Do you want to explode your blog traffic? As a lot of my readers are also bloggers or are thinking about starting a blog, I thought it would be helpful to create a detailed post sharing the things which I believe have helped explode my blog and bring thousands of readers to my site every day.
The tips I’m sharing below are methods which have truly helped grow and monetise my blog but please note that blogging isn’t a quick money-making method. For myself and all my blogging friends, it has taken years of hard work and dedication to slowly grow our blogs, but the methods I have listed below will help enormously!
1. Pinterest
The top way I have exploded my blog is through Pinterest! If you’re not already using Pinterest then you must start doing it now. If you take any advice from this blog post, Pinterest should be at the top of your list. Pinterest is the easiest social site to use and can bring you a crazy amount of traffic. I use Tailwind to pin my own posts to group boards and I manually pin other bloggers’ pins every day.
2. Passion
To grow your blog you need to be passionate about the content you’re creating and the topics you’re focused on. Because if you’re not passionate about the content you’re creating then it won’t be long until blogging becomes a chore and you will avoid doing it all together.
The reason why I have been able to build a successful blog is that I love the content I create, and I’m passionate about blogging and the topics I blog about. With this passion, I’ve been able to consistently work on my blog since 2016 and my success is a result of taking small steps every day, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I wasn’t passionate about my niche.
At the start of your blogging journey, you shouldn’t expect tons of visitors and engagement, because you need to build up your following. Therefore you will need to rely on your passion and motivation to keep you going at the beginning, even when it seems like no one is reading your posts, except you! But just remember that we all start at zero and focus on creating valuable content because you enjoy it.
When you’re first starting your blog, it’s okay if you’re not sure what your passion is yet. Those Positive Thoughts started off with quite a broad topic, I wrote about the renovations I was doing in my home and I shared general lifestyle advice, but as time passed I found that my passion is mainly within personal development.
3. Create a plan
During my first two years of blogging, I admit that I completely winged it. Even though I shared a new blog post once a week, I didn’t plan my time and I didn’t plan my content.
The interesting thing was, once I had created a plan, I had more time. I stopped doing busy work and started focusing more on the important tasks and the things which would help my blog grow and reach a wider audience. Before planning my content I was constantly doing busy work, which are tasks which make you feel busy but don’t help you reach your goals. For me, busy work meant making small tweaks here and there on my blog and spending way too long on unimportant tasks.
When creating a plan for your blog and your business, here are some key questions to get you started:
- What’s the purpose of my blog or business?
- Who is my audience what do they want to read about?
- Where does my traffic come through?
- How often will I post content?
- How will I earn an income from my blog?
4. Set up Google Analytics
I highly recommend setting up Google Analytics when you start your blog. Google Analytics is the industry standard for website and blog traffic reporting. It’s super easy and free to set up and will only take a couple of minutes. Google Analytics is amazing as you it allows you to track things like:
- How many visitors your blog has received (daily, weekly, monthly etc.)
- Which pages are the most popular
- How people find your blog
- How long do people stay on your blog for
- Which device do people use to view your blog
Google Analytics is a necessary step to start growing your blog and is one of the reasons why I was able to grow my blog. By setting up Google Analytics from day one, I was able to see which posts were generating the most traffic, where the traffic was coming from and who my audience is. From this information, I have been able to create more popular content and market it correctly.
5. Optimise your posts with SEO
I highly advise that you optimise your posts with SEO (search engine optimisation) from the very beginning of your blogging journey. If you’ve been blogging for a while and haven’t been optimising your posts, I suggest you set some time aside to go back through all of your posts. Blogging for SEO is one of the main reasons why I’ve been able to attract thousands of visitors to my blog every day (because they can find my blog!) without using SEO, you’re going to make it very difficult for your target audience to find your blog.
Creating valuable content and publishing content regularly is important but you can make your content go so much further and reach a wider audience if you optimise your posts with SEO.
Here are a few ways to optimise your posts with SEO:
Install an SEO plugin: I use “Yoast SEO”, which helps me optimise my posts and know what changes I need to make to my posts to help it score a higher SEO ranking.
Do keyword research: What keywords and phrases are your target audience searching for?
Optimise Your Headings: Your post headings (<h1>, <h2>, or <h3>) are a great place to include keywords.
Optimise your images: Did you know that the text behind your images should be optimised too? The name of your image (e.g. keyword.jpg) and the “alt text” are two more places you can include your keywords.
