How To Increase Blog Traffic 10x In Six Months Or Less
Wondering how to increase blog traffic was the biggest question in my mind in 2016.
Back then I was getting 10 views per post on my new WordPress site. Hardly the figures of some successful blogger, right?
Look at my blog traffic. It was abysmal.
Then, in late 2016, I discovered a site called Medium.com. Through this one site alone I unlocked a Pandora’s Box of traffic potential. Here’s my first solid month on Medium five years ago:
Look at the difference between my WordPress site and Medium.
- WordPress — 693 monthly views
- Medium — 3,189 monthly views
I more than quadrupled my traffic, just by changing publishing platforms. Since then I’ve had months on Medium where I surpassed 150,000 views.
So, we come to our first lesson in how to increase blog traffic..
Use multiple platforms to your advantage.
This is going to be a comprehensive guide about how to increase blog traffic. We’ll cover things like:
- How to direct traffic to your blog
- How to get traffic to my WordPress blog
- How long before a blog gets traffic
- How much blog traffic you need to make money
I’ll teach you how to go from blogger nobody knows about to blogger who makes thousands of dollars from all the traffic they generate.
Let’s get into it.
How To Direct Traffic To Your Blog
Let’s talk about how to direct traffic to your blog, starting with a bulleted list of best options (in order from best to worst).
- Write on Medium.com
- Engage in Search-Engine Optimization
- Email your email list
- Share pins on Pinterest
- Write for big websites like Entrepeneur or Forbes
- Guest post on big websites
- Share your articles on social media to friends and family
Let’s break down each of these options step-by-step.
Write On Medium.com
I wrote about the history of Medium right here. It’s been around for nearly a decade, and was created by one of Twitter’s co-founders, Ev Williams.
That’s not THAT important, what is important is that you can make a serious killing here both in terms of making money and gaining traffic.
I think Medium is the easiest place on the internet to get blog traffic.
So, how do you do it?
Well, I do write about how to increase your blog traffic on Medium in this post. Just scroll down to the section about “How To Grow On Medium” and you should be fine.
It boils down to three things:
- Get into big publications.
- Write dope headlines.
- Write about topics that tend to get a lot of views on Medium.
Search Engine Optimization
Another one of my tricks to increase blog traffic is to use SEO. For me it’s the second best option.
Let’s get one thing straight.
Medium blogs and WordPress blogs are two totally different things. When I talked about how to increase blog traffic in terms of Medium, what I mean is you’re getting more views to your Medium blog.
It lives on Medium.
A WordPress site or even a Squarespace site lives OUTSIDE of Medium, and Search Engine Optimization is your best strategy to increase traffic to a blog like that. That’s how to direct traffic to your blog.
I talk a bit about the importance of Search Engine Optimization right here, but let’s go over some of the big picture reasons why this is so powerful.
Check the picture above. That’s traffic to my personal website.
I started with 693 monthly pageviews, and now I’m up near 30,000. Most of this traffic comes from Search Engines.
On Medium I need to continually write new posts every day to keep winning traffic. With Search Engine Optimization, I don’t need to. I can let Google direct traffic to me, endlessly, for free.
So, how to increase blog traffic with SEO?
- Write dozens upon dozens of posts that are optimized for easy-to-rank for keywords.
- Win backlinks to your site by guest posting (more on that later)
- Make sure your site is fast.
- Rinse and repeat.
- Wait 6–12 months for any trickle of traffic to start coming in.
In a nutshell, that’s search-engine optimization. I’ll write more posts on this in the future, because it’s one of my best tricks to increase blog traffic, but for not, that’s all you need to know.
Email Your Email List
The money is in the email list. So is the traffic. They say for every person you have on your email list, you should be making $1 per month.
If you have a 5,000 person email list, then congratulations, you’re halfway to a 6-figure per year business.
If you want to know how to direct traffic to your blog, this is one of the most, well, DIRECT ways.
I always send out emails on Thursdays or Fridays with links to my latest blog posts. If you have a list of 5,000 and average a 5 percent click through rate, you can generate 250 page views in an instant. It’ll probably be more, though, because many will inevitably stick around and read more articles from you.
