How to Increase Blog Traffic on WordPress

Find out why your blog isn’t getting any views and how to increase blog traffic on WordPress!

Imagine this.

You finally hit publish on a blog post that’s taken hours to create, and one that you are truly proud of.

You’ve done research, you’ve poured your heart into your new post, and you’re hopeful that it’ll get a number of views.

So you check your blog stats on Jetpack or Google Analytics only to see a handful of page views.

It’s a blogger’s dream to write a post that goes viral or at least outperforms previous posts.

You tell yourself maybe in a few hours, the views will improve so you distract yourself with other activities in the meantime: social media, other blogging tasks to improve your blog, Netflix or a nap.

After a few hours, you check your page views, and it’s still not where you hoped it would be.

So what now?

You know you put your heart into that post.

You’ve been posting and yet your page views are stagnant.

It’s times like these you feel like you’re talking to an endless void.

And the hope of making money from content creation seems bleak.

How are you supposed to earn money if you aren’t getting any page views?

First, I want to let you know that you are not alone.

Increasing blog traffic is one of the biggest challenges bloggers face whether new or established.

I’ve had multiple blogs, and some of those blogs would get less than ten views a day, and hardly made any sales at a time that I was working so hard to become a full-time blogger.

Blog traffic is a common pain point for bloggers, which is why I wrote this post to help you.

So what can you do to attract more page views?

Let’s start by reviewing why you aren’t attracting that ideal blog page views.

Fix These Issues to Increase Blog Traffic on Your WordPress Blog

Let me share with you a couple of reasons why your blog traffic isn’t increasing and what you can do to improve your blog traffic.

Ready?

Let’s go!

You aren’t attracting your target audience

Nobody’s going to care about your content if it doesn’t resonate with something they’re struggling with. This goes back to a business concept: find a problem and present a solution.

When you decided on your blog niche, you know who your target blog readers are.

If you haven’t established or decided on this, now is your reminder to map out a blog reader persona. Who is this person? What are his or her interests, passions, and hobbies? From those topics, what are his or her struggles when it comes to said topics?

Take this post for example. My blog is aimed at bloggers, content creators, and influencers who want to build a profitable blog or make money. As a fellow blogger, I know the frustration that comes with having little to no readers. And when you don’t have enough readers, how can you start monetising your blog?

Of course, that’s not to say that you absolutely need a huge following or hundreds of thousands to make money. In fact, I was able to monetise my blog with a small following.

But first, you have to focus on creating content that attracts your target readers.

How exactly can you do that?

As mentioned, you have to define who your community is.

If you’re a fashion blogger, get specific. What sub-topic about fashion do you post about? Is it about looking like a mega boss through thrift finds?

When you identify your focus, you then define the topics that are of interest to your ideal community.

From the example, you could make a post about the different ways to style a vintage suit jacket for work.

Are the posts you create the type of content your community would like to see? Or are they posts about varying topics that have no interest to them?

An online course for you: How to Create Engaging Content to Grow Your Following

If this is something you’re struggling with, take a step back and do a blog audit.

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You have no internal links

“A what link?” you might be asking.

An internal link is a link to a post within your site. This means that when you write a post, you intentionally link your new content to a previous one. You can do this in a number of ways:

Linking text in a paragraph

This is the simplest way to do so. Here’s an example of how I use internal links:

Including a photo

Get creative! Why not link previous content by using a photo or video? If you’ve created graphics in the past, you can re-use them here to capture the attention of your reader.

Head on over to Canva and create eye-catching graphics you can use inside your post.

Include related content at the end of your post

The fastest and simplest way to do this is to install a plug-in. It automatically shows your related posts at the end of a current post.

Here’s an example:

Why are internal links important?

Once you have content that attracts your target community, you’ll want to keep them on your site as long as you can. Google Analytics can track how long someone stays in your site using the bounce rate metric. What you have to remember here is that the lower the bounce rate, the longer a person stays (or reads) your site. Bounce rates matter because this tells Google that you’ve provided the person with valuable information and that your site isn’t spammy.

What this does is to promote your other content and make someone stay longer on your website. You hook them with other posts that they’d be likely interested in reading based on your current post.

You aren’t spending enough time promoting it

How long do you spend creating your post versus promoting it?

One of my mistakes in my previous blogs was that I’d spend more time creating the post rather than promoting it. You should spend just as much time promoting your work.

Track how long it takes you to create a post until you hit publish. Now, spend that exact amount of time (if not more) promoting your content.

Here are some ways you can promote your content online:

Post on social media

This is probably your go-to and what you do most of the time. And that’s okay! But know that you can only reach so much using this method. I suggest automating this step and if possible, promote your content on loop.

Share to Facebook Groups

Find relevant blogging groups and find out which days they allow self-promotion. Some groups have daily threads for promoting your material on different social media platforms.

However, you have to do your research before you join a group as every group has rules. For example, there are groups that require you to share or comment on all of the links in that thread.

Personally, I find that exhausting. I want to select the posts that I share because I want to make sure they’re relevant to my community and not just because I’m required to share it.

Run ads

Another way to promote your blog is to run Facebook or Instagram ads; however, do your research before investing in this. Study how effective Facebook advertisements work, so that you really get what you pay for.

Automate social media promotion

Promote your posts through social media scheduling tools. I schedule my posts in advance and recently have looked into tools that can post to Twitter on loop. Ever since I started my Tailwind subscription, their Smart Loop feature has been such a time-saving tool that it got me wondering if there were other platforms that would allow me to automate my posts on loop.

You’re not leveraging Pinterest

More than a black hole of pretty photos and inspiration, Pinterest is a visual search engine. Think: Google, but your search results come out in photos instead of text.

I had heard about how powerful Pinterest was for more than a year, but I only started taking it seriously last November. I wish I started sooner because maybe by now I’d have a bigger reach. My Pinterest referral traffic isn’t in the hundreds or thousands yet, but I can say that I get blog traffic from Pinterest. And ultimately, some of them sign-up for my opt-in freebie.

You aren’t connecting with fellow creators

The only way forward to help others as well. Your journey can feel lonely especially if you don’t connect with fellow content creators.

You can reach out to fellow creators when you tweet or send them a DM on Instagram. Of course, always go with your instincts when reaching out to people online.

You could also reach out to them when you mention them in your post or recommend their products/services. Last year, I’d written a post inspired by another blogger’s post. Though I didn’t reach out, she had found my post and shared it across her social media channels. It’s all about supporting each other and helping each other grow.

Have an abundant mindset. Someone else’s success doesn’t limit yours. There is enough energy and space for your success too!

You aren’t studying your analytics

The only way you’ll know what type of content your community likes is through studying your analytics. If you haven’t, sign-up for Google Analytics, where you’ll learn data about like which specific posts performed well, which convert first time readers into subscribers, or even how long someone stays in your site.

By doing your research, you can see what content you should post more of. Don’t forget to experiment with different type of posts to really get a better understanding of what works for you and what doesn’t.

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