Blogging 101 Series: Getting Traffic at Your Website/Blog

Hi Guys,

Welcome back to the Glistening Lane ✨

Out of sheer digression and a lot of inspiration, I decided to do a completely different sort of blog post. We’ve been doing beauty and lifestyle since long. But then, being a blogger isn’t restricted to that. For those of you who believe blogging is merely getting dressed up or slathering a full face of makeup and posting useless content – “Oh boy, there’s a difference in using nuts to build something innovative and being a nut”! Blogging takes a hell lot of hard work, more than what a proper 9 to 5 job requires. Herein, the improvising horizon is as vast as an ocean for a little fish. And the work of a blogger just doesn’t end with posting content but also letting it reach the right type of audience because of course, there’s much more need of a listener than giving an elaborate speech. Hope my analogies aren’t hard to understand.

Within my blogging journey, I had literally no person to whom I can go and ask for any help/ suggestion for sufficing my dilemmas. For instance, after one complete year of Think It Over's journey (that's what The Glistening Lane was called until we got our own domain), I was still questioning myself as to where would this end up in. But thankfully, one mail worked like a bomb of inspiration for me at that uncertain phase. That mail happened to be from Swati Bhat who also happens to have her amazing blog – Curious and Confused Me. Make sure to head over to her blog for immensely amazing content! Probably that was the time frame wherein I wanted some feedback, little guidance and it’s a myth that you can find everything over Internet. 

Now, you might be curating wonderful content over your webpage but the chances are that there are not a lot of people who are actually landing up onto your posts. To make it clear in advance, initially you are merely building yourself an audience/readers and it will definitely take time as no struggler can become a superstar overnight! And even if such things happen, it’s too fragile to stand the waves of time in the longer run. So, it’s okay if the traffic is less sometime (for an year or two). But there are ways which are actually helpful for people who has their own URL(Domain) as one cannot always do self promotion i.e. telling your friends to read your blog because chances are that not a lot of them would not appreciate your efforts that consistently. Or let’s just say they might not have that much time or fascination for the genre about which your write.

Ways to Get Traffic on Your Blog/Website:

Post consistently without expectations:

When you initially start writing content, you may not get a lot of traffic. But this shouldn’t be the reason for you being disheartened and not writing content as frequently as you’ve been doing. When you upload consistently, readers who are already landing up on your page would gradually turn into returning visitors on your website and not mere new visitors. Even though a new visitor sounds good but you do wanna sustain permanent readers of your website. Writing here would act as a source of communication because no one is willing to form a lifetime or long term relation with you if there’s no form of communication amidst two parties. Also, posting consistently shows that you take your blogging/writing work seriously and it’s not mere a phase after which the website would rust later.

Create Unique Content & Incorporate Your Awesome Style of Writing:

You might be wondering why I say “unique content”. Well, yes you should be seeking topics that are searched a lot over the internet and chances are that people have already loved a YouTube video on the same topic by some super-blogger. And you’d think, why not follow the already tried and tested path? The answer is – If they have already written much hyped content on that topic, why would people want to read your views on the same because of course that established and much known blogger has his credibility built long ago. Unique content gives you less competition for the initial stage and thus if you write on a topic that has not been covered by people before than whenever someone would hunt for it, you’d have your blog post/website over the top of Google search. Now this way, you acquire a good ranking on Google and that’s your key to gather exposure to your web page. Also, no one wants a mechanical rant here. Thus, it’s much better if you sustain your style of writing and probably include little fun; in my case I employ my weird sense of humour! 😂

Speed up Your Website:

We all love fancy looking website/blog with an elaborate theme and it does glam up your page making it look a lot more professional but there’s a flaw within it. Now good things come with little sacrifice. If you’ve been reading my blog since two months or before, you’d know I had a different look or theme of my blog. But when I tested the loading speed of my web page, the results were kind of bad. And when your website opens up slow, chances are a lot of the readers evade the page and look for some other web page with much responsive rate of loading. For rescue, either look for themes that are simple or you can customize a little with Blogger or Wordpress provided themes. This also enhances you SEO score and you would not lose your potential audience just because of slow loading web page. I am sure you wouldn't want that. So, in case you wanna test out your website’s loading speed, click here. 

