I grew my blog to over 100,000 visits per month using just simple SEO strategies (no paid ads). Keep reading to learn how to increase blog traffic in 2024.
I’ll also explore whether traffic is really the main thing you should be focusing on. Clue: If you’re a coach, consultant or other service provider, then it might not be.
I’m a content strategist and SEO coach with over a decade of experience in content marketing. I’ve grown two profitable blogs on my own with just SEO (no paid ads and no team of writers).
I’ve also contributed expert opinion to industry giants such as Moz and HubSpot, and been featured in Business Insider and the Financial Times, talking about AI, SEO, and online disinformation.
How to Increase Blog Traffic (21 Tried and Tested Actionable Tactics)
#1. Get Your Basic On-Page SEO On Track
Getting your basic SEO tasks figured out should be your first step if you want to increase traffic to your blog. Here’s a simple outline to follow to get you started.
Make sure each blog post targets a main keyword, and that you’ve structured the post in the correct way to tell Google what it’s all about. At a minimum, I recommend using the target keyword in the following places:
- Title
- Meta description
- First 10% of body text
- URL slug
- A couple of times within the text
That’s all you really need. Don’t overdo it, and don’t force keywords into places where they don’t naturally fit. Google is smart and it will quickly identify if you’re ‘keyword stuffing’ – which could lead to a penalty and traffic loss.
#2. Target Feasible Keywords
If you’re chasing super competitive keywords with a relatively new website, then you’re highly unlikely to show up on the first page of Google.
Your site needs time to build authority through content, develop its knowledge graph, and attract social proof in the form of external links.
For example, if I had a website about yoga, I wouldn’t go after the head keyword “yoga”. As you can see below, the Keyword Difficulty score is extremely high, meaning this keyword is super competitive and hard to rank for.
Instead, I might choose to write a blog post about the benefits of hot yoga (if it was relevant to my business). This keyword has a healthy search volume and a medium level of keyword difficulty.
If choosing topics for a brand new website, then I would dial back the keyword difficulty even further. I would run a matching terms report on the seed term “yoga” in my keyword research tool (here: Ahrefs), and filter by a keyword difficulty score of maximum 10.
I would also include a filter for the words “how to”, to get a useful list of hyper-specific long tail keywords, which offer an excellent opportunity to educate readers about business-relevant topics (and potentially spark their interest in your paid services).
#2. Target Higher Volume Keywords
I talk a lot about the importance of targeting long tail keywords. These are easier to rank for, but tend to have lower search volume.
But that doesn’t mean you should stay away from higher volume keywords altogether. The main rule of thumb should be – is this keyword helpful for my target audience and my business goals?
If you find a relevant keyword with higher volume (assuming it’s relevant to your business), it’s worth writing an article targeting it. Even if you don’t have enough authority yet to rank, the post will grow over time and could reach the front page later down the line.
Don’t always focus on traffic growth as a metric for SEO success. Are your blogging efforts driving relevant new business? That’s the most important metric.
#3. Always Match Search Intent
Getting search intent right is another key factor in increasing traffic to your blog. This means understanding what a user wants to see when they type a certain keyword into the search bar.
For example, if they search for “how to clean a yoga mat” then you can be pretty sure they’re searching for information on how to accomplish the specific task.
On the other hand, if they search for “best yoga mats for knee pain”, then you can be reasonably sure they’re researching options to buy a new yoga mat for their specific use case (knee pain). Hence, they want to read comparison guides about the important features of various different yoga mats, ideally written by an expert.
The first example has informational intent, while the second has commercial intent. Correctly targeting this nuance with your blog post is an essential factor for successful ranking.
That’s why I always recommend Googling your target keyword before writing a blog post. Check what your competitors in the top 10 are doing, how they’re approaching the article, and use that as a starting point for your own blog post.
#4. Publish Long Form Posts
Another way to increase traffic to your blog is by publishing more long form blog posts (usually 1,500 words or longer).
Because long form content gives you more space to explore a topic in depth, they also tend to attract more keywords, which results in your content showing up more often across the Internet. This naturally leads to more traffic.
But my advice to publish more long form posts comes with a caveat. First off, make sure the keyword you’re targeting actually merits a piece of long form content.
Users searching for a quick answer to a simple question won’t appreciate having to read 2,000+ words before they find what they’re looking for.
For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “how far is Madeira from Lisbon”, then there’s absolutely no point in writing a long section about the history of Lisbon and/or Madeira. The user doesn’t care about that. They just want a quick answer (967km).
