17 blogging tips to increase traffic and engagement

Blogging has been growing steadily since its inception. Everyone and their mother can write a blog. And there are blogs on just about any topic that you can think of. The truth is that blogging is easier than one would think. With a few tips, you can write an effective blog that successfully drives traffic and increases engagement among your audience.

Successful blogging tips

By following the below blogging tips for writers and businesses, your blog will stand out from the competition, and your audience will grow.

1. Publish more

The more blog posts you publish, the easier it is to grow your audience. Once someone comes to your blog, you want them to have the option to jump off to other articles and continue to engage with your blog. The more articles you publish, the greater your chances of increasing engagement are.

Pro tip: It’s important to consider the pros and cons of quality vs. quantity. Generally, high-quality content is way more valuable than low-quality, high-volume content. But the truth is, if you can find a balance between the two, you’ll land in the blogosphere’s sweet spot. Learn more about quality vs. quantity.

2. Solve your readers’ problems

A world-class blog doesn’t just publish opinions. It publishes articles that solve common problems for its readers and educates them on emerging trends in their particular market.

Once you gain a brand reputation for providing helpful information without asking for anything in return, consumers will start to take notice. This builds trust and awareness. People will likely share your blog content on social media, and some could even become brand advocates.

3. Draft more engaging headlines

You can write a killer blog article that presents ground-breaking information and could change the entire face of your industry. But if your blog headline (or title) is boring and confusing, people will never click on it in the first place.

Ask questions in your headline. Write it in a way that potential readers can imagine themselves in the situation you are writing about. Pull at people’s emotional strings. Make them question their own processes and intrigue them by telling them you can help them improve those processes. Doing so is a great tactic for blogging beginners.

4. Use SEO tactics

Search engine optimization (SEO) tactics can make or break the success of your blog. Leveraging the right SEO tactics is challenging because Google’s algorithm is constantly shifting. However, here are a few beginner tips:

• Select the longtail keyword you want to optimize for
• Include that longtail keyword in your blog title and meta title
• Include it in at least one section header
• Use at least one photo and include your longtail keyword in the image’s meta description
• Include your keyword in the first paragraph of your article

That is just a brief list to get you started. SEO is such a vast topic that to fully explain it would require a separate article devoted to just that topic. If you really want to dig in and learn how to master SEO, check out this helpful guide.

5. Engage influencers to expand your reach

Industry influencers are those in your industry that others see as experts in your space. People look to them for advice and direction. They typically have very large social media followings, which means that large numbers of potential customers, which you haven’t yet connected with, can potentially see your posts.

Identify the right influencers in your market. Engage them on social media. Re-post their posts and praise them for sharing helpful information. Once you’ve engaged them enough, reach out and propose collaborating on a blog article.

If an influencer guest authors a post on your blog, they will share that blog with their networks, putting your content in front of thousands of new eyes. Read our article to learn tips for engaging influencers.

6. Guest post for backlinks

A guest post is a blog article you write, which then gets published on another company’s blog. The advantages of this are manifold, but a key benefit is that you can include backlinks in your guest post that lead readers back to your blog. This generates new readers and new potential customers.

You also benefit from guest posting because the other company will share the article with their social networks. And similar to influencers sharing your articles, when the publishing blog shares your article with their networks, you greatly expand the reach of your content.

7. Include a subscribe button

When someone comes to your blog and enjoys what they find there, make it easy for them to come back for more. The easiest way to do this is to include a subscribe or sign-up box on your blog. Place it above the fold, so it’s easy to find.

You can also offer a sign-up box for people to subscribe to your email list. Any new person who subscribes to your blog or mailing list is a new lead who has identified themselves, and you can now market to them.

8. Share on social media

Always share your blog content on social media. If you use various social channels, be sure to write an original post for each one, rather than pasting the same post across all channels. If the content is great, your followers will share it, and you’ll have the attention of new readers. All of this is easy if you use social CRM tools.

Pro tip: If you cite sources in your article to support statistics or other information you present therein, tag those entities in your social posts. This will ensure the post shows up on their social feeds, again putting your content in front of new eyes.

9. Boost highly engaging posts to grow your readership

When you post an article on social media, monitor the engagement it produces. If a particular post generates way more engagement than your normal posts, give it a boost. By that I mean pay a little to the social channel in question to increase the number of people who see your post.

It’s a question of identifying positive momentum and giving it an extra push to really squeeze the maximum value out of the article. And it’s one of many great blogging tips.

