How to drive traffic to your website in 2019

Traffic traffic traffic! It’s yummy, isn’t it? Well, I’ve never actually eaten any but I bet it is delicious. One of my goals in 2019…

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How to drive traffic to your website in 2019

Traffic traffic traffic! It’s yummy, isn’t it? Well, I’ve never actually eaten any but I bet it is delicious.

One of my goals in 2019 is to explode my blog traffic. In 2016, I had around 180,000 page views. I didn’t appreciate it because I just wanted to drive more traffic to my website. The following two years I’ve had to neglect this blog a little bit due to life happening all around me but I want to get back on track and start getting more traffic to my website.

I’ve done it before and I can do it again.

I’m already seeing an increase in traffic over the past few weeks from putting a bit of effort into certain things. And you know what? It’s working! I’m getting more views than I have in ages and I am so excited about it!

Want to increase your own blog traffic but not sure how?

Here are some tips.

How to drive traffic to your website.

How to drive traffic to your website in 2019

Understand where your traffic is coming from.

Use Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from. Here you can pick some sources you would like to work on an improvement. You may even find some golden nuggets in there – a traffic source you didn’t even realise was working for you. Imagine how much more traffic you can get if you took some time to really understand what was working for you and use that to your advantage?

Understand where your traffic is landing.

Using Google Analytics, go to behaviour -> site content -> all pages to see what type of content is working for you.

Use this to:

  • Create follow up posts
  • Create similar posts
  • Insert internal links to your most popular content to encourage people to click on more posts.

We’ve all head of the whole ‘content is king’ cliche. Content is king, the trick is to realise which content is the best fit for your blog.

Write longer blog posts.

For more traffic from Google – write longer blog posts. The average word count for the top 10 returned search results is 2000 words. When I look at my top posts from Google, they are over 1000 words.

There’s something in that. More detail sells, gets people on your page longer, is a signal to Google it’s quality content and there are more keywords to look at.

1000 – 2000 words might be a lot, but if you have a blog post that you really want to get showing high in search, focus on longer content that goes into detail about what it is you are talking about.

Pinterest.

I’m not going go too much into the detail here, but you can read my post about how I grew my Pinterest.

Almost every guide I read about how to get more traffic is about Pinterest and Tailwind. But that’s because they work!

It does take time though. I was getting only a one or two referrals when I first started, now I’m getting up to 60 a day and it keeps growing!

Use a keyword finder.

You can use Googles Keyword Planner in Google Ads for free. The only issue here is that it doesn’t give you an exact amount of searches per month. Though it’s still a powerful tool.

You can also sign up to KWFinder which does have a free version letting you search 5 keywords a day.

Type in a word, or set of words and you’ll see a list of suggested keywords, with how much search volume it gets, costs per click in Google Ads, level of competition in Google Ads and how difficult it is to rank 1 for that keyword.

In theory, you want a keyword that has a high search volume, high CPC and is easy to rank number 1. Though it’s not easy to get all three and you usually have to make a sacrifice somewhere!

Use catchy titles.

Clickbait works – some of my most viewed posts have click-bait titles:

Using clickbait style titles or catch titles are a way to get some attention to your post.

But you have to make sure you follow up with some amazing content.

Some keywords to include in catchy titles:

  • unbelievably
  • deeply in love
  • most important
  • seriously
  • expert
  • happier
  • amazing
  • happiest
  • unhappiest
  • you probably didn’t know
  • you won’t believe
  • shocking
  • worst
  • fakest
  • will hate
  • 10 most
  • don’t want you to know
  • everyone is talking about
  • 6 secrets to

Treat your promo tweets like pins.

We all know the importance of creating beautiful Pins that catch peoples eyes. Making them stand out, making them enticing so people want to click on them.

But why do so many people still not use this technique for sharing their blog posts on Twitter?

Get an image that’s 1024 x 512 pixels and promote the eff out of it! Use Canva, Picmonkey or Adobe tools to create clear images that people will want to click.

