#004: 10 Simple Blogging Tweaks To Help You Generate More Traffic To Your Website

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Are you writing amazing content on your blog and then wondering if anyone other than your mother is actually reading it?

It doesn’t really matter how great your site looks and how valuable your content is, if you aren’t generating traffic to your blog you will not get the results you are hoping for with your blogging efforts.

In today’s episode, I will give you 10 simple tweaks you can make to your blog and your content to help you generate more traffic and more engagement, which will ultimately lead to better results.

1) Create a Powerful Headline

Your headline is the most important part of your post.

Statistics show that 8 out of 10 people who show up on your blog will read the headline of a given post, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest of the post.
Therefore, it’s really important to make sure you write compelling headlines for your blog posts.

2) Add Floating Share Buttons to Your Site

Getting your content shared on social media is one of the best ways to generate more traffic to your blog.

Often times, bloggers make the mistake of only adding sharing buttons at the top or the bottom of the post. While this will generate a certain number of shares, having a floating social media sharing bar on the side of your blog post that follows the reader as they read the post, will make it much easier for them to share in the moment when they are inspired without having to go searching for a share button.

If you look to the left side of this page, you can see my floating share buttons there, and notice that they follow along with you as you read the post.

And here are a few other examples of sites with floating share buttons:

 

 

Here are some free plugins you can check out to find different floating share buttons:

Custom Share Buttons With Floating Sidebar

Sumo Me

Shareaholic

And there are plenty of others as well… so you can shop around. 🙂

3) Get Rid of Unnecessary High Definition Images

One of the things that will hinder your website traffic the most is if it takes more than a few seconds for your site to load.

In today’s noisy internet world, people generally will not wait for a slow loading site. If your site loading is delayed, you will lose visitors quickly, and you will discourage them from ever wanting to return to your slow site.

One thing that significantly slows down the loading time of your site is high definition images. Make sure any images you are using on your site have been optimized, and do away with unnecessary image sliders containing large high definition images for faster loading times.

4) Do Away with Unnecessary Plugins and Widgets

For the same reasons we mentioned above, plugins and widgets can hinder the loading time of your site.

Although many plugins and widgets enhance the functionality you can provide on your site, many of them will also slow things down.

It’s best to limit the number of plugins to between 10-15, and be extremely selective about which ones you use.

Keep in mind that some plugins create conflicts with other plugins when they are installed on the same site, so if your site is slow it may just be a certain plugin that needs to be removed.

5) Create Content Worth Sharing

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to get traffic to your content.

People are much more likely to read one of your posts if it comes recommended by someone they already know, like, and trust.

Creating content that your readers are likely to share will attract new readers to your site who may not have heard of you previously.

6) Touch on the Pain Points

This goes hand in hand with what we just talked about above.

When we touch on the pain points we know our audience is struggling with and solve a problem for them, they are much more likely to share your content, because it gives them the opportunity to solve a problem for someone else.

So make sure you’re thinking about the pain that your target audience faces when you write your content, and you will experience more traffic as your content gets shared.

7) Add a Call To Action

Make sure you are asking your readers to take an action at the end of your post.

This could be asking them to share your content with someone they know that would benefit from it, or asking them to subscribe to your email list to be notified about future content.

8) Use Sub Headlines

If you write a great piece of content but it’s all smashed together into one gigantic paragraph, the likelihood of anyone actually reading it is much lower than if it is formatted in an easy-to-digest manner.

The best way to make your posts look nice while making them easy to read for your audience, is to use short paragraphs (1-2 sentences) and use sub headlines to help break up your content even more.

9) Ask a Question

An easy way to encourage engagement on your post is to ask a question at the end and encourage your readers to leave their answers in the comments below.

The more comments you have on any given piece of content, the better. It assures people that you are providing value for lots of other people, helps with your search engine rankings, and encourages people to come back in the future.

10) Mention Relevant Content

Often times, bloggers will publish a series of posts on a given topic.

When you do this, be sure to mention what your next post will be about to encourage your readers to stop back by or to to subscribe for updates so that they don’t miss out.

It’s also effective to link to existing content that you’ve already written on your blog. This type of in-site linking keeps people on your site longer, positions you as even more of an authority on your topic, and also helps with your search engine rankings.

 

I hope you enjoyed these 10 simple blogging tweaks to help you generate more traffic to your site.