Most blogs run on traffic. Most people who set up a blog want to attract as many visitors as possible, for one reason or another. It could be for money, or just to make sure the information they are sharing reaches as many people as possible. Either way, pulling traffic to your blog is not easy. It takes strategy, patience, and dedication. Here are some of the most effective ways to bring traffic to your blog in 2018.
Classical
Before we get to the newer technologies for increasing blog traffic, let’s not forget the conventional methods.
Anyone who runs a blog or website knows that content is king. The quality of what you publish is what decides whether people keep coming back. If your blog is about cars, then give the best news, advice, and rumors about cars. That keeps your audience interested enough to visit often and check what’s new. Use plain language so any visitor can follow what’s going on. To use the car blog again, if you go too technical, some people won’t understand what you’re writing about and they will lose interest.
Yes, as a professional, using technical terms correctly can make you look like an expert. But keep it moderate. Provide content that readers who understand your jargon will appreciate, while readers who don’t will at least only need to Google the odd strange term rather than an entire sentence.
Good content makes people excited, and since you can now share almost any digital data instantly, most people won’t resist the urge to pass along something they like. So quality content doesn’t just attract one visitor. By the time that visitor shares it, and then another, and then another, you can end up with maybe a thousand visitors, all through one person. How good is that?
Digital Networks
Networking and connections are how you market yourself and let the world know about your products and services. Online, social media is perhaps the single most important way to spread the word about your blog. Yes, it has been around a while, but it is still one of the most effective ways to promote what you write.
The thing to watch as 2018 approaches is how social media is changing, and how that will affect the way things work on the web, and therefore your blog. One good habit is to pay attention to the new social media sites that keep surfacing and watch how they shape the internet. You should be on the major sites: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, QQ, Tumblr, Instagram, Sina Weibo. If you don’t recognize some of those, that’s a sign you should get to know your social media sites better. It’s obvious: use social media to promote your blog.
Take part in social media groups and other communities so you can give people a hint of what you offer, and where it fits, drop a link to your blog so anyone interested can find out more about you. Take part in blogging communities too.
Give feedback and support to other bloggers, especially those writing about the same thing you are. If you blog about cars, there are other bloggers on the same wavelength. Check out their blogs and say a thing or two. Many of them will notice you and return the favor. That can lead those bloggers to include backlinks to your blog in theirs, which increases your traffic.
Mobile First
Google will soon change its search engine to give priority to mobile devices. The reason is that Google has found more and more searches in recent years coming from mobile devices. This is likely to be in place by 2018.
So make sure your blog is optimized for mobile. Whatever platform you use, check that it has taken this part of web design into account. Chances are most blogging platforms will already have this feature built in. But it doesn’t hurt to check. Better safe than sorry.
How does this affect traffic? Simple. Most people will be using a mobile device to reach the internet. The share of those people who want to view your blog’s content should be able to do so. It can’t be simpler than that.
Traffic bots
They are good. They are bad. It depends who you ask and how you look at the issue. Traffic bots are applications used by search engines and other websites to visit sites for various purposes, such as monitoring user behavior or interacting with content, either maliciously or benevolently. Before 2013, traffic bots made up the majority of the traffic most websites and blogs received.
From 2014, more human visitors started coming to websites and blogs. Traffic bots can also help increase your blog’s traffic, which gives it a better chance of a higher ranking on search engines, which means still more traffic. You can install a desktop application that sends traffic bots to your blog, or you can subscribe to an online service that does the job for you.
Traffic bots have been controversial because they aren’t necessarily the kind of traffic you want. Even so, they still help generate the traffic you are after. Handle them with care and learn how to best manage and take advantage of them.