6. Start an email list and create an opt-in
The problem with not having an email list and relying solely on social platforms to connect with your audience is that these sites are out of your control. A lot of people, myself included, get the majority of traffic from Pinterest, and while Pinterest is huge and can bring thousands of people to your blog every day for free, what happens if it disappeared? By having your own email list, your readers are inviting you into their inbox so you to communicate with them directly.
Another reason why emails are so important is that they are personal, each email you send to your readers is a direct message from you, which helps to build your relationship. Even though I started building by email list from day one, my emails at the beginning were not very personal. I was simply sharing a link to my latest post! However things have changed now, and my writing my weekly emails is one of my favourite things to do so and I love receiving emails back from my readers!
Another reason why starting an email list is so important is because it increases conversion rates if you ever wish to sell products or services from your blog. The people on your email list want to hear from you and they want to hear about your latest content. By having an email list you can reach out to a target audience and promote your products or services directly to them!
To grow your email list faster and more effectively, you need an opt-in freebie. Your readers aren’t always going to give you their email addresses for free. By creating an opt-in that your audience will love and that will serve them as well as your business, your email list will grow quickly.
7. Join Facebook Groups
One of the best strategies for getting your blog in front of readers is by joining a Facebook group. It may take some time to find the right groups which you can resonate with but it’s worth the effort, eventually, you will make friends and find collaboration opportunities. Some of my favourite Facebook groups are:
- Blogging Boost
- Bloggers Supporting Bloggers
- Lavendaire Lifestyle Community
- Creative Superheroes
- Bright Bloggers + Business
- Bloggers Camp
- Blogging with Purpose
The best way to become noticed in Facebook communities is to be social and helpful. Don’t just post links to your content and not share other people’s work. Answer questions and help others thrive, and they will support you in return.
8. Invest in your blog
By far the best thing I’ve invested in for my blog and business is the group coaching programme Publish with Purpose (PWP) run by Sarah Steckler. PWP taught me how to self-publish my own planner on Amazon. I now have two planners on Amazon, the Positivity Planner and the Plant Planner, which now bring in passive income every month. Whatever you decide to invest in, make sure it’s something which excites you and something which you will follow through with. Sometimes by investing money in a course, a product or a coach, we are more likely to follow through with our plans because we have put money behind them.
9. Schedule your content
Another thing which exploded my blog is scheduling my content. When scheduling my content, I first add all the blog posts, YouTube videos and projects into my calendar on the date I want to publish them. I then work backwards by blocking time to write, film and work on different projects. The reason why this helped explode my blog is that I’ve stopped getting so distracted and I’ve discovered that I actually have a lot of time to get things done. It’s helped me be more consistent and it’s stopped me from jumping from project to project, which is something I used to do all of the time!
10. Re-purpose old posts
Creating new content is very time-consuming, but re-purposing old content is genius! Re-purposing content is another strategy which helped explode my blog because it meant I could create more in less time. Here are some ways I re-purpose my blog content:
- Turn blog posts into YouTube videos:
- Turn blog posts into podcasts
- Turn YouTube videos into podcasts
- Turn blog posts into downloadable PDFs
- Turn snippets from blog posts into Facebook posts or Instagram captions
I hope you have found this post helpful! If you have any questions leave a comment below!
All excellent tips Laura! When I started blogging last August I didn’t plan my posts at all. Starting this year I’m actually going to develop an editorial calendar for the year with a more focused theme each month. I agree with you that seo optimization is a must so I’m prioritizing articles with good keywords. Thanks for sharing these tips!
Author
Thanks Sabrina! So glad you’ve found this helpful 🙂
Thanks a lot for so much information,,,, i highly need this,, i m a new blogger n these tips are like boon for me…
Author
Thank you! Really glad you found it helpful 🙂
Your post was so inspiring to read. Thank you for your tips! I am trying to change the focus of my blog to a lifestyle blog. With your inspiration, I hope to blow up with great positivity. Thank you
Dominique Tecson
dlmjourney.com
Author
Thank you! I’m glad it inspired you!
Hey, you did have some very great tips, how did you decide what to use for your opt in freebie ? Was it something you created on your own ?
Great tips! I found you through a Pinterest pin. It’s such an amazing traffic platform for bloggers.
Author
Thank you! Pinterest is the best platform for bloggers 🙂
Found all of these tips to be extremely helpful! Going to be working on scheduling and creating a plan for the blog in order to be consistent. Just gathered a new planner and will be using my outlook calendar to the fullest. Thank you!
These tips are awesome! I love all the ways that you suggest repurposing old blog posts!
Author
Thank you! So glad you found it helpful 🙂
Great ideas, tips, and genuine advice! I can’t wait to use some of these on my own blog, starting with using email. ?
