Jerry Low’s Secrets To Improve Blog Traffic

Jerry Low and I discussed in this Episode

1. Can you give an Introduction on What basis does one need to the Audience? Suggest any Survey tools?
2. What kind of Data do you suggest to use? How does Google Analytics help in selecting the kind of data you choose for your blog?
3. How do you plan on implementing Data-Driven Improvements for your blog post? (Suggestions from real-time works).
4. Can you suggest any instant solutions to improve your blog rather than long term results?
5. How important it is to collect emails from your blog?
6. What kind of content should be there on one’s “ABOUT” page of the blog?
7. Good content is one of the major aspects for writing a blog, Is it enough?
8. How do you increase traffic to your page? Any real-time examples?
9. One final statement to summarize the topic?

 

Jerry Low on Today's Podcast

 

Practical Blog Improvement Tips

If you are not already blogging, today was the day to start. Blogging often means improved visibility, more site traffic, and better presence on social media. Based on HubSpot’s survey: 1 in 10 blog posts are compounding - meaning organing search increase their site traffic over time. 60% of marketers say blogging is their #1 inbound marketing tactic. And, businesses that blog actively (16+ posts per month) get 4.5x more leads than businesses that don’t (0-4 posts per month). In short, blogging is vital to your online business success. At Web Hosting Secret Revealed (WHSR), we study online business trends and publish in-depth case studies and blogging/marketing tips every week. The one most crucial lesson I learned from this is that the blogging world is ever-changing.  

Creating a blog is just step #1.

To stay ahead of your competition in any niche, you need to actively grow and improve your blog. Utilizing site analytics, utilizing the best tools, and applying the right strategy all make an impact on how successful your blog will be. To help you with this, here are a few things you can do to improve your blog instantly.  

Picking up the right data

Data is important to drive blog improvement. But which data should you look at? My opinion: Go simple. Here are the four vital stats that every blogger should understand and keep an eye on:

1. Unique visits (UV) - The simplest way to measure growth. The more UV you get, the better.
2. Referrals - Referrals show where your traffic comes from. Who is sending the most traffic to your blog? Are you spending your marketing budget on the right thing to expand your reach?
3. Bounce rates - A visitor ‘bounces’ when they land on your blog and click the back or close window button. Bounce rate measures the quality of your traffic source and your blog content. If you are serving the right content to the right audience, your bounce rate should be low.
4. Average time on site - How sticky is your site? Are visitors spending less time on a particular blog post? Can you beef up the post?

  The easy (and free) way to gather these data is Google Analytics (GA). Once you have a grasp of the data available for your site, there are five practical things you can do to improve your blog.  

1- Pour oil onto the fire (improve current blog traffic)

First - determine your top 10 traffic sources; log in to your Google Analytics account,

Dashboard > Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals.

Who are your main traffic sources? Can you identify traffic opportunities with these sites? Can you advertise on the sites that send you the most traffic? If Facebook is sending you the most traffic - then it’s time to ramp up your Facebook fan page and spend some money on post boost. Is there a blog that sends you lots of visitors? Can you write a guest post for that particular blog? Or run a sitewide banner advertisement on that blog? The idea, as you can see, is to invest more resources into your current top traffic sources.  

2- Expand your winning blog posts

Discover which blog posts your visitors love. Login to your Google Analytics account,

Dashboard > Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Content > All Pages.

Look at the top 20 - 30 blog posts, compare the average time spent on these blog posts - if you notice that some pages hold your audience longer than others, this is what your audience is most interested in. For example, we had a blog post about Facebook plugin where our visitors are spending 2x of our average time on site in 2016. Apparently - we did something right with this post. So we dug into this post, found out what our audience likes, and published a few more posts on the relevant topic.  

3- Fine-tune your losing blog posts

Similarly, you can find out the 20 blog posts with the worst performance in terms of average time on site. Determine why your visitors are spending less time on those posts. Is your blog design working properly - any misaligned paragraphs or missing images? Can you add value to your blog post using an infographic, more relevant stats, charts, survey results, etc.? Can you tell a better story and deliver your message in a more attractive way?  

4- Grow blog traffic with guest posting

There is no doubt about it: Guest-posting works. It worked in 2010, it works in 2017, and it will work in 2018. An effective, well-thought-out guest posting strategy helped me drive thousands of new users to my site WHSR, and I saw a substantial increase in traffic thanks to this strategy. However, the key to a successful guest posting strategy is to make your guest posts as helpful as possible if you want to lure in readers and entice them to click on the link in your author bio. Leverage the power of the curiosity gap - make it clear that you have something of value to offer, and make your reader curious enough to click on your link and find out more about your work. When I am guest posting on a blog, I always like to use my own personal experience as an example for this very reason. Once people are familiar with the personal experience of mine, they are more likely to be curious about what other strategies and tips I can offer them, and therefore much more likely to investigate my website.  

5- Collect your visitors’ emails

It’s extremely important to build an email list with your blog. I did a survey in 2015 and asked more than 30 pro bloggers about their biggest mistake in blogging. More than half of the interviewees replied “Not collecting emails from day one” is their dumbest mistake. The Truth is - social media is overcrowded. But with emails, you are sharing your content to a very specific audience who has already decided they are interested in what you have to say. 91% of people check their email inboxes every single day. Compare that to social networks like Facebook, where your post may get pushed down the newsfeed by all the noise. At WHSR, we use MailChimp to build and manage our email list. There are quite a number of other email tools on the market - i.e. GetResponse, Aweber, Constant Contact, etc. - you should pick one that’s right for your business and start collecting visitors’ emails.  

Wrapping Up

So here you go - you have my five do-it-now tips on how to improve your blog. I hope my interview and writing will motivate you to build a better blog. If you are keen to learn more – my team discusses and publishes fresh articles on WHSR blog on a weekly basis. Do check us out. To View Further Topics, Click on the link below http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/  

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