I completely resonate right now. Our Saturday was spent looking through houses as we embark on the journey to buy a new home.
In this post, I want to share the tips and strategies that have been working for me that I know can really help you with your blog.
Now sometimes we get into a space where we don't want to keep investing in advertising, even though I do believe advertising is a wonderful avenue. But, if we can increase website traffic free, then as long as they're ideal clients and quality readers then that's a wonderful opportunity as well.
This is something that - having been blogging since 2009 - I wish I'd known back in the beginning. Some of what I did that attracted lots of readers in the beginning were pure flukes, to be honest.
But I've been able to analyse what has and hasn't worked and why and then put those learnings into practice now. Google is always changing, but the basics don't.
Ready to self audit? Download the checklist!
Look at your existing SEO
The first tip for how to increase traffic to your blog for free is to look at your search engine optimisation or SEO. In very basic terms, when you go into Google and you search for a particular phrase or keywords, then a blog post or page comes up that you can read to help answer the question you've searched for.
This is key to your SEO - finding out what are the things people are actually putting into Google that allows them to find you on the web. .
There are something like 200 google ranking factors on why something ranks on the first page of Google, but the first thing you need to focus on are the keywords.
How do you find keywords that you're going to rank for?
In the past, I've done hours and hours of research, trying to find keywords I think would be a good fit.
It's one way of going about it but, as I've learnt through much testing, it's also rather hit and miss.
So an easier way to rank much quicker is to learn how to use Google Search Console. If you've never used it before, you'll love the insights it provides.
It's separate from Google Analytics, but can be connected to help you read the results with greater filtering.
I'll do a training soon on how to set up Google Search Console and how it connects to Google Analytics.
What the console does is show you the impressions your website receives, what search queries people use to find you and which pages get the most clickthroughs in relation to Google.
What we're most interested in inside of Google Search Console are the queries people put into Google that we rank for.
Now, sometimes we rank for certain keywords or phrases that we get tons of impressions for but don't actually get any traffic to our website for. In Google Analytics we can't see this, as we only see the data in relation to people who land on your website.
Imagine we're writing about social media and we're ranking for the term "social media template".
When you pop that term into Google, you can see that blog post you wrote that uses that keyword all the way back on page 4 of Google. But when you connect Google Search Console to Google Analytics you can see people are finding that post on page 4, but they're just not clicking.
It's our job to then look for ways to:
- Increase its positioning in Google - ie we want to try and get it onto page 1 where all the impressions happen. In the example above, you'll see the first query's position is 4.5, which means page 4, position 5 on the page.
- Improve the meta title and description, so the result that shows up in Google looks "clickable". So we're looking for ways to increase the number in the "clicks" column.
If you're struggling to find WHERE your blog post is, even if Google Search Console says you're page 4, type in the "keyword/s" + yourwebsiteaddress.com. This will show you the result as it appears in Google.
Once you've found it, you may realise that the piece of content isn't really well optimised for that keyword, because maybe it's "social media post ideas", which has nothing to do with a social media template.
This is an opportunity for you to write another piece of content that is specifically using the keyword phrase "social media template", particularly if that keyword also happens to have:
- quite a lot of searches per month,
- you're getting good impressions for it
- you're not ranking too far down for the query
This process is how I find a lot of the content for this blog, what saves me a lot of research time and lets me rank for certain keywords more quickly. That's not to say I don't spend time looking for other secondary keywords to support that main keyword, but it means I'm starting from a higher base.
Write your content using keywords
Next, we need to write and upload the content. I have other blog posts focused on how to write content you can check out.
But as far as the SEO side of writing and uploading that blog post, we need to get the keyword phrase (which, in our example, was social media template) into the:
- headline of the blog post
- introduction of the post
- a couple of times throughout the content, depending on how long your blog post is
- optimise the image. That means that the image title that we use in the blog post is actually called "social-media-template.png (or JPEG, depending on what your file is). When you upload it, there'll be a section called alt text and we want to use the keyword in that alt text section as well.
- make the URL (or permalink) the keyword. In my case, it would be kellieobrien.com.au/social-media-template. You can edit the URL on any blog post that isn't live yet. Never ever edit the URL of a live page or post.
Check these steps each time you write a post.
Formatting your blog post
We've already talked a little about formatting your blog post as part of how to increase your blog traffic for free, but let's dive into formatting the content itself.
We touched on sprinkling your keyword throughout the blog post. But you shouldn't just rely on that one keyword or phrase. Look at secondary or semantic keywords - keywords that help further explain what the main keyword is. In our case, it might be "Facebook template".