Thanks,
Allison
Author
Thank you! So glad you found them heplful! 🙂
These are really awesome tips! I just started using Pinterest to promote my blog, and it seems to have worked the best right above Facebook. I hope to keep learning better methods to promote my blog, especially since it’s still young.
Author
Hey Kyndall, thank you I’m glad the tips have helped! Best of luck with your blog 🙂
LOVED LOVED LOVED THIS! So excited to get on my tasks. My favorite was planning. I’m a project jumper too. Think it’s a creatives thing lol.
Author
Hi Aysia, so glad you loved this post!
This is such a wonderful and helpful post! I am a very newbie blogger, just a few months in and I started with a Free plan on WordPress. I love wordpress so far but now that I am gaining a few hundred followers and growing I would like to purchase a domain and invest more into my blog. There are so many helpful tips on starting a blog from scratch but now that I have content on my free plan blog I have no idea how to make the upgrade to a paid blog from where I am. Do you have any recommendations for me on how to do this? Thank you.
Author
Hey, I use Siteground to host my blog. Their customer service is amazing, I recommend getting in touch with them to transfer your free blog to a paid blog. There are a few hosting options with Siteground, I am using the option called “grow big”.
Link to sign up with Siteground: https://www.siteground.co.uk/index.htm?afcode=b560da6db60c226ea358ed88766ea88a
If you don’t want to use Siteground then here is an article that can help: https://www.wpsuperstars.net/migrate-from-wordpress-com-to-wordpress-org/
Hope that helps! ?
This is very helpful, thank you! And to demonstrate your point, I found this on Pinterest! I’ve been posting all my blogs on Pinterest, but haven’t seen any return on it yet. I probably need to spend more time interacting with other content to increase engagement with mine. Thanks again for this helpful article!
Author
Hey Summer, you’re welcome, I’m glad you found the post helpful. One of the key ways to grow on Pinterest and increase your blog traffic is to be consistent. Continually pin good content, both yours and other peoples. Pinterest will reward you for being active and for re-pinning popular content.
Thanks so much! Lots of great advice. If only time was easier to come by. Baby steps. Still, great direction and valuable links to more resources. I too connected to you via Pinterest.
Thanks again.
Author
You’re welcome Barbara, I’m glad you found the information helpful 🙂
Wow I’ve spent so much time doing busy work! I’ve changed my blog colours and redone my website about 3 times in one month haha! I’m glad I came across this post. I literally took notes! I’m going to run to Starbucks and get into work mode so that I can follow your tips so that I can grow your blog.
Thankyou for taking the time to write this!
Cece
p.s., I don’t know that I’ve ever come across a Personal Development blog. I have a few posts in my content bank that I would consider to be personal development that I wasn’t sure If I should publish or not, because they didn’t seem to fit within my niche. Thankyou for this inspiration! Lifestyle and Personal development are my two favourite topics to write about, I can’t wait to publish more in that area.
Thanks again!
Cece
Author
haha I’ve been there! It’s so easy to get caught up doing busy work to avoid doing the important stuff! You should definitely publish your posts on personal development, you’ll be amazed at how many people find them helpful 🙂 Thanks for commenting x
Great tips
I def need to plan better and create stuff to post when life gets too busy to sit down and write. Consistency is my problem, or at least one of them?.
Stina @herbsnhealth.net
Author
Hey Stina, maybe there are some ways you can make consistency easier. Here are some ideas at the top of my head…
Re-purpose old content
Add content ideas to your calendar
Catch yourself doing busy work (i.e. re-editing posts to “perfection”)
Tell your audience in advance what you’re going to be sharing. Giving yourself accountability to do it 🙂
Hope that helps! x
So helpful. I think I need to work on making some podcasts!
Author
Thank you, so glad you found it helpful! x
So many great ideas, thanks for sharing. I definitely need to learn more about SEO and start implementing some techniques to improve it. I’ve been blogging for about 2.5 months now and I’ve mostly been focusing on content creation and promotion through social media. Your post has given me a few more things to think about. Thanks!
Author
Hey Jen, so glad you found my post helpful! Definitely look into SEO as a way to increase blog traffic. Good luck!
I just found this on Pinterest. Great post. I clicked the link to the Pinterest ebook. The link could not be found. Do you still have that available?
Author
Hey Jamie, sorry about the broken link! The Pinterest eBook is still available and I have emailed you a 10% off code 🙂
Good thing I found your blog! I’ve started mine so I hope your tips could help me.
Author
Good luck with your blog!
