The Three Things That Significantly Increased My Blog’s Traffic

The Freelance Writing Jobs blogs have always enjoy a slow steady rise in traffic. However, in the past year we’ve shown a significant increase. The rise in traffic came as no surprise because I implemented a few recommended strategies that worked.  One of the strategies became a big commitment and the other two took no special effort on my part. However, there are noticeable results and it’s clear the efforts paid off.

None of these strategies are any great secret. They’ve been recommended by top bloggers and social media strategists for years. In fact, the last strategy is something I used to do on a regular basis but stopped for a while. Once I began implementing it again, the effort paid off.

Here’s what I did:

Started a Newsletter

I was most reluctant to start a newsletter simply because I didn’t want any more work to do. Plus, I wanted to offer a newsletter that featured some original content, not just the same stuff from the blog. I read articles and blog posts discussing the benefits of a newsletter. For me, the most important point was that the people who didn’t want to commit to reading this blog each day or add another feed to their RSS readers, could receive a regular update featuring new content, job leads and links to old content. The time and monetary investment paid off.

Each day yields new subscribers and has helped to increase the traffic to FWJ. Because the newsletter program allows me to track which links the newsletter readers react to the most, I can gauge their interests. At last year’s BlogWorld, I talked to both Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett about newsletter programs and they both recommended AWeber. Though I have to pay to play, I find the service well worth it.

Started a Facebook Group

My Facebook account is made up of mostly personal friends and family with only a few professional contacts that I consider friends as well.  I don’t want to spam these people with links to my stuff every time I post. Also,many members of the FWJ community would like to friend me on Facebook, but unlike Twitter, I wish to keep it more private as there are access to pictures of my family, and other personal information. So I started a Facebook group for FWJ. At first, I didn’t do much more than attach the RSS feed and membership grew, but not by much. Then, I began engaging the members. I threw out questions of the day and fun exercises such as completing sentences and captioning images. I also started sharing relevant blog posts and articles (from other blogs) for discussion. I have often argued that the various social networking groups drive traffic away from blogs and build cliques. However, since so many members of the FWJ community are on Facebook, they enjoy having updates in their timeline. Facebook has sent thousands of visitors our way since the beginning of the year and we’re about to hit 3,000 members!

Showed Regular Link Love

I used to do a regular link love post every weekend. As I got busier it didn’t happen as often. Then I realized people forget about me when I forget about them. Also, as many bloggers know about FWJ, there are thousands of more that don’t know about us. Finally, the FWJ community enjoys receiving recommended reading. So I began showing regular link love in our daily freelance writing jobs posts and it helped to increase traffic. Other bloggers appreciate the karma and offer good juju back in return. No one loses in a link love situation.

What strategies have helped to improved your blog’s traffic?

Please follow and like us:
Facebook0
Facebook
X (Twitter)65k
Visit Us
Follow Me
Instagram6k

Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

7 responses
  1. Elle Avatar

    This is great advice–thank you very much! I’m going to look into the newsletter thing immediately. Also, thanks for the ideas for making my FB page more engaging. Right now, it just kind of sits there.
    .-= Elle´s last blog ..Blueberry Crisp Ice Cream =-.

  2. Rachael Avatar
    Rachael

    Thanks for the ideas. I’m glad I found this website–so much useful information and advice!

  3. Sheila Scarborough Avatar

    Thanks for these tips, Deb. Though there’s no way I have time to deal with a newsletter right now for my two travel blogs, I do have Facebook pages that I could do more with than I am now.

    I also used to do a linkpost for each but stopped that when I ran out of time to pay attention to my RSS feeds. I do see good links on Twitter, though, and should go back to tossing those into linkposts, albeit much shorter ones.
    .-= Sheila Scarborough´s last blog ..Top 10 Ways for Families to Save on Travel in Europe =-.

  4. Murlu Avatar

    Facebook is increasingly becoming one of the best ways to build a blog because the one click ‘like’ makes it so easy for people to follow. Since (almost) everyone already have a Facebook account, you don’t have to send people through the loop by making them learn RSS and set up a reader.

    Great to hear these tips 🙂
    .-= Murlu´s last blog ..How To Make An Extra $20 Online Today =-.

  5. Monica Ross-Williams Avatar

    I am following this strategy also as a new writer. Thanks for the advice and I joined your Facebook page. Great column and information for the new freelancer, by the way! Also, I have added this page to my bookmarks.

  6. Valerie Avatar

    Facebook is increasingly becoming one of the best ways to build a blog because the one click ‘like’ makes it so easy for people to follow. Since (almost) everyone already have a Facebook account, you don’t have to send people through the loop by making them learn RSS and set up a reader.

    Great to hear these tips 🙂
    .-= Murlu´s last blog ..How To Make An Extra $20 Online Today =-.

  7. Kristy Avatar

    I have resisted making a FB page for some reason. I have my own personal FB page, but I am thinking maybe I should do one for my blog too. The other method I use that seems to be helpful is blog communities like blog frog.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search

Subscribe