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By Khalid Saleh
More than 3 million blogs posts have already been written today.
Standing out in this sea of content and getting blog traffic isn’t easy. If you run a blog, you already know by now how hard it can be to get traffic.
At the same time, blogging has now become crucial for attracting traffic and customers.
- 45% of marketers say it’s the most important part of their content strategy.
- 82% of marketers who blog daily acquired a customer using their blog, as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog monthly.
- 61% of US online consumers have purchased something based on a recommendation from a blog.
Instead of grinding away publishing post after post, there are a few growth hacking tactics you can use to radically increase your blog traffic.
In this post, I’ll show you 4 such growth hacking tactics you can use to 2x your blog traffic.
How to Double Your Blog Traffic
1. Publish only “remarkable” content
This advice might sound a little vague. After all, every blogger thinks that he/she is creating “remarkable” content.
From a marketing perspective, however, “remarkable” content is essentially content that is 10x better than the competition.
This might be apparent in its length, presentation, depth, or persuasiveness.
This 15,000-word article on AI from WaitButWhy, for instance, is an example of “remarkable” content:
This post from Nikko Lenda on pricing psychology is another example of “remarkable” content:
Think of this as not just a one shot growth hack but a long-term strategy to stand out in a crowded field.
Objectively, defining remarkable content can be hard; it’s just something you know when you see it.
[Read:Â This Is How to Drive Blog Traffic for Free, 10 Proven Ways]
However, there are certain components that go into creating content that is remarkable:
Compelling headline
On an average, only 2 out of 10 visitors read the whole blog post. The majority of the readers will just read your headline and move on.
No matter how amazing your content might be, if you aren’t writing powerful headlines, you won’t get near your traffic goals.
Upworthy, for instance, famously makes their writers write 25 different headlines for every article before choosing the best one.
Ideally, your headline should include some form of numbers (such as a listicle). Research by Conductor shows that headlines with numbers get the highest shares:
Your headline should also pack an emotional punch. CoSchedule’s research shows that headlines that evoke emotions get far more shares than bland headlines.
You can do this by using emotion-rich words in your headline, such as “amazing”, “powerful”, etc.
Take a look at this headline from SmartBlogger as an example:
Take a look at this headline from SmartBlogger as an example:
You wouldn’t want your writing to be “flabby” or “rob” it of its “power”, right?
[Read: 13 Foolproof Ways You Can Stop Writing Ineffective Blog Headlines]
Long-form content
Long-form content includes articles exceeding 2000 words.
Longer content has a positive impact on a page’s rank in the SERPs. According to Capsicum Mediaworks, the top-ranked content is around 2,450 words.
Longer content also gets more shares, according to an analysis of 100M articles by Buzzsumo:
[Read: 9 Tips for Writing Long-Form Content That Will Make You a Better Blogger]
Visual content
Images, gifs, infographics, videos, memes: use them as often as you can in your content.
Several studies have shown we humans process visual data better. Even though we have five senses; sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, 90% of the transmitted information in the human brain is visual.
Oatmeal’s comic on words you need to stop misspelling is a great example of visual content. As an article, the topic wouldn’t have been nearly as compelling as a funny, visually rich comic.
[Read: How to Use Visuals to Boost Engagement, 4 Ways]
2. Capture more leads with post-specific content upgrades
A content upgrade is an extra bonus for your readers that is extremely relevant to your post.
This is what a content upgrade looks like:
Content upgrades are usually given away to users for free in exchange for their email address. This helps you boost your email list.
Unlike conventional lead magnets, content upgrades work within the contextual flow of a blog post. That is, if a reader is reading a post about social media marketing, and you have a lead magnet about SEO, the reader is less likely to be interested in the offer.
However, if you have a highly specific offer such as a checklist on social media marketing, your offer is more contextually relevant to what the reader is already reading, and hence, you get higher conversions.
[Read: 7 Ways to Take Charge of Your Readership Problem [Incentives]]
You might feel that it’s “spamming”, but if you want more traffic, you really should be sharing your content on social media multiple times.
To understand this, you have to first understand the concept of “social content half-life”.
Essentially, this concept describes the time it takes for a post to reach only half its original audience.
Back in 2013, the half-life for Twitter was calculated to be as low as 18 minutes.
This means that if you tweet originally had an audience of 100 users, it would be seen by just 50 users in 18 minutes, 25 users in 36 minutes, and just 6 users in 72 minutes.
According to Garrett Moon, re-posting on social media is the best way to hack your content and double the traffic.
The best way to go about this is to develop a social sharing schedule using tools like Buffer or PostPlanner.
Of course, how many times you share the same update will depend on the network itself. Sharing the same update multiple times on Twitter is fine, but if you do it on Google+, you’ll just be spamming.
Base your posting schedule on the half-life seen above. This means resharing your Twitter posts at least every week, your Facebook posts every 4-6 weeks, and Instagram posts every 8-12 weeks.
[Read: 17 Reasons Buffer Will Blow Your Mind]
4. Reach out to influencers before and after publishing
This tactic requires time and effort, but when done right, it can give you a massive boost in traffic and shares.
Essentially, you can break this down into two steps:
- Reach out to influencers before publishing to get feedback, comments, or quotes.
- Reach out to the same influencers after publishing to get them to share your content.
For example, Alex Turnbull of GrooveHQ reached out to influencers to ask for their opinion on a new blog post with this email:
And here’s the email he sent after they showed interest:
Notice that he included a pre-populated tweet within the email for easy sharing.
Doing this alone helped Alex get 1,000+ subscribers from a single post.
It’s also a good idea to email brands, bloggers, and influencers you’ve mentioned in your post and alert them about your content.
[Read: How to Quickly and Easily Write a Viral Blog Post, 12 Ways]
Conclusion
Khalid Saleh is the co-founder and CEO of Invesp, a leading provider of conversion rate and landing page optimization solution and Figpii, one of the most comprehensive tool that offers everything you need to increase the conversion rate of your website.
