You've got a blog.

Your blog looks amazing.

As a matter of fact, you've spent thousands of dollars on web developers and web designers making sure your blog looks and operates just right.

The only problem?

Crickets.

No one -- and I mean no one is visiting your blog.

Don't worry. It's not that your blog is terrible. It's that you haven't yet learned how to drive traffic to your blog.

Continue reading this article to learn these 12 proven ways to get more viewers to your blog.

How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog & Win at the Blogging Game

Before you learn how to increase blog traffic, it can seem like bloggers that get hundreds of thousands of views must have magic on their side. The truth is that it has nothing to do with magic but instead it is much more methodical and scientific.

If you do the right things to generate traffic (the cause), you will then get the traffic (the effect). Congratulations, you now know how to get blog traffic. Now let's look at the specific techniques you can start using today to see the increase in your blog visitors.

1. The Almighty Email List

You hear marketers shouting about building your email list from every roof and mountain top. Though you've heard it is the way to go to keep traffic flowing to your site, have you set up your email list yet?

Most people don't make it past the step of purchasing a year of the autoresponder service of their choice. They get into the dashboard, get overwhelmed and go back to what they know.

If you're one of those people, don't beat yourself up. There is still time to start working on your email list.

Your email list is a group of people that have decided they like your company and your content enough that they want to give you their personal email. Since they trust you enough to have their email, they are likely to open your emails from time to time which can then get them to come back to your website to read your latest post or promotion.

2. Blogging Consistently

As you're blogging, you'll begin to notice that your posts can bring in traffic through search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is otherwise known as SEO.

When you optimize your blog post for certain keyword terms they can turn up in the search results of Google and other search engines. This organic traffic converts well because people are actively looking for what it is that you're writing about.

Blogging is a great way to get traffic flowing into your site. This is often a long-term strategy since it can take a while to get your blog posts ranked in the search engines, but that isn't always the case.

If there isn't a lot of information on the topic that you're blogging about then you'll rank easier since there will be less competition on the topic.

There is a general consensus among many bloggers that you should at least put out a post a week to keep your blog fresh and your readers happy.

Blogs aren't only a powerful tool because of the traffic they can bring into your site. Blogs are also a powerful tool because they can walk people through the buyer's journey until they come out on the other side ready to purchase your product or service.

Besides for adding new fresh content to your site, you also want to keep your content as up to date as possible. The more up to date your content is, the better your site will do in the long run.

Edit any blogs that seem a little stale and add more information as you can.

3. Be Friendly

When you get to know people and they get to know you, they tend to be interested in what it is that you're doing. If you're networking with the right people, these encounters can result in great opportunities.

Joint ventures are a great opportunity to grow your business. You can borrow the trust people have for the other person and vice versa.

4. Join Relevant Forums

If you want to meet like-minded people then forums are a great place to find people. These people are often looking for things you can help them with as well.

Keep an eye out for people you can network within these forums but make sure you're never spammy. Often you can put your website link in your bio and you may get some traffic to your website that way.

5. More Is Better

No matter what you're doing -- more is better. More content on your blog, more posts on your social media accounts. As long as you keep up the quality, then doing more is going to get you more attention.

6. Be a Helper

When you show yourself to be a helper, people are going to think of you as the go-to person in the area you help out. No matter what your niche is, people are looking for help. Be that person that helps other people and they won't forget it.

You can help people through answering their comments on your blog. You can help people in forums or those that shoot an email to you asking for advice.

7. Content & Social Media Calendars

When you get started with your business, you might be shooting from the hip and hoping that it all falls together, but that isn't going to work forever. If you're growing a big business then you need to get your content for your blog and for social media under control.

The longer you can plan out your content, the more likely you'll get it done on time. The more you're consistent with your content, the more likely people are to follow you. People love consistency and they will continue to keep up with your blog and social media as long as you give them what they want.

You can even use some of your blog content for other purposes. Repurposing your content makes it even easier to create your content and social media calendars.

8. Make Your Content Readable

If you want to run people off your site, the best way to do that is by making your content a train wreck to read.

If your content looks is all big bulky paragraphs, people will lose interest quickly. Not only will people lose interest quickly but they won't be able to pick up on the ideas you're trying to convey.

Use different size headers in your content. Emphasize important parts with italics or bolding if needed.

When you make your content easy to read, people are more likely to come back to read more content as well as referring friends to read your content.

Leave white space so people can digest the content they take in. You don't need to pack every inch of your website with graphics, ads or promotions to get the best results.

9. Headlines Are Key

Many headlines fall flat and don't make people want to read the blog post or open the emails, etc.

Whatever you're writing, you need to make sure your headline is compelling. Most people can't find a good article because they can't get past the bad headline.

Learning how to write good blog content and email copy is important but second to learning how to write powerful headlines.

When you're writing headlines, you want to leave people wanting more. You need to use emotion and power words to get them excited about the content.

10. Internal Linking = A Must

Most content doesn't link to anything. Internal or external. Not linking internally is losing much-valued traffic.