The best fit for long form content tends to be “ultimate guides” and in depth “how to guides” – i.e. expert content that educates the reader and showcases your knowledge of your topic.
#5. Aim For Content Velocity
Content velocity is key when it comes to ranking high in Google and increasing blog traffic.
The more high-quality, relevant content you can publish on your blog, the more opportunities you give Google to understand your site’s topical authority and content expertise.
This matters because Google wants to serve up websites that offer the most in-depth, up-to-date information on a given topic to best help its users.
Sites that publish content more rapidly on a certain topic area demonstrate greater commitment and authority (obviously this depends on content quality too).
Content velocity is especially important if your website is new. Building strong foundations will stand you in good stead to attract organic traffic in the future. Remember, SEO takes time to start working.
So even if you’re a solo coach or consultant, making time at least once a week to publish a new blog post will really pay big dividends in the long run. If you can publish even more often, then you’ll grow your blog traffic accordingly.
#6. Build Out Topical Clusters
Another way to get a major boost in traffic is to create topical clusters on your blog, instead of just publishing content targeting isolated keywords.
For example, let’s say you run a business advising people on relocating abroad. You could create a topical cluster for each different country that you work with, including articles covering all the different aspects of the relocation process.
Here’s what the Spain cluster could look like:
- moving to spain
- renting in spain
- opening a bank account in spain
- buying property in spain
- getting spanish citizenship
- spanish residency visa
Each one of these keywords has its own blog post. Organize these posts in a clear way under a category titled “Spain”, and you’ll be providing an excellent user experience for your visitors.
This approach is genuinely helpful to the reader. It also gives a major boost to your authority in the eyes of Google, while typically increasing your blog traffic as a result.
#7. Go After Trending or Cutting Edge Topics
You can get some great results by going after trending or emerging topics in your niche. Not only does this offer great value for your readers, it also gives you an important first mover advantage in the search results.
By going after an emerging topic in its early days, you benefit from low-competition keywords that not many other people will be writing about – yet.
For example, let’s say you’re an AI consultant and you publish ‘how-to’ content on the latest AI tools. One easy way to stay ahead of the curve would be by publishing articles about brand-new tools before they become common knowledge.
That way, once the search traffic for them started ticking up, your article would already have had time to mature in the search results.
#8. Publish ‘Link Bait’ Posts
You can also increase traffic to your blog by building more external links to it. One effective way to do that is by publishing what are known as ‘link bait’ posts.
These typically come in the form of roundups or expert guides, targeting keywords such as “[industry] + statistics” or “[industry] + benchmarks”.
Keywords like this are typically targeted by journalists or other bloggers who are writing an article and need specific numbers to give weight and authority to the piece.
If you can make it onto page 1 of Google for one of these keywords, you’ll likely to see an uptick in other sites linking to your article.
You can use AI tools to help you ideate these articles, plus gather and assemble relevant statistics (make sure you choose a tool that’s able to access the internet, such as ChatGPT 4 or Bing Chat).
Remember to double check the accuracy of AI-generated statistics and their sources before publishing them on your blog. Don’t contribute to putting even more misinformation on the Internet!
#9. Add More Internal Links
Internal links are one of my favorite secret weapons for growing traffic to a blog. And the best part is, they’re totally under your control (unlike external links).
For starters, every blog post you publish should contain 5-10 internal links to other relevant posts on your site. This not only helps the reader find more information on different aspects of the topic, but it also helps search engines gain a better understanding of your overall website.
Also, whenever you publish a new post, you should go back to existing posts (making sure they’re relevant) and add links to the newly published one. This will help the new addition get fast traction in Google.
For added boost, link to your new content from existing posts with large numbers of external links pointing to them. This passes extra ‘SEO juice’ which can help the new post gain traffic quickly.
#10. Track What’s Working (And Do More of That)
When growing organic traffic for your business, it’s important to track and monitor your progress month over month. That way, you soon get a sense for the type of content that does well (and the type that falls flat).
My favorite ways to track progress are the following:
- Google Search Console – for tracking search traffic volume, search queries, and any issues with your site that may affect search performance.
- Google Analytics – for tracking all sources of traffic to your website, including organic search but also direct, social, and referral traffic.
- Ahrefs and/or Semrush – both tools have handy rank tracking features where you can keep an eye on your top performing pages and growth in organic keywords (keep in mind: these tools aren’t super accurate, but they provide a useful benchmark).
