How to increase website traffic to 400K visitors per month
When you have a blog, the one thing that determines whether your blog is successful or not, is its traffic. It might feel difficult in the beginning but getting some decent traffic to your blog is pretty easy. Just try to create good content optimised for search engines for the right keywords. However, if your goal is to increase website traffic to an extent where your website becomes your main income, then you need to learn the tips and tricks that professional bloggers use to drive vast amounts of traffic to their blog.
Your blog traffic is also a very credible parameter for potential clients and brands to judge your blog. Increasing it will open new opportunities for you to monetise your blog successfully.
The authority of your blog will also increase in the eyes of the search engines as more and more visitors start coming to your blog with their queries.
The adsense earnings are also directly dependent on your blog’s traffic. You will see a significant rise in your adsense earnings, as the organic impressions will rise with increased page views.
Recommended reading:
How to apply to Google Adsense to get approved immediately
Tips to increase your Adsense earnings
The case study:
Now that you know why your blog traffic is the accurate representation of the success of your blog, we are going to share how you can get huge traffic to your blog. This is what we are going to learn today through a case study about a blog which increased its blog traffic to 400K visitors per month.
Now for this kind of traffic, simple traffic-driving techniques won’t do the job. You need a solid strategy with proper planning to execute it efficiently.
Alex used such a solid strategy on his blog www.caloriesecrets.com. Today, we are going to see the strategies he used, the costs involved in achieving these traffic figures, his learnings from this journey and how you can do it too.
Setting up the blog:
Alex works in the weight loss industry as a blogger. He used to write articles related to weight control, before he started his own blog. His main aim was to develop a blog with inputs from experts in his field, instead of just sharing information as a weight loss enthusiast.
He also had a lot of experience as a writer. So, he had ample knowledge of SEO, keyword research, content development, and competitor analysis. A key take-away from this is that, if you are into blogging, only being enthusiastic about it won’t make it a success.
You need to understand that there are many other factors, which are vital to your blog’s traffic. Learn about the niche, check out what other people are writing, and offer something different. We will discuss more about this in detail below.
Hosting
Alex developed the blog by purchasing the domain and choosing a blogging platform to develop it. He wanted a short name for his domain and chose a .net extension after some basic research.
Theme
He invested around $50 for a premium theme so that the blog looks good and presentable. After these basic steps, developing the blog was easy and now he was ready for some traffic.
Content
Alex had the basic skillset he needed to take this blog forward. He knew the basics of blogging and had ample knowledge on the subject. He also knew what people were searching for and how to give it to them using evergreen content.
But he did not have the expertise, that was needed to take this blog from good to best. His academic background was not related to the industry, so he hired some professional experts to contribute content to his blog.
This helped him in two ways:
-
It helped him establish his blog as a professional platform with experts, which improved its authority.
-
It also freed up his time to focus on other aspects of blogging.
He did not invest a lot of money initially into the blog except for buying a theme and hiring writers. The investment in the theme was a one-time investment and hiring the writers was a continuous investment.
Strategies that turbocharged his traffic to 400k/month:
The strategies used on his blog have been segregated into two sections:
-
basic strategies
-
unique strategies which are not very commonly used
The following sections will explain these strategies in detail, so that you can copy them and see similar results too.
Basic strategies:
- Publishing posts with a minimum word limit of 800 words
-
One of the basic requirements to make your blog go from good to great is to publish in-depth content.
Articles of 800-1000 words have more credibility in the eyes of the readers. On the other hand, 250-300 word-articles seem lacking in basic information. Search for what people are looking for, and provide the answers. - Keeping the blog evergreen
-
One important tip that professional bloggers take seriously is frequently updating their blogs. This includes publishing new blog posts frequently and updating old blog posts regularly.
Make a schedule to update your blog at regular intervals and promote it on social media. - Keeping track of the position of different keywords and using long-tail keywords
-
Alex registered with a keyword planner software which helped him track the keywords which were ranking for a particular niche. He targeted long-tail keywords which are basically longer versions of common keywords and have less competition. This way, he can easily rank for these keywords without burning too much of his resources.