I recommend ConvertKit for any email marketing you’ll do.
Place Call-To-Actions throughout your website and at the bottom of Medium posts to generate sign ups. Then use those subscribers to generate even more traffic for yourself.
That’s how to increase blog traffic with email marketing.
Using Pinterest For Blog Traffic
I’m not a huge expert on using Pinterest for blog traffic, but I do know some of my blogger friends swear by it.
I’ve seen some of my friends generate 30–40% of their overall blog traffic through Pinterest alone. If you want to use Pinterest for blog traffic, I recommend reading my interview with Lidiya from Let’s Reach Success.
Write For Big Websites
There’s a slew of reasons why writing for big websites like Inc or Forbes is such a great idea.
For one, you get backlinks to your site from a reputable source. That’s huge in the SEO game.
Two, you get to write a lot of articles. You can then republish these articles on your blog, Medium, and elsewhere.
Third, and most importantly, it’s one of the great tricks for how to direct traffic to your blog.
One time I wrote a viral article on the Huffington Post, and traffic to my website spiked. It was incredible. You get to build a personal brand, practice writing, and hopefully get some stray visitors to your site.
Here’s a big post from me listing off some of the best websites that pay writers for stories. That might be a good place to start.
Guest Post On Big Websites
Okay, so we know SEO is how to increase blog traffic to a personal website. Guest posting is crucial for SEO because you win valuable backlinks to your site in the first place.
It also helps because you’re getting exposure on what’s (hopefully) a really popular blog.
Here’s a list of 65 sites you can contribute to if you want to start winning backlinks and more exposure.
Share Your Articles On Social Media With Friends And Family
I don’t want to downplay the role of social media on views and growing a blog. Many times my articles have generated thousands of views via social media alone.
However.
When learning how to increase blog traffic, this option must be downplayed significantly. It doesn’t really matter that you shared an article on Twitter. It’s not going to do much damage for you.
What will help is optimizing posts for search, using platforms like Pinterest, and writing on websites that already have a lot of organic traffic like Medium.
A share on Facebook won’t do a lot, but it’s still SOMETHING, which is why I wanted to list that right here.
How Long Before Blog Gets Traffic
Okay. So how long does it take for a blog to get traffic? I’d say you need to wait AT LEAST 6 months. At least. That goes for Medium, SEO, Pinterest marketing, or anything else.
Here’s a timeline worth mentioning.
- Medium: 6 Months
- SEO: 6–12 Months
- Pinterest Marketing: 6–12 Months
How Much Blog Traffic To Make Money
Okay, so this is a delicious query. Maybe I’ll answer this with bullet points again.
- Medium — 2,500 views. You can make money with the Medium Partner Program, technically, with 1 view. But to make any real meaningful cash, like above $50, you need to have at least 2,500 views first.
- Personal Blog —20,000 views. You can start earning a little bit of money with Google advertisements on your site with 20,000 views. If you make it to 40,000 views, you can get a partnership with Mediavine, which pays higher rates per impression from what I’m told.
Let’s talk about something else, though.
You can make money INDIRECTLY by winning email subscribers and selling products. You don’t need a lot of traffic to do this. I’d say having 500–1,000 email subscribers is a good threshold to reach before you start selling courses.
If you get about 20,000 views per month to a blog — whether that’s on Medium or WordPress, you can generate about 200–400 subscribers per month.
After a few months you’ll have your 1,000 subscribers along with a steady stream of new prospects coming in monthly.
How much traffic do you really need to start making money with online courses?
I’d say 10,000–20,000 views.
That’s how much blog traffic you need to make money.
How To Increase Blog Traffic Recap
Let’s recap all the tricks to increase blog traffic..
- Write on Medium.com
- Engage in Search-Engine Optimization
- Email your email list
- Share pins on Pinterest
- Write for big websites like Entrepeneur or Forbes
- Guest post on big websites
- Share your articles on social media to friends and family
Remember, if you’re wondering about how to get traffic to my WordPress blog, only steps 2–7 apply here.
Use these strategies and you’ll never wonder about how to increase blog traffic again.