Sharing is caring!

Beginners Guide to Building Blog Traffic

As a blogger, you are likely passionate about your niche and the information you provide your audience! And, like most bloggers, you want to share your ideas with more readers by getting more traffic to your site. But getting visitors to your site is not a one-and-done step – let’s outline the basics of building blog traffic for beginners.

Benefits of blog traffic

First, what is blog traffic and why is it so vital – even for beginners?

Traffic is the amount of visits to a site and includes activity such as clicks, comments, or any other interaction. Generally, a goal of most bloggers is to increase the traffic to a site – whether the blogs are designed for business or hobbies.

When you continually generate visits to your site, you establish your site as a resource in your niche. This helps you build authority on your topic and spread your message to more and more readers. As your site gains traction, you can build your audience for any future endeavors you might connect to your blogging journey.

If your goal is to monetize your blog, you’ll want to gain traffic for impressions (views) across your blog. Through impressions, you can gain revenue just from the number of visits – without users even clicking on the ads. The increased traffic not only exposes your readers to more of what you have to offer but also brings financial benefit to your business.

Lastly, another benefit of bringing more readers to your blog is that you can connect them to other channels such as social media platforms or e-commerce. Your blog will be a landing page with streams of traffic coming in and going out from your online platforms.

How to measure blog traffic

Hooray! Readers are discovering your site! Now, what?

You’ll need a tool to analyze your metrics. There are many tools, apps, and plugins available, but Google Analytics is the gold standard for blogging. You must connect it to your blog to start reviewing reports.

Use your reports to gain helpful feedback on your strategy, and help you refine your strategy going forward. Look for the overall sources of your traffic and how many visitors you receive on different pages or posts. Check out how long readers are spending on your site and how many additional posts they visit while they are there.

Take note of how specific posts are performing over time. Which posts bring the most reader interaction or which posts have evergreen (ongoing) value past the post date? 

Depending on your goals, there may be a lot of nuance in what exactly to measure. Having the data available can help you clarify your strategy and drive your content decisions!

Tips for getting traffic to your blog as a beginner

Make sure your blog is functioning optimally. Use a self-hosted WordPress (our preferred blogging platform – check out why here!), use a fast theme, and select plugins that enhance the reader experience. An efficiently running site can help with search rankings since it keeps users exploring your blog further and on the site longer.

Have a strategy for creating relevant content. This framework can help you develop clear and concise categories that help establish you as a go-to authority for your topic. Strategize to create strong content that reinforces your pillars (themes or common ideas that tie your content together).

Be consistent. Consistency is the key to growth and prompting ongoing traffic! Remember that quality is more important than quantity, and create a strategy that allows time to create quality work on a regular basis.

Repurpose your content. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time! Use your quality content to repurpose on social media platforms with images, pull quotes, discussion starters, and more. Use Pinterest as a tool to generate clicks back to your blog posts.

Do keyword research and follow best practices for posts. Keep up with the most current keyword research strategies (more about this here) and don’t forget to optimize your titles to entice your readers! Be sure to utilize methods that generate user-first content that benefits your readers by including subsections, charts, photos, and more.

Have clear site navigation. Make it easy and inviting for people to stick around by using categories, internal links, and an evident organization of your content. 

Build relationships. Blogging is by no means a solitary journey!

• Get to know your audience and learn everything you can about them. 
• Talk about your blog in your offline life – word of mouth goes a long way!
• Learn from and collaborate with other content creators in your niche. Utilize backlinks to your site from other online sources to generate traffic to your best resources.

And lastly, grow your email list every day by offering easy opt-ins. This is a key to gaining your repeat readers!

The secret of repeat readers

One of the keys to understanding blog traffic for beginners is the underutilized secret of repeat readers! Focus on how you can keep the audience you have returning and reading more, instead of spending all your time in a struggle to gain new readers. 

Again, this is where your email list will be vital in deepening those connections. This group will become a cohort of repeat readers who return to your blog time and time again. Use your emails to establish trust and build relationships with those loyal readers who come back by email with new and helpful previous content on a regular basis.

Once you get someone to your blog, convince them to stay with highly relevant, related content! Don’t forget about the power of interlinking your posts to highlight all that your site has to offer.

You’ll find that these relationships you build and the value you provide will go a long way in bringing people back to your site as a resource. Not only will your readers benefit from your offerings, but they will also be motivated to share your site with others. 

A blog with continuous traffic is a sign of a thriving hub of ideas. Use this beginner’s guide to give you the confidence to launch your blog and share it again and again with unlimited readers!