Internal linking helps people stay on your website by naturally guiding them through the process from one helpful piece of content to another. When you fail to link to other helpful content, not only are you failing your visitor and losing more page views but you're losing more time on site.

One of the SEO signals that Google and other search engines use is time on site. How long do people spend on your site? If people spend a lot of time on your site and go through a lot of the pages, this shows the search engines that your site is a good resource to refer people to.

11. Build Those Backlinks

Now on the lesser important end than building the high-quality content that you need is building backlinks. While backlinks come second, that doesn't mean that backlinks aren't important.

If people aren't linking to your content then it doesn't look like your content is very important. You want to get as many relevant blogs and other websites to link to your content as a resource.

You can do manual outreach to other people in your niche that are not direct competition. You can also have other people do your outreach for you so you can save time.

Most of the time when people are doing outreach it is to ask for a guest post opportunity. This means that you would ask them if they would like you to write content for them for free in exchange for a link back to your website.

12. Get Comfortable With Video

Video marketing is a powerful tool online. More people are watching video and having video on your blog or in other places on your website can help keep people on your site.

If you are the spokesperson for your company, you need to get comfortable with being in front of the camera. In some cases, you won't need to be on camera because you can showcase information through slideshows and other types of video. It is better to be prepared than to be afraid to get on video and have an interview or other opportunity pass you by for lack of preparation.

With 300 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every hour, if you're not in the video game, you're falling behind.

Continuing to Grow Your Traffic

When you're implementing all of these different methods to grow your blog traffic, you will start to see all of your efforts compound. Keep working consistently as your blog is growing.

The more content you have, the more things people can find you for in the search engines. Continue to produce high-quality content that will attract your ideal client but make sure you don't cover the same topic and compete with yourself in the search engines.

This is why the content calendar we talked about above is so important. Some people choose to outsource all of their content so they can just order a large order of content whenever their content calendar is filled out. Even if you have all of your content ready, you can schedule it on your blog so it goes out consistently on your desired schedule.

Ready to Beef Up Your Blog Game?

It can be overwhelming when you think about setting up your blog for the type of success we were talking about above. The good thing is that you don't have to do everything on your own. With the age of outsourcing upon us, there are ways that you can start getting results without having to learn how to write, format your blog posts properly and all the important elements that go into writing blog posts.

Now that you understand how to drive traffic to your blog, you likely realize the importance of having enough blog content. Navigate over to our content order page today and get started.

There are 500 million blogs on the Internet.

Of these 500 million blogs, they create 2 million posts per day.

They say that on the Internet, content is king, and it's true. But another thing that's important is updating your blog consistently with great information. After all, what's the point of returning to a blog if it never gets updated?

No doubt, staying up to date with a blog can get overwhelming, so it is important to manage it in a way that makes sense for you. This is why a blog calendar is so important for ensuring your blog gets updated regularly with quality information.

Read on for more about how creating a blog calendar can help streamline your business, and make things much easier for you.

Why Have a Blog?

If you don't already have a blog, you may be wondering what the point of having one is. You may not have the aspirations of being an influencer or to be known for your blogging. But that doesn't mean it isn't important.

Having a blog, even if you hire others to write it for you, is key to upping the engagement on your site. It is also important for attracting new visitors who might be interested in your services.

For instance, if you're a dentist, having a blog post about how to whiten your teeth is a great way to attract new clients. This is a term people search for often, and therefore, it's a way to get people onto your page.

It can also be a source of income.

Let's now discuss how to ensure that you keep your blog regularly updated with all of the newest information.

Using a Blog Calendar to Suit Your Needs

A blog calendar is similar to an editorial calendar for a magazine. Almost all magazines and newspapers use this device in order to ensure that they cover everything they intend to cover. A blog calendar is similar.

With a blog calendar, you'll write down your ideas for each day you plan to publish on your blog. But this shouldn't be haphazard.

Instead of publishing whenever you feel like, unless you're not looking to utilize your blog as anything more than a hobby, you should create a schedule for your posts.

This schedule should be based on when your target audience is mainly online. This can be difficult to tell in the early stages of a blog because you don't have your niche audience developed yet.

But, you can go with some simple rules of thumb depending on who you're targeting and see how well your posts perform. If you're targeting kids who are in school, posting a blog post as they're waking up and getting ready for school is a good time to post.

Posting when they get out of school is also a good strategy.

If you're targeting adults with careers, posting either before or after they get out of work or at lunchtime, can both be effective strategies.

Try both of these and note when your posts are more successful, then schedule your posts to go live then.

Coming Up with Blog Topics

Coming up with topics for your blog can be a little bit difficult. Many bloggers have trouble deciding what to post, like the fact that there are so many things you can post makes it a bit overwhelming.

But that doesn't mean it necessarily has to be overwhelming.

If you don't have a clear content marketing strategy, or you're a personal blogger, try some blog prompts. These may help you figure out what it is you'd like to connect to your audience with.

Utilizing Keyword Research

If your blog's main purpose is to convert business or to gain high volumes of traffic, then keyword research is imperative to plan your blog posts.

But what is keyword research? Keyword research is finding the keywords people who are interested in your business are searching and using them as a jumping off point for your blog posts.

