There’s no quick fix that I’ve found to create fast traction for a blog site.
Most of the successful bloggers I know have been consistently blogging and promoting their blogs for years; we’ve never seen anyone achieve overnight success in blogging.
Take this list curated recently by Charles Specht. Though I cannot say without question that all of the bloggers have been blogging for years, I am fairly certain most of them have been.
This is bad news for anyone starting fresh with a new blog site. We support several dynamite leadership thought leaders who regularly share powerful content and resources. Despite consistent promotion, growth is slow.
My own new blog site is an example of the difficulty in getting traction. Despite the fact that I’ve been blogging for 6 years on various domains, and despite the fact that I have a robust social following, I’m not seeing regular visitors to my domain.
If you want to create regular, steady traffic to a new blog, the best advice I have is to settle in for the long haul. Longevity in blogging creates traction with repeat readers, who find value in what you’re writing — and in organic search traffic because the more content your site contains, the more likely people are to find you when they search for terms relevant to your site.
Here are a few other ideas:
Spend as much time promoting your content as you spent writing it. If this seems crazy, consider the alternative. You may invest a lot of time writing something that few people will read. If you want people to read what you’re writing, you will need to strategically publicize the content in ways that are more about the value the reader can receive than about you as the writer. In the event that you don’t have time to publicize your content, consider partnering with a company or assistant who can help you.
Pay attention to keywords and metadata. If you want to generate relevant traffic, you need to consider what words are relevant to the work you most want to do in the world. Think about what words people might use to search for the resources you’re providing and incorporate them in your writing (and in the meta data you craft for each post).
Write consistently, at least once per week. Once per week is a minimum if you want to gain traction for your blog. If you blog less frequently, you may lose readers’ interest.
Partner with other, more established bloggers or blog sites. Veteran bloggers, who likely have established traffic and networks, can be of great help to newer bloggers by including links or introducing new voices. Dan McCarthy and others helped me when I started. As more established bloggers mention you, you will reach more potential readers. Contributing content to a multi-author site, like Lead Change Group, can also be helpful, as you will reach more people and your bio will point people back to your individual site.
Tell me something! What other ideas do you have for gaining traction for a new blog site?
I am the founder/CEO of the Weaving Influence team, the author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, and the host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast. I’m a wife and mom of three kids, and I enjoy running, reading, writing, coffee, and dark chocolate.
These are excellent suggestions, Becky. I think part of the equation is knowing what you want to get out of blogging. For me, it started because I wanted to “flex my writing muscle” but honestly I love comments!! Also, since I regularly seek sponsored post opportunities, I have to find ways to increase my blog views (and other social media metrics). I don’t want to do that at the expense of a quality blog, though. A couple of things I would add to your comments: 1) Find other communities where bloggers support each other. I add my personal blog to the SITS Girls blog share every Saturday — we are supposed to comment on three other blogs — so in a perfect world we would all end up with three comments just from that (and hopefully the inspiration to keep following the good ones. 2) Don’t always take take take — be a blogger who comments on, shares, and supports other bloggers. They don’t always reciprocate but you’re sharing good social karma. 3) As you pointed out, learn the “behind the page” types of things which will help position your blog where it can be found. There are several good plug in options which can help you maximize the SEO impact of your blog (I use Yoast).
Becky:)
Maybe this is why they call it “Blogging”, which is real close to “Slogging”.
Your observations and Paula’s comments cover this issue quite nicely. I would just stress the “giving” part of this equation. As in many things, if we concentrate more on helping others, good things follow.
Not overnight, but sometime:) …
John
John,
I agree! I never regret anything I give.
Thanks for your generosity!
Becky
Becky, I’ve been blogging for over 4 years now and I can relate to your post on so many terms. Only in the last year have I seen exponential growth. Last year’s growth alone surpassed the three years of “slogging” as John mentioned in the comments below. Your first point is spot on. Spending time writing a quality post is as pre-requisite. Promotion is where it really gets important and tricky. Once I have built a platform, it becomes a lot easier to do “less” promoting since my followers are doing it for me. All in all, insightful post. It’ll be cool if we can “dream” together and see how we can partner together for a win-win situation. You up for that?
Paul, thanks so much for your comment and question.
I would love to dream together about how we might collaborate.
I’ll reach out to you by email to get the conversation started.
Warmly,
Becky