Once you find a particular topic area or content format that performs really well, it’s worth exploring similar keywords so you can build out a cluster in that area.
#11. Build Your Presence on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is another of my favorite ‘secret weapons’ for growing organic traffic.
I’ve been actively posting on LinkedIn since around September 2022, via a feature called Creator Mode. Since then, I’ve grown my audience from around 2,000 old connections to a lively and engaged group of over 21,000 (see below).
LinkedIn’s Creator Mode contains features for promoting your posts to a wide audience, such as hashtags, custom buttons, and places to show off your lead magnets and promote your paid digital products.
You can also optimize your LinkedIn profile to enhance these efforts and drive visitors to your business assets. In short – LinkedIn is the perfect complement to your SEO efforts on your blog. Let me explain why.
Let’s say you’re an expert in your field, such as a coach or consultant. People already know you by name as an expert, and some of them will search for you that way. This is known as a ‘branded search’ (for example “Samantha North” in my case).
Branded searches play a key role in SEO because they tell search engines that you (or your business name) are already an authority beyond just keywords for organic traffic. If people type your name directly into search engines, it means they already know about you. You’re on your way to becoming a brand.
Posting regularly on LinkedIn and building your brand there is the perfect way to increase branded searches to your website – in turn boosting authority and visibility. With LinkedIn, a few weeks of daily posting can bring fast results in terms of reach.
You can even repurpose ideas from your existing blog posts and turn them into LinkedIn posts. This builds solid topical authority and boosts EEAT between your LinkedIn presence and your blog. Think of it as establishing your “online brand universe”.
#12. Build an Email List (And Share Your Blog Posts)
Every online business owner should build an email list. Having an email list is often likened to ‘building on owned land’ as opposed to building on ‘rented land’, such as a social media platform.
Even search engines can be notoriously unpredictable, with recent Google algorithm changes devastating organic traffic levels for many websites. To protect your business from all these risk factors, you should always be driving traffic back to your email list and building an audience there.
The most popular and effective method for getting people on your list involves creating a free lead magnet. This should help your ideal audience solve a small problem for free that’s relevant to your paid service. Think of it as giving them a taster of what you offer to warm them up for the real thing.
You can create all sorts of digital products as lead magnets: checklists, templates, ebooks, video guides, or email mini courses. Personally, I’ve had the best results with templates.People find a lot of value in having a clear starting point, which is exactly what a template offers.
You can also use your email list to increase blog traffic. Whenever you publish a new post, simply send it out to your list in a short and direct email. You can also create “roundup emails” with an assortment of blog posts.
#13. Consider Starting a Related YouTube Channel
YouTube is an extremely powerful way to augment your online brand universe. It can also help you increase traffic to your blog. Let me explain how it works.
For starters, the topic of your business YouTube channel should be relevant to your main business blog (assuming you want to grow an online presence in a particular niche).
You can easily repurpose your blog posts into YouTube video scripts with an AI tool such as Claude. I copy paste the entire blog post into a text file and upload the file to Claude.
Then I use a custom AI prompt to repurpose the text into a script according to a specific framework for high performing posts on YouTube (created by my friend Salma Jafri, a professional YouTube coach).
Here’s my three-week old baby YouTube channel (feel free to subscribe! 🫶)
As YouTube is also a search engine, just like Google, it has the added benefit of promoting your videos on an evergreen basis. If you do your YouTube keyword research properly, your videos can drive traffic for months (and even years) into the future.
And finally, showing your face on YouTube is excellent for boosting your EEAT and attracting new clients for your business. Nothing beats video for building trust and rapport.
#14. Use AI Tools to Repurpose One Idea For Multiple Platforms
Repurposing your best content ideas across powerful channels like YouTube, LinkedIn, and email newsletters protects your business by making it algorithm-proof.
But you’re probably thinking “this all sounds like a lot of work”, right? Well, I’ve got good news. I’ve created some processes to help you use AI tools (like Claude or ChatGPT) to repurpose a single idea onto multiple platforms.
And this isn’t just copying and pasting from one platform to another. I always make sure each piece of content is optimized to work effectively with the core algorithm for whichever platform I’m targeting.
The process starts by discovering your target audience’s key pain points. Next, you map those pain points onto relevant keywords so you can create a blog post around them. Don’t forget to Google the keywords and check what the top 10 competitors are doing in terms of content.
Pick one of the main keywords and create a blog post that’s going to be genuinely helpful for your audience. Once the blog post is published on your website, we can move on to the next steps for repurposing it.
