Want More Traffic? Here’s How.

~ Cristian Mihai

Sometimes I ask myself if there’s more to this blogging thing than being addicted to traffic.

You start a blog, or a YouTube channel, create a podcast, whatever your passion may be. You put some content out there, and a few people stop by and compliment your work.

That’s when the madness starts.

You start to go online for traffic strategies, going to webinars instead of movies, and even studying blogs like the Art of Blogging. Hehehe.

But you know what?

I feel you. And because I went through this myself, I am going to share a few strategies with you.

9. Buy ads

This is not the best strategy, but it dies work. Some folks even make money from buying ads.

But it’s pricey. These days, most keywords cost more than one dollar per click, which makes doing this for long unsustainable.

8. The Social Network

Here’s how people screw social media up: by thinking that having a presence on every single platform ever invented is smart.

Well… problem is, you’ll spread yourself too thin. The only folks who ca maintain such presence have entire teams dedicated to this.

But for you and I, the smarter strategy is picking just one social network and putting in the time and energy to really do it right. You can focus on others later.

7. Take advantage of other mediums

In a similar vein, a lot of content creators think they need to have a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, book, everything.

In the beginning, it’s a mistake, because once again, you’re spreading yourself too thin. However, once your audience is established in one medium, expanding into others becomes a much smarter strategy. Here’s why:

Audiences don’t overlap as much as you’d think: folks who read blogs about marketing and those who listen to podcasts about marketing are two relatively distinct audiences. So, by expanding into other media, you can instantly increase your reach.

6. Get linked to

Most bloggers get it wrong when it comes to SEO.

The most important factor when it comes to pleasing Google is getting linked by trusted sources, by other blogs and websites that have a lot more traffic than you do.

How do you do that?

Simple: create amazing content.

Not just amazing, but so amazing that influential people can’t help talking about it.

Get that part right and the rest of SEO is much easier.

5. Guest blogging

Granted, guest blogging isn’t easy. Yeah, the long-term results of are great, but the bitter truth is that most bloggers don’t have the skills required to land a spot on the biggest blogs in the world. They can with practice, but some of the other strategies here are easier to implement.

Such as …

4. Interviewing others from your niche

What? How does interviewing a bunch of other bloggers get you traffic?

Well, here’s a little secret: even though interviews aren’t the greatest content, they are brilliant for connecting with influential people. Be respectful of their time, and ask insightful questions, and you might be surprised about how long they remember you.

Give it a try. This is one of the easiest traffic strategies to implement, and it’s amazing how many connections it can create for your time.

3. Building a newsletter

What’s the easiest way to get more traffic?

Let your current subscribers know that you posted some new content. Building an e-mail list is crucial and should be more of a priority than just getting traffic. So, put up an email subscription box your site ASAP, preferably with a nice incentive to make joining your list irresistible.

2. Writing a list post

List posts are everywhere, and here’s why:

They get jaw-dropping amounts of traffic.

I mean, my most popular blog posts, on all my blogs, are list posts of some sorts.

You’d think the Internet would get sick and tired of list posts, but it’s just not so.

Don’t believe me?

Write a post about 10 (or even 50) ways to do something your audience might like. I’m betting it’ll be the most popular post in the history of your blog.

1. Spending time to craft the perfect headline

If you could multiply your traffic tenfold in five minutes, would you do it?

No-brainer, right? Well, then don’t make the mistake of thinking your headlines don’t matter. Getting better at writing headlines is the fastest and easiest way to take your blog to the damn stratosphere.

Nothing else even comes close.

And yes, it applies to every type of content. I don’t care if you’re running a YouTube channel, a podcast, or publishing comic books; your headline is more important than the rest of the content, combined.

Now it’s the time that you pick whichever strategy best suits your needs, and do it. And do it. And do it some more.

Because all of the time I spent writing this post will be for nothing if you never use the strategies. Doing something, anything is a must.

Of course, nobody wants to hear that.

But you know it’s true.

76 thoughts on “Want More Traffic? Here’s How.”

  15. Great tips! Regarding social networking…..apparently you can set up an Instagram account that also posts your other social media platforms. With one Instagram post I simultaneously post to Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. It is the best, free way I found use more than one social media platform.

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    1. I’ve considered doing this, with any of the plethora of apps that seem to make it so easy, but I think you have to be a little careful mixing Facebook in with some of those hashtag friendly platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Hashtags are a great way to get noticed on those platforms, but for Facebook it becomes too noticeble that you’re just copying and pasting from one platform to another (when Hashtags start popping up in your Facebook posts). Instead of copying each post to each platform, I like to schedule mine out in advance. I can spend a a bit of time scheduling social media posts across all platforms and be set for the week (or longer). I’ve used Buffer, which is a free app you can use (to an extent) and I’ve been really interested in Sprout, but haven’t gotten the chance to try that one out.

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      1. I’ve never heard of Buffer or Sprout…will need to add them to the list of platforms to explore this year. Thank you for the info. I know what you mean about the hashtag use on Facebook. When I am writing a post just for Facebook I barely use any hashtags for that exact reason – the hashtags take away from my picture and my message. Thanks again for sharing what you know; it’s quite helpful.

        How much time in advance do you spend setting up your social media posts? I constantly feel like I am both spending too much and too little time on social media posts. Ha.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I know exactly what you mean! ha. I was on and off using Buffer – make a couple posts, then go down to only sending out one posts because I wouldn’t stick to it (shame on me). I would suggest setting up 3-5 days worth of posts the first day you do this (maybe spend 30-60 min doing this depending on your posts length, content, ect.), then each day (or every other day) spend 10-15 minutes to add another day’s worth of posts. That way you are always ahead of the game. If you miss a day, its not a big deal because you already built a couple days out.

        Liked by 1 person

  16. Always enjoying the style of your writing. It’s so lovely to read because it’s pact with emotions. Go forward! Great hacks, thanks for sharing. Interviews are powerful. I did some and people love that, especially if you ask questions which are not 08/15

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  21. Fun post to read! I actually felt excited as I was reading it! To add onto your point about the headline, I have found a lot of keywords and blog headings that would be fairly easy to rank for, and that I want to write about by using keyword research tools. Google’s free Keyword planner is an alright tool (but it’s free!), but if you’re looking to really find some useful keyword analytics, ahrefs is an awesome tool! It’s a little pricey, but offers a 7-day $7 trial so you can play around in it. I would highly recommend that tool to you or anyone else looking to really drill into keywords or headlines that could be easier to rank for in Google.

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  34. This was so helpful! I love how you’ve explained the consequence of each action in detail. I especially liked the part about spreading ourselves too thin with many social media platforms and that it’s better to choose one and expand later. I’ll definitely follow these tips 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  38. The 6th makes me think. They say nowadays everything is on the web, so there’s no room for your content on YouTube, WordPress or any other platform. However, I think that there is always room for good stories, amazing content like you said. People always like honest opinions, hearing new facts or just read a good story. So if you have some idea, go for it and people will notice sooner or later.

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