If you have a community over at Facebook, do the same there! I don’t use Facebook much as I find it’s pretty crap for engagement since they made it hard for pages to be shown in feeds unless they are boosted.

Use Twitter as a community. 

My biggest downfall was putting Twitter in the corner of the room and ignoring it.

I get more followers when I’m active. That means when I put out normal tweets and reply to others.

When I get more followers, I get more engagement and that leads to more traffic.

Reply to all your mentions to keep your tweet alive, jump into other peoples conversations and have fun.

I’ve got a goal this month of tweeting 5 times a day. These exclude promotional tweets. Tweets to start getting some engagement going.

Follow me here.

Conduct an SEO audit.

Last month, I published a massive guide on how to conduct a full SEO audit on your blog. Since then, I’ve been going into more detail about each step.

Put your blog through this test to make sure you’re making the most out of search engine traffic. See the series so far.

SEO is another thing that takes time, don’t expect instant results because it can take months. But once you get it right, you can end up getting a steady stream of traffic over a long period of time.

Comment on other peoples blogs.

This time-consuming method has always been one of the best. But it’s time-consuming.

Leaving thoughtful comments on people blogs is a great way to drive traffic to your own blog. Many bloggers will return the favour and after a while, that blogger turns into a regular reader. And you turn into a regular reader for them. You really get to know these people and start looking forward to reading their updates.

These days fewer people are commenting on blogs, taking to social media instead. Spend a bit of time leaving bloggers some love! We spend a lot of time on our content, it is nice to have a bit of recognition!

9 comments

  1. This is a great post. I need to figure out how to use other social media. I started using Pinterest last year but I’m helpless with it, I keep forgetting about it, which is a shame because I think it has a lot of potential. A lot of people use Pinterest to find and read blog articles (and somehow most people don’t realize it). I always find it hard to make time for both other social media and my blog. If I turn to one thing;I usually neglect the other. Some social media I don’t use at all, for example I haven’t used my twitter account since I opened it. I think you’re right, we need to figure out the proper way to use social networks…and see which ones work best for our blog.

    Reading and commenting on other people blogs might sound old school but it does work. It is a great way to build relationship. Blogging community is often very welcoming…or is it just me or is it more friendly and real than other social media? There doesn’t seem to be much negativity in blogging.

  2. Love this post! I’ve been completely ignoring Twitter until recently because I didn’t think of it as a source of traffic for my blog (also, I’m slightly terrified by it because I don’t know how to use it). It’s such a good point to use it like Pinterest and add photos – that way people are more likely to see and click on the Tweet 🙂 Genius. Thanks for the tips!

    1. HI Shireen– I just did a post about how to use Pinterest to get more blog traffic. I’d be happy to help you if you want some one on one to understand how to make it work for you. Contact me if you’d like!

  3. I’m with you on pinterest now! I started using it when you were raving about it – and one of my posts generated 2,400 views in a day – I am SO impressed with pinterest now lol, so worth the minimal effort it needs!

    Erin || MakeErinOver

  4. Thanks for this super useful post Corinne. I have always wanted to ask you about Pinterest – does it actually get views on your blog? I am so confused about how Pinterest is actually useful for the blog since I only seem to hear about people talking about their Pinterest views. Any opinions on this please?

  5. I have to agree with you, twitter has been one of the best ways to bring traffic to my blog. At the same time it’s so time-consuming, and I always forget to schedule posts. But I gotta hop to it, because like you said it’s one of the best ways to bring people to your blog. Well, that anddd commenting on blogs. I’m literally catching up from all the posts from my favorites from the month of december til now. Great post Corinne xxx

    Melina | http://www.melinaelisa.com

  6. Hi Corinne- just found your blog, and love this article! I have not taken the time yet to really dive into my google analytics to see what I can learn from there, so I’m definitely going to try that. Appreciate that, thank you!
    – Clarrisa Lee

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