10. Leverage social media groups

Social media groups can be a boon for the success of your blog. Find the groups that are most relevant to your market. Join them. Observe the action taking place there. Ease your way in. Comment on posts. Thank posters for sharing. Ask questions that you feel will engage members.

Once you’ve established yourself as a helpful member of that group, you can start to slowly share your blog articles with the group. If your articles are top-quality, group members will share them with their networks.

LinkedIn is arguably the best platform for engaging social media groups. Read our article on how to effectively leverage LinkedIn groups.

Pro tip: Do not inundate your social media groups with obvious product or company promotions. Rather, limit your participation to sharing information that is helpful, not salesy. Otherwise, members will catch on, and you might get kicked out of the group for spamming.

11. Encourage readers to share your posts

When someone reads your blog article, and they enjoy it enough to want to share it with friends and colleagues, it’s critically important that they can do so easily.

Include social share buttons front and center so people can easily see how to share your content.

Another of our blogging tips is to ask probing questions at the end of your article. For example: “How are you managing X, Y, or Z? Share your thoughts and insights with us in the comments section below. And encourage your contacts to read and comment as well so we can start a mutually-beneficial dialogue.” They very well might share your article so their contacts can comment as well.

12. Optimize for mobile responsiveness

The vast majority of consumers use mobile devices daily. They read the morning news on their smartphone. They use it to order a taxi to work. They check their social accounts while on the move. And, they read blogs on those devices as well.

If someone clicks to read your blog post and must engage in excessive zooming and panning, they will likely close your blog and not return. It’s imperative that you optimize your blog so that it renders correctly on mobile devices. This will continue to become more important as the use of mobile devices increases.

13. Crosslink to your other articles

When writing your blog, always be thinking of how you can link back to other articles you wrote in the past. For example, if you mention the customer experience, include a link to a past article you wrote on the importance of the customer experience.

Crosslinking will keep readers engaged on your site, reducing the possibility that they will read one article and leave. The longer they stay, navigating around for new information, the closer they come to being a good fit for your product or service.

14. Use photos or videos

Visual imagery is simply more engaging than the written word to many people. This is especially true with younger generations.

Videos and images produce more click-throughs than plain text and convert more leads to customers. This will continue to be the case moving forward. So be sure to include videos and images in your blogs for increased engagement.

15. Refresh and update old articles

Just because you wrote an article about X topic three years ago doesn’t mean you can’t publish another article on the same topic. But rather than writing a new one, take the old one and refresh it. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel, after all.

Update any statistics, so they are new and fresh. Change any info about trends that are no longer relevant. And generally give it a facelift then publish it anew.

16. Don’t bash the competition

This is one of the most important blogging tips to embrace. Always avoid bad-mouthing your competition in your blog articles. Doing so won’t win you any points with your audience. Rather, it will make you come across as petty. So, take the high road and keep competitors’ names out of your blog content.

17. Measure, measure, measure

Did I mention that you should measure? Always measure the results of your published blog articles. It’s perhaps the most important of our blogging tips.

You can measure various metrics to maintain insight into which topics are engaging and which are not, as well as how your blog efforts are performing in general.

Here are a few things you can measure to keep your finger on how you’re moving the needle:

• Number of views per month
• Number of unique visitors per month
• Highest performing blog posts to identify which topics are the most engaging
• Traffic source (where are your visitors coming from?)
• Average time spent on your site
• Average number of actions (clicks) each visitor takes per visit
• Number of comments your articles receive
• Social shares per article
• Customer conversions attributed to the blog as the first touch point

There are many additional metrics you can measure regularly to gauge how effective your blog is at engaging readers and converting them to customers. As you begin to measure, you’ll quickly see which metrics are the most important to you and your business.

Conclusion

Blogging can position your business as a thought leader in your space. But is can also cost you significant resources and produce little value if it’s not done correctly.

Use the blogging tips above to form your blog strategy. Incorporate SEO tactics, so your blog can be found in search engine results. Engage influencers, other blogs with whom you can collaborate, and anyone who comments on your blog—either on social media or on the blog itself.

And never forget the golden rule of blogging: Create unique content that solves real problems and delivers value that your competitors’ blogs do not. Do everything you can to expand the reach of your content.

Follow these blogging tips, and you’ll be far more likely to produce a killer, award-winning blog.

Do you have any tips that you’d like to add to the list above? Are there any tactics that have worked particularly well for you? Please share them with us and our readers in the comments section below!