When we have those keywords in there, look to:
- bold the main keyword at least once
- italisize the main keyword at least once
- use the keyword in a subheading
These simple formatting steps will provide signals to the search engines that this is the keyword we are optimising for.
Using an SEO plugin
If you don't already have an SEO plugin for your WordPress site, I'd encourage you to look at uploading one.
I use All In One SEO (as you see below), while many of my clients use Yoast SEO. Each has a section at the bottom of the backend of a blog post that asks for a title, meta description and keyword/s.
What you fill in here is what will show up in the results of Google. So it doesn't always have to be exactly what the title of the blog post is or follow exact sentences as they appear in the blog post for the meta description.
When we think about writing for this section of your site, we need to think in terms of "writing an ad". It appears like an ad in Google.
Just think about your own habits. You search for "social media template" in Google, a bunch of results show up on the first page and you tend to click either the first few results OR the ones that have a title and description that piques your interest. That title and description is the meta data.
As you write this section, note that your:
- title must be under 60 characters, otherwise it will be cut off, ad the keyword needs to be in the title
- your meta description is under 160 characters, includes your keyword and maybe one of your semantic keywords and is enticing enough people want to click to read more.
- your main keyword and, depending on the plugin and plan you're using, your secondary keywords separated by a comma.
Building links for your site
We've now arrived at link building.
There are two sorts of links:
- where we link to ourselves
- where others link to us
Internal Links
When we link to ourselves, we might have other blog posts we've written previously that can link to this new blog post. And vice versa, the post we're currently writing can link to older blog posts on our site. This is great for keeping your bounce rate low by getting people to look at more than one page before they leave. Just another of those 200 factors that help you rank higher in Google.
You don't necessarily have to send them to another blog post though. Other options include a sales page, an opt-in offer or whatever else your blog post's goal happens to be.
I've written previously about how to optimise your blog post based on its goal.
External Links
The other link type is external links, where other people link to your content. While it's great to have links back from social media - and it's good to share your content to social media - it doesn't hold the same weight as it once did.
So our goal is to have someone who has great "SEO juice" (technical term!) to link to our blog post.
These are called backlinks and the more backlinks a post - or website - has the higher it is likely to appear in Google search results. Yes, another one of those 200 factors. We're ticking off a few of them in this post, that's for sure!
When someone links to us, it tells Google that this content must be valuable and, therefore, shared with more people by bumping it up in the results.
Getting backlinks can take some work. Sometimes you can be lucky enough for someone to naturally link to your, but often you'll need to reach out to other blogs or business owners and ask them to link to you.
Another approach is to have a guest blogging plan, so you can blog for other people's sites and generate a natural links back to your site.
Using Google Search Console
When I write a new blog post, or if I update old blog posts, I resubmit it to Google for indexing via Google Search Console. This is a super simple process, but means I don't have to wait for Google to crawl my site again. Instead, I can give it a heads up that "hey, I've just made an update. Come take a look" and in many cases Google can rank that blog post faster.
As I mentioned, I often optimise old blog posts and resubmit them via Google Search Console.
You can do the same with this new post after a few months. Maybe a few months down the track you see you're getting impressions for a particular keyword, but you're not ranking very high for it. You can optimise that post and resubmit it in the hope to climb a little higher in the results.
These are just a few tips based on what I do when I write a new blog post and the way I'm able to rank some of my blog posts much faster.
Obviously, not every post is a winner. There are some that just don't pick up momentum. There are other ones that aren't really about keywords but rather relationship building or information I know my clients will find valuable.
For example, this blog post is mostly designed for two of my current clients who want to increase their traffic using search engine optimisation and were looking for some more detailed information they could actually understand.
And here it is!
When it comes to blogging, I do want to be smart about it. I don't want to be writing lots of content that has a shelf life of a couple of weeks and then dies out.
I want something that repays me for the rest of the time that my blog is around. So for me, it's about finding those opportunities via Google Search Console.
If you haven't set it up as yet or you don't know where to start to look for opportunities from your blog posts, reach out for my Blog Audit.
Many of my clients have had some amazing keyword and content opportunities come via the Blog Audit that has them now growing their traffic.
A growth in traffic means an increase in your email subscriber list and your sales by expanding the exposure to your products and services. And it's all designed so it happens, so you can either stop or cut back paid advertising.
I have 3 Blog Audit spots available for September 2019. Book your audit here.
Want to self audit?
It’s hard to come by free ways to do things anymore, and your introduction to this write up was pretty great. It’s an awesome article to, considering how many freelancers and small business owners actually do need it. Wonderful job!