Hi Laura,
Thank you so much for this post. It has really helped steer me in the right direction and give me some goals for my new blog in the coming months. Thanks girl! – Cassidy
Author
Hi Cassidy, I’m so glad you found it helpful and it’s steered you in the right direction! 😀 x
Thank you! This was probably THE most helpful post that I have read on this topic as a newbie! A lot of the other posts I read have so much technical jargon it was overwhelming! Thanks for breaking it down into easy to understand and easy to implement!
Author
Aww thank you, I’m so glad you found it useful!
THANK-YOU so much for this!
I do not feel so overwhelmed anymore.
Author
Amazing! I’m so glad it helped x
Super helpful tips. I found you in pinterest and stopped by to read your full post. I have taken notes from your post too. This was a brilliant article. Thanks
Author
Amazing! I’m so glad you found it helpful 🙂
Thanks so much for this. I can actually relate to this and use this information to help me out in my blog since I am just starting out. I’ve already gotten over 1,000 page views since I started my blog two weeks ago, I think it’s a good pace so far! Pinterest is an excellent and easy promotional strategy that I hope to master.
Author
I’m so glad to hear this! Wow over 1000 views that’s amazing, keep up the good work! x
Excellent post, the headings were pretty helpful for a quick read. Since I’ve been a member of Facebook groups you’ve suggested. It was indeed a good suggestion. The article was spot-on for helping newbies bloggers but also for us regular bloggers, those who need to glance through of ideas and opinions.
Here’s my blog post that talks about How to Write a Professional Blog Post that Converts in continuation after driving traffic to your site and making most of it.
Good to know you. How do you like the article?
Author
Thank you, I’m so glad you found the article helpful!
This article was so helpful for a beginner like myself.
Thank you for your expertise and fun post 🙂
Author
Thank you, I’m glad you found it helpful! 🙂
Thanks for the tips! SEO is still overwhelming/confusing to me. I hope to get to understand it better so I can drive more traffic to my website.
I definitely don’t spend enough time repurposing and Pinterest has been a huge eye opener for blog traffic! Thanks for the tips.
I love all of the tips that you’ve mentioned here. I will be sure to try some of them out. I’m especially excited to try out using Facebook groups. Thank you for mentioning the importance of subheadings and headings. I completely neglect them as a space for me to include my keywords.
https://laillielifestyle.com/category/blogging-101/
Great ideas!
This ideas will help to organize my website project.
Thanks you very much 😘
Great tips!! I also always recommend Pinterest for quick growth while you wait for SEO and organic traffic to “kick in” . I do the same with Tailwind, but often pin other pins from Tribes. I should try more manual pinning as well!
This is an amazing list. There are so many things I haven’t thought of yet. I keep slacking on Pinterest so I need to sit down and just focus. Especially if I’m going to hit my goal of going full time by the end of 2022.
So very kind of you sharing so useful content, some of these tips i want to apply, thanks.
Thanks for these tips. I’m trying to grow my lifestyle blog so learning all that I can!
Thank you so much ! I have just started my Photography/videography blog ‘Editing with Jazzie’ and am looking for ways to grow successfully! I am for sure going to use these tips!
Hey Laura,
Thanks for sharing all these tips! I recently started my blog a few months back because I realize how much I’ve always enjoyed writing and what a great way it would be for me to share my experience with others! Then I found out about freelance writing and how it’s possible to generate an income that way which led me to some of your posts as they’re highly rated & recommended! 🙂 I’m preparing to submit some of my first articles/post(s) however I just wanted to say ALL your tips have been beyond helpful! So thank you for providing such helpful information
https://www.webhostwinner.com/
I will definitely start this social media and what you wrote here. Thank you so much for these great tips.
Amazing. This really is inspiring. I found you through Pinterest and this comes on point.
Hey Laura, thanks a bunch! Really useful tips I will be definitely be using the tip about planning. Thanks again
This was so helpful posts and useful pointers. Will try to work accordingly to maximize views and increase the reach. Thanks a lot 🙏
Deepti Gupta
fantastic tips! some of the Facebook groups I hadn’t heard of before so I’ll definitely be checking them out!
Enjoyed the comments as I am a new blogger and have not launch my blog as yet but plan to do so by the end of this month. I am doing a blog on romance scammers and the biggest problem I am having right now is coming up with ways to offer freebies and also how to focus my blog on Pinetrest. My domain name is best romance scammer slammer.com. The theme that I want to use is that of a wolf pack as a comparison to these scammers. Thank you for your helpful information.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I needed to read this and get more organized and targeted in my approach to my blog. Hoping these great tips will take me from casual blogger to full time income.
Thank you so much for the tips! I’m really trying to leverage Pinterest and find the right Facebook group!