- Optimizing the email newsletter
-
Don’t overlook this neat little tip which can drive thousands of visitors to your blog each day, if optimized correctly. Alex worked on his email newsletter and added valuable information along with an eye-catching headline to attract readers.
- Making the site mobile-friendly
-
This is basically the one tip that all bloggers should follow as mobile users are increasing day by day. Your site may be very optimised for a desktop but if it does not open well on a mobile browser, you are losing thousands of potential readers every day.
Use a responsive theme which adapts well to mobile version of your website. Search engines also give more credibility to mobile-friendly sites.
Unique strategies:
- Popularising the blog using apps on chrome, Amazon, and android app stores
-
This is one strategy which made this blog different from every other blog. Alex invested some money in app creation and got app versions of his blog developed for readers who prefer apps.
Maintaining an app will be difficult if the posting frequency is low. So, keep in mind that this strategy will only work if you add new content every day or a few times a day. - Running an Google Adwords campaign
-
One more area where Alex invested in, is to create Adwords campaigns. This helped him in getting organic traffic from Google. This in turn improved the reputation of his website.
This strategy is helpful, if you have a new blog and want to let people know about your website, to turn them into returning customers.
- Enhancing the reliability of his website by getting it verified from certified agencies
-
While this may not be practical for all niches, getting your blog get a seal of approval from certifying agencies in your niche can help enhance your trustworthiness.
There are many organisations which verify the content of a particular website. They give them the ‘badge of validity’ of the information available on the website. If you cannot find any such agencies, you can also get certified in a course related to your niche and use that to support your content. - Providing free weight management tools to returning visitors
-
This is one of the best tools to retain your visitors and reward them for supporting your website.
Alex provided free weight management tools to his readers to track their progress and follow customised diet plans for free. This attracted more readers to the blog as the word spread.
You can select any tool depending on your niche. For example, if you have a recipe niche, you can offer free recipes to build relationships with your readers. - Restricting the link-building strategy
-
While most new bloggers think that they should build as many backlinks as possible for their blogs to improve search rankings, Alex did the opposite. He concentrated on building only a few organic backlinks from high-authority sites. He worked on making content which users shared organically.
Making too many low quality backlinks can do more harm for your site than good in the long run.
Results
The organic traffic to his blog reached about 100k visitors in the first year of his blogging journey. In these 12 months, he had published 184 posts in total.
The traffic doubled in the next 4 months as he published an additional 53 posts in these 4 months. In the next one and a half year, the blog traffic reached 400K visitors a month. By this time, he had published around 500 posts.
This increased blog traffic not only improved the credibility of the blog in the eyes of the visitors, but also improved its earnings through adsense. Adsense takes organic visitors more seriously as compared to social media traffic and direct referrals. So, focussing on organic growth is very important.
Image source
Failures/lessons learnt:
The first mistake that Alex was almost about to do was writing articles for the blog by himself.
He had an interest in the subject and had gone through the journey of weight loss himself. However, he realised that in order to gain people’s trust, it was important to share information, that was backed by scientific studies and was effective in producing measurable results.
Another lesson that Alex learnt from his earlier days of writing is that, he needs to build a strong commenting system.
Most health and fitness blogs are full of spam comments. Alex wanted to make sure that his readers got quality information from the blog. He still follows a very strict commenting policy to provide a good user experience to his readers. Make sure that you avoid comments which are made for the sole purpose of getting a backlink.
What could he have done better?
One thing that Alex wanted to do better was to use the business page on Pinterest to its full potential. He did use social media to spread the word about his blog and got a few thousand visits, but he could have used it more aggressively, as Pinterest can be a huge source of traffic, if optimised well.
These were some of the strategies used by Alex to get 400K visitors to his blog without a huge investment or unethical practices. He used his knowledge and basic strategies to convince the readers to return to his blog for information. All these tips are very helpful in retaining new users as well as bringing back old readers.
Once you see a growth in your organic traffic, it is very easy to stay motivated and follow these guidelines, as working on a blog is a continuous process and it does not stop at any given point of time.
Are you motivated to work on your blog also and making it reach new heights in terms of blog traffic after reading this article?