5 ways to increase traffic on your company blog
Nearly all content marketers know the possibilities that having a company blog creates. Of course, having people read your blog is the main reason for having one, no? If you’re frustrated because your blog traffic isn’t where you want it to be, don’t fret. Increasing these numbers isn’t rocket science. In fact, with some simply strategizing to comply with popular online trends, you’ll be able to have triple the readers in no time!
A company blog acts as an effective tool for lead generation, helping users to learn more about your business. With this in mind, you should be blogging in a professional and engaging manner as part of a well-rounded marketing strategy. Curious to know more? Read on for our tips to increase traffic to your company blog!
5 ways to increase blog traffic in 2019
Paid and organic traffic
There are two distinct types of online traffic, and these can be categorized as organic and paid. It will help you to understand their differences in order to move forward with our tips for increasing blog traffic.
Organic traffic is traffic that finds its way to your site without force or prompt, or in other ways, it will find its way to your website organically. The main source of this type of traffic is search traffic. This means that when a person uses a search engine to look up a question relevant to your website, you’ll pop up in search results. All of the clicks you get this way are considered organic traffic.
The antithesis to organic traffic is paid traffic. This is fairly obvious, as it is traffic that is forced towards your website by way of advertisements. Facebook advertising is one of the most popular methods of paid traffic, while there are also avenues such as Google Ads (AdWords), Twitter ads, banner ads and so forth.
Although paid traffic offers you the option to pay for things whenever you need to, in the grand scheme of things, it’s important to focus your attention towards long-term goals and finding a balance between organic and paid traffic is key to a successful marketing strategy.
1- Pillar articles that specifically answer questions
A pillar article is one of the staples of a confident blog. Thus, you should focus some time and attention to create some key pillar articles that will work to increase and drive traffic towards your website.
Essentially, a pillar article is generally a tutorial style article that is looking to inform the audience about a specific topic or subject. In many cases, they begin with a "how-to" or look to answer a question. These posts should not only be informative but also engaging and creative, as only then will they work to drive in traffic.
Blog posts that answer specific questions are more likely to appear higher in search engines, and even more so if the questions are worded in a colloquial manner. When you create the best possible content focused around a specific subject, it’s much more likely to rank higher.
Further, having all of the crucial information on a subject concentrated in one area makes it much easier for users to consider your blog reputable and useful, therefore increasing the possibilities of shares and revisits.
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2- Keyword research
If you’ve been working in the realm of content marketing for a while, it should come as no surprise that keywords are important to a successful strategy. Your blog posts need to be optimized in order for them to be easily located in search engines. With this in mind, you’ll need to know the target keywords relevant to your marketplace. To find these, begin by making a list of topics that are relevant to your business, then look up related variations or synonyms.
Once you’ve completed this, you can consult one of the many online tools that will generate useful keywords. These tools can help the keywords you choose to be current and relevant. Implement useful keywords into your content but remember not to overuse them. Google can detect and penalize when you plug too many keywords into articles, so work strategically and in a refined manner.
3- Update older articles
When it comes to articles that are relevant and well-written but don’t seem to be driving in enough traffic, can you do anything with them? An important practice of content marketing and an excellent way to drive traffic towards your website is to update article content. Using a tool like Google Analytics is very useful, as it can break down the quantitative data for you to better understand which articles need to be updated as well as how to approach this.
Adding more information as well as up-to-date info is crucial for your rank on Google, as the search engine favours blog posts and websites with content that is fresh and current. When an old article is updated with fresh information, Google re-indexes it and this significantly helps increase your visibility. Updating older articles is an excellent time saver, and offers readers a concrete reason to return to your website. New content is fundamental to SEO so take some time and get on top of updating old articles.
4- Backlinks
Backlinks are another essential part of generating a stream of traffic towards your website. Backlinks are links from other websites that point directly to your own, helping to generate traffic streams. These are important as Google factors how many backlinks you have as well as how authoritative these links are in relation to your field, and this will further determine the importance of your article in the grand scheme of things.
In a nutshell, Google has established an algorithm that takes many different variables into consideration when ranking a page and inbound links are one of those considerations. For your website to become established within your specific marketplace, it’s necessary for you to create these links between your site and others established in your field.
Having several backlinks won’t completely reroute traffic, but understanding this practice is a step in the right direction. Want to know more about how to utilize backlinks? Check out our article on the subject!
5- Plan and schedule blog posts
Lastly, aside from all of the SEO tricks of the trade, one of the key ways to direct traffic towards your website and to keep it there is consistency. Your blog will definitely benefit from having a content calendar with planned posts, keywords and topics that are suited to current affairs and subjects being discussed in your marketplace. Plan posts around your target audience and concepts that you know will drive traffic towards you.
Another way to stay consistent is to publish posts regularly. Posting weekly is the best practice but if you’re currently posting monthly or bi-monthly, stick to this. Consistent posts will help to keep you in the forefront of the minds of your audience. Leaving your blog idle for weeks or months may appear as though you’ve abandoned it, and this will create a serious traffic drop off.