Using Social Media as Your Weapon:

Now I’m guilty of writing in isolation within my first year of blogging. In that phase, I employed not any social media applications for letting my work get recognized or earn page views. Hence, I still have not reached a level over social media as other acquainted bloggers have acquired as with social media I started quite late. I joined Instagram last year and Facebook was made few months back only. Although majority of my traffic is organically generated but I’ve seen some traffic thanks to FB and comparatively it’s doing much better than Instagram. Also, it works as a platform for you wherein you can mingle with people from the Bloggers Community. Now-a-days, every brand is present on social media and they do keep a track of your work so as to see which blogger would be their ideal pick for collaborations. Make sure to use Google Plus, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram & Twitter for driving traffic. There is this conventional means of sharing website URL with potential readers via the age old email method as well. 

Comment on Co-Blogger’s Website:
Just as social media is a platform for you to socialize with real people, bloggers and brands; similarly a website with its comment section is your opportunity to grab your share of audience which might be interested in reading your content. After a lot of experience I’ve developed an understanding that commenting on other’s blog posts is not mere a courtesy to appreciate a blogger’s work but it also lets you build upon your back-links. Now all I need to do is seek blogs of the same genre as mine and not only it can satiate your genuine queries, you can also create bonds with other people from the same field and probably give their audience an exposure to go ahead and click onto your article if it seems favourable to their taste. Also, back-links help you in building a good SEO score of your website. So in case you are a beginner, the easiest manner of getting yourself some good back-links is just in your own hands. All you got to do is comment on other people's website. 

Do Guest Posts:
Doing guest posts on a website which already has carved its recognition within that community, would help you in getting readers. If someone happens to come across that guest post of yours and they liked your article, they’d definitely make sure to land up on your website too for reading more such content. Also, on the website you’d be writing a post, they’d definitely give a link back and an introduction to you and your blog. 

Incorporate a Comment Box:

Earlier I told you how you can employ comments box of other websites to build back-links for yourself. When you incorporate a comments box within your own website, it helps you in creating bond with your real time audience and co-bloggers. You easily get honest feedback and it would attract people who are also seeking to get some back-links and helping each other to get internet presence. Until there’s a comment box, it will merely be a one way communication wherein you are writing what you like but you hardly can get suggestions or feedback regarding it.  Comment box helps in increasing both returning visitors as well as new visitors to your web page. 

Join Bloggers’ Community Platform:
Now there are definitely some pros and cons which you got to weigh and take your move. Bloggers’ Community Platforms helps in providing you back-links and co-bloggers' daily basis interaction which can be put to use for resolving a lot of questions that might be clouding your mind. As a beginner, it is definitely a great means to know people from the same community and sometimes you also get collaborations via them. Some of these Indian websites are IndiBlogger, Skill Infinity, etc. IndiBlogger is definitely regarded as the oldest and largest network of Bloggers all over India. But it’s just my belief that when you’ve been established a little, chances are these websites might actually use your work for competing against your own website. I’ve seen one such blogger with an amazing Google Search Ranking and it does get annoying when you search for a product that you’ve reviewed on such websites and these websites turns out to be on top and your website’s post shows at the second number. And the most disheartening part, that article on link one was posted by you! So if you want to keep your work exclusive such that it shall only be feasible to go through it on your own website, then ditch these websites and move ahead to the next point.

Attend Social Gatherings like Blogger Events:

Blogger Events are usually conducted by brands which are seeking some kind of promotion for their upcoming launch within the market. Calling bloggers kill two birds with one stone for the brands; they get people to spread a word about their launches and it also creates hype around that brand/products. Over such events, chances are that you’d encounter a lot of bloggers and brand people and it would give you an opportunity to have fun and mingle with co-bloggers. In case, there happens some sort of an interaction round, then a lot of them would get to know of your work/website and that’s another means to pull some crowd to your website.

Include Attractive Pictures in Your Post:

You might feel this has zero relation with getting traffic but I’ve always come across articles wherein people have emphasized upon the need to have good pictures within your posts. For good pictures you don’t have to go get a profession camera in the beginning itself. Any camera or mobile camera would do as long as you make sure to click them under appropriate lighting. The best lighting resource is sun and dawn time is considered the best for photography session. This is because the sunlight within dawn time wouldn’t give you an over exposed picture plus the white balance remains maintained at this hour. If this isn’t possible then find that one editing application which you feel does your job amazingly. We’ve all been surrounded with those books wherein there are no pictures or if there are some, they aren’t that much cool to read, therefore having intriguing pics has importance of its own. So I hope that works as an example for explaining my point. Also, a creative image might tempt people to head over to your blog when you’d post it over your social media accounts. 

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