a higher volume of traffic. Don’t be surprised when your monthly hosting bill, AdSense earnings and overall conversions go up as well.

Learn to Network

No blog is an island, and the blogging world isn’t a zero sum game. When you work with other bloggers rather than view them as “the competition”, it enables you to create a symbiotic and synergistic web of value that’s mutually beneficial to you and your peers. In other words, contact bloggers in your industry or niche and provide feedback when they publish quality content. Another solid approach is guest blogging, which (when done the right way) allows you to gain valuable links and increased visibility.

Optimize Keywords to Get Found

It’s basic SEO 101, but it bears repeating that keyword optimization is the keystone to ranking highly for the search terms you’d like to dominate. It’s also the best way to draw in traffic from your desired audience demographic. The tried and true AdWords Keyword Tool is a great way to get started, but it’s also worth giving the likes of Ubersuggest a try. The latter emulates Google’s auto-suggest feature, so try entering the start of a question – “how to bloggers” is a good example to see how things work!

On-Page Optimization

SEO isn’t just about keyword tweaking and backlinks. On-page optimisation refers to anything that you can change about your site to improve search engine rankings. Manual adjustments such as meta data reconfiguration, URL restructuring, generating optimal XML sitemaps and including a robots.txt file are important. You can also opt to use something like the Yoast SEO plugin to automatically reconfigure your on-page SEO for the best results.

The important thing here is to make indexing and understanding your site as easy as possible for Googlebot. Think of it from a usability point of view – if your site’s easy to access and understand a user is likely to spend more time on it… the same goes for Google!

Pay Attention to Author Markup

Though it’s not a commonly discussed tactic or area of SEO interest, author markup can be incredibly effective in improving your chances at getting noticed. Long story short, author markup allows a webmaster or blog publisher to be identified far more easily using the rel="author" tags. Doing so will boost organic traffic by allowing the search engine heavyweights like Google and Bing to better index your content and broadcast your identity to readers visually in the SERPs, thereby improving click-through rates.

Interact with the Community

Despite the inherent differences between so-called New Media and the mainstream monoliths of corporate publishing and television, bloggers still congregate and converse like any other group. You’d be surprised at the kinds of events that can be found every month in your own city and around the country. Obvious examples include South by Southwest and SOBCon, though alternatives that are more pertinent to your niche abound. Check out Blog Conference Guide to find local events that will allow you to meet other bloggers and network.

Parting Thoughts

If you use SEO and networking in conjunction with one another, your odds of success go up radically. Putting out solid content is the most important part of the equation, but it won’t do you any good if you can’t get anyone to consume it in the first place. A complete SEO overhaul of your blog could take anywhere from weeks to months, depending on the complexity of your site. For now, the tips detailed above should give you a nice, sustainable boost in organic traffic.