While keyword research is a longer topic than we're able to cover in a post about blog calendars, it's still a useful one to explore on your own. At its very core, you'll make a list of about 5-10 topics you think are worth your company exploring.

Underneath each topic, you'll make a list of keywords that you think people might search in order to find the topic.

Using keyword research tools, you can then hone in on the keywords and keyword phrases that people are actually searching for. Using this information, you can then create several topics that are ready to be inserted into your blog calendar.

You'll have topics at the ready, and a full calendar before you know it.

Have a Content Marketing Strategy

Your blog calendar is not necessarily your content marketing strategy. Don't mistake one for the other. You'll need to sit down with your marketing team or hire someone to help you create a good content marketing strategy.

If you can't afford to hire someone, keyword research and utilizing your analytics to see when your audience is online is a good start. There are also loads of free resources online to help you ensure that your blog reaches the right people.

You'll also need to decide exactly who your audience is and create a profile of the ideal person. This will help you not only when you target your content, but it will also help you when advertising.

While you may have a demographic in mind, try and create a specific person who is your ideal customer or client. Write down the profile of the person. For instance, your blog might cater to young mothers, but you can create a specific profile to make it exactly what you want.

Your customer profile might be: Jessica, 27, has two children under the age of 6, works part-time, has limited disposable income.

This nails down exactly the type of person you want to target and gives you a better idea of how to advertise to her.

How to Structure a Blog Calendar

When creating a blog calendar, there are a few ways to do it. We'll go over some of these a bit later on in the article. But no matter what program you use to update your blog calendar, you'll still need to structure it in the same way.

First, start by deciding which days of the week you want to post. Most bloggers do not post over the weekends, but if your audience shows the engagement on the weekends, then it might be a good time to post.

If you already have analytics from Instagram or another social media account showing when your audience is online, it is a great idea to use this to transfer to your blog.

Insert the topic you wish to post on that day and the time you wish to post your blog post. As stated above, if you don't know exactly when your audience is online, try a few different times to see what's best for them.

Don't be all over the place, though. Instead, try posting Mondays at 3 pm, Wednesdays at 9 am and Fridays at 5 pm, for example. This way, your posting won't be completely haphazard.

Many bloggers create new calendars each month so that they're ready to tackle their goals. Some bloggers may schedule a few months out, especially if they don't necessarily deal with current news.

It is a good idea to at least plan for a month of blog posts at a time to ensure you get all of the necessary content.

Be Flexible with Your Calendar

While creating a calendar is fantastic, you'll also want to be a little bit flexible with it. It can save you serious headaches down the road, and make life a whole lot easier. But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be flexible with your calendar.

Things happen. Stories get pushed back. Sometimes there are things you want to cover more urgently than others. That's totally okay and is actually advantageous to your blog.

It means you still have content on the back burner that's waiting to go up for the days you're not so sure what to write.

Don't necessarily schedule in a day to write a wild card post, unless you think you can handle that. Instead, you may want to mark posts that are evergreen, or won't be "out of style" or "outdated" if you move them back.

For example, a post about how to cook macaroni and cheese can work at any time of the year. But, a post about current discount codes needs to be up immediately so that your readers can use the discount codes.

You may also want to sometimes cover current events or make comments about big changes in your industry. Be ready and willing to switch things around.

Using a Written Blog Calendar

If you're old fashioned, a written blog calendar might be the thing for you, and that's perfectly valid.

Purchase a calendar with large blocks that allow you to write in the days and times you're interested in publishing items.

The best way to go about this is to use a calendar that is either a whiteboard or to laminate a calendar so that you can easily switch things around as necessary.

If for some reason, you need to put in a new blog post, you don't want your calendar to look messy and unreadable. This way, you can simply edit without much fuss.

Using a Digital Calendar

A digital calendar is a great way to ensure that your blog posts get put up correctly and accurately, though not everyone likes not being able to see the calendar in hard copy.

There are many different programs that you can utilize to get to the same end goal. You can use the calendar setting on your computer or create a new calendar to input the specific blog posts you want to go up at specific times.

You can even set a reminder to ensure that the posts go up when you need them to.

Additionally, using Trello or an Excel spreadsheet can also make your calendar readable.

With using a digital calendar, Excel or Trello's program, you can share the calendar without having to move a muscle. Everyone in the office can see what you're planning and when.

Make Posts Automatically

Once you've created your content, using your content calendar, set them to go live at specific times. Almost all blogging platforms have this, and it makes it so much easier than manually updating your posts.

You can even utilize automation tools like HootSuite to automatically update your social media to advertise the post.

This way if your audience is on social media, they'll immediately be watching and ready for the post to go up and can click on it from there.

Using Your Blog Calendar

Using a blog calendar may seem overwhelming at first, but it gets easier as you understand more about the basics of blogging.

After a while, using a blog calendar will seem totally second nature to you, and you and your team will be on top of blog posts and posting new content that's accessible to your followers.

Remember, a blog calendar is not the same as your digital marketing strategy, so you'll need to be sure you have that hammered out before you begin your calendar.

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