If you have a YouTube channel, you could start by using the process outlined in the previous step (with your AI tool of choice). Make sure your script sounds conversational so you can deliver it easily using a teleprompter app with your smartphone (this is my method, yours may vary).
Or, if your primary social platform is LinkedIn, why not extract the key points of the blog post, add a compelling hook, and publish it to your LinkedIn audience? You could also use this method for Twitter, if you still use it.
Here’s my full guide to repurposing content with AI
#15. Guest on Relevant Podcasts
Podcast guesting is one of my favorite tactics to improve the SEO for my blog.
It may not seem obvious at first glance, but guesting on other people’s podcasts is an excellent way to build natural, relevant backlinks and boost your blog in Google – without doing any of the hard work.
In podcast guesting, all you have to do is get your talking points ready, then show up on a Zoom call and have an interesting discussion with the podcast host for 30 mins to an hour. For me, it’s one of the most enjoyable ways to promote my blog.
Depending on the size of the podcast audience, you could end up with a flurry of traffic to your blog. Typically, you’ll also get a relevant backlink, plenty of social media mentions, and a great authority boost for your personal or business brand.
#16. Get Featured in the Media
Being featured in the media is another great way to increase traffic to your blog. It plays a key role in a well balanced content strategy.
You can access opportunities like this by answering relevant queries on a platform like HARO, or by conducting your own digital PR campaign (these are expensive and time-consuming, but well worth the effort).
In terms of backlinks, you’ll mostly get mentions of your website homepage (e.g. in a bio featured next to your quote within the article). Traffic won’t always be directly relevant to your business, but being featured in the media is still a good way to boost your overall authority and drive more mentions online.
#17. Do More Guest Blogging (But For the Right Sites)
Guest blogging remains one of the best ways to earn high quality backlinks pointing back to your website. By writing content for an external blog in your niche, you can tap into an already built audience plus get a link back. This in turn helps increase rankings, traffic, and authority for your own site over time.
But be super selective about where you choose to guest post. With the rise of taboo link networks (‘link farms’) and low-value blogs, Google has recently been cracking down on guest posts. Make sure to only write for reputable, high traffic sites closely aligned to your niche.
Vet sites thoroughly before reaching out with an offer to contribute. Start by making a list of target websites, ideally with domain authority scores over 30 (and a healthy amount of traffic). Scope out their content, gauging its uniqueness and relevance to your business. Ensure that any guest post you write would match or exceed the quality of existing articles.
When done correctly for the right sites, guest blogging is an excellent method of blogger outreach. It’s a proven way to expand your reach, boost credibility through backlinks, and ultimately drive more interested visitors back to your own corner of the web.
#18. Boost Your Site Speed
Site speed has become an important factor that can make or break your traffic. With robust analytics and a culture of impatience, Google still prioritizes faster loading sites in rankings. Likewise, visitors will abandon slow sites before fully exploring your content.
So it’s essential to make technical optimizations that reduce load times. I recommend using a tool like Pingdom or Google PageSpeed Insights to diagnose current speed. Identify the biggest drains, whether that’s image size, server response time, bulky code, or external tools.
Quick wins might include compressing images, implementing browser caching, minimizing redirects, and removing unnecessary plugins. Switch site hosts if needed (I currently use WPX and am happy with its speed and customer service). Longer term, explore a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute resources globally.
Test different solutions and measure impact before and after changes go live. Every improvement to site speed compounds over time as visitors enjoy a smoother experience. Faster sites equal more page views, lower bounce rates, better rankings, and ultimately more qualified traffic.
#19. Improve User Experience
With a faster, streamlined site as the foundation, take your optimization efforts even further by enhancing your site’s overall user experience (UX). Small friction points that may hamper engagement add up over time, so aim to smooth them out through testing and empathy.
Start by walking in the shoes of your visitors. Observe where they navigate quickly or stall out. Use heat mapping to identify points of friction literally making them stop and think. Then notice when they exit before reaching your calls-to-action.
Now build hypotheses around obstacles, be they hard to find pages, confusing menus, or clunky checkouts. Create specific UX solutions and test them with real users. Iteratively roll out what wins.
Keep exploring subtle site enhancements even after launch. Updates might include simplifying text, adding progressive disclosure, introducing microcopy, or making better use of white space. Re-order page elements if people aren’t following the intended flow.
Think holistically across site sections, not just the home page. Every step should move visitors forward on their journey, not cause confusion. By continually improving UX, you condition your readers to fