There are other ways to send traffic to your blog without having to rely on SEO alone.
Leaving yourself to the mercy of Google for your blog traffic is no bueno.
Regular traffic to your blog is one of the biggest struggles. Unless of course you’ve made it big in the blogosphere already. (If you have I’m honored you are reading this /bowdown).
And even if you have made it big, if you’re solely relying on SEO for traffic, all your traffic can be taken away with one algorithm update. And it has happened to experienced bloggers, Google updates can cause major havoc on traffic stats.
SEO for Blogging: What is SEO
When you are just starting out, relying on SEO for traffic is not going to get people on your blog. SEO takes time to see results from, and lets face it waiting that long isn’t fun.
Social Media
Social media is a great way to send traffic to your blog.
You will usually find yourself using social media to promote any of the other ideas listed in this post for sending traffic to your blog below. And it’s a free way to get people to your blog, it only costs your time if you don’t want to spend any extra.
Pinterest is my #1 go to for Social Media Traffic.
How to Get Started With Pinterest for Blog Traffic
Using Tailwind makes this social media platform a breeze to keep up with. You can give Tailwind a try yourself buy using a free month through this link.
Tailwind will also give you access to Tribes.
Tailwind Tribes give you a chance to share your pins with those in the same niche as you, giving you a great way to get even more repins.
Try Tailwind for Free for a Month
Also within Pinterest you can tap into Group Boards. These are great when you are just starting out and don’t have many followers. Group Boards allow you to get your pins in front of thousands of users right from the start.
BloggingYourBlog.com has a group board for bloggers here.
The Twitter blogging community is exceptional and very supportive.
Twitter is a great tool in your social media kit to send traffic to your blog.
There are blogging community threads for promoting your posts and your other social media accounts.
You can also find PR requests from brands seeking out bloggers and influencers to promote and review their products. I try to retweet ones I find if you want to keep a lookout you can follow BloggingYourBlog on Twitter.
Facebook is both loved and hated among bloggers.
Some have great returns and others get nothing.
Due to Facebook always making sure that your business page never gets much in the way of views unless you want to give them money, many bloggers choose not to use Facebook as a social media platform.
This is completely understandable. Promoting your blog on social media takes up you time, why waste it on one platform that you don’t get much in return when you could spend it on another and actually get returns.
BUT there is one great aspect of Facebook and that is Blogging Groups.
The Facebook blogging groups are great for interaction with other bloggers and information if you are ever stuck with a problem.
There are many blogging groups you can join, and you can always create your own. Just remember it will take time away from other things you can be doing in order to keep up with moderation and interaction on your own board.
If you are a beauty blogger, lifestyle blogger, or have a niche in anything that is very visual, Instagram is your bread and butter for social media.
However, it can be tough to get your followers over from Instagram to your blog.
Always keep a link to your blog in your bio on Instagram, and try to leave an enticing reason to find more information about your Instagram post by going to your blog.
Giveaways and Contests
Having giveaways or contests are a great way to boost traffic to your blog, and also get some email subscribers.
You can use social media to promote your giveaways and contests for free. Usually these kinds of posts are easy to get reposted and retweeted by others.
You don’t have to give away expensive items either. People love the chance to snag free stuff, no matter how much it’s worth.
Another option is giveaways for products you’ve done reviews on. Sometimes when doing sponsored reviews the company you are working with is more than happy to provide a product for a giveaway.
Freebies
Again, people love free stuff. You can offer free downloads for email sign ups.
Free worksheets or free printables for your blog niche are great ways to accomplish this.
Other options include free Pinterest templates, Instagram templates, and social media content calendars.
Regular and Unique Content
Regular and unique content are another way to get your readers to come back to your blog.
If your readers don’t have anything new to read on your blog they aren’t really going to find a reason to return. The same goes for if you stop posting for months at a time, it’s not going to have people coming back when it seems like you’ve stopped adding content.
You also want to make sure the content you post is unique. Copying everything from another blog in your niche is not going to entice new readers to return to your blog if they already have read the same thing on another blog.
Also copying another bloggers content is just wrong, and illegal in some cases if you are just copy and pasting it onto your blog. Copyright infringement is no joke, you can get fines and have legal action taken against you.
Meaningful and Quality Content
In addition to regular content, make sure that you have meaningful content that is of good quality.
If you don’t have anything out there for content that is meaningful to your readers, just like abandoning posting new content, readers aren’t going to come back if your blog doesn’t have anything for them that is useful and is of good quality.
And even though we are concentrating on not relying on SEO to send traffic to your blog, meaningful and quality content will help with your SEO in the long run.
Interacting with the Blogging Community
Going out and interacting with other bloggers is another great way to send traffic to your blog.
You can interact with other bloggers on social media, and visit blogs.
Leaving comments usually gives you a link back to your blog and lets you display some of your own thoughts, writing style, and expertise on topics to other potential readers.
Guest Posts on Other Blogs
Writing guest posts for other bloggers or websites is a great way to send traffic your blogs way.
In addition to the link back to your site, you are able to show your writing style to another blogger’s audience.
This could send regular readers to your blog and have them subscribe to your content.
Building and Using Your Email List
Every blogger says it, and they mean it. Start building your email list from day one.
As mentioned above, giveaways and freebies that you have put together are great ways to start building your email list up.
Use signups for your email newsletter as a way to enter the contest or access the freebie you have to offer.
Some options you have for managing your email list and newsletters along with email campaigns are:
Great post – there are some really useful tips here. I’m still trying to figure out Pinterest but it definitely seems a great one to use! Thanks for sharing!
I personally love Twitter for connecting with other writers and bloggers. Facebook is slow but I enjoy posting content apart from my blog there and I have not figured out a way to involve Pinterest; it definitely involves crafting images!
Great post!! Some really valuable information here! Thanks for sharing 🙂
These are all really great tips! I have been using a lot of these to promote my blog and have been getting a lot of feedback. Thanks for sharing!
I’m bookmarking these to use it as a checklist! Thanks fot putting all these together! They are practical tips that work.
I definitely agree that you shouldn’t rely only on SEO for your traffic, especially if you’re a new blogger.I’m using Social Media already, but still I haven’t done any contest or giveaway. I would love to try it soon though.
Have you used giveaways yourself?
I have used giveaways on other sites I’ve managed over the years, but not on this one so far. Mainly diet niche sites.
It’s something that will probably be done for this blog in the future.
This is really great advice! So far Twitter is my number one drive of traffic, as long as I use it to engage and interact with threads and other bloggers. Pinterest is something I need to be better about; I had the free trial for Tailwind and now need to just commit and buy it. That was also an amazing source when I used it! Thank you so much for making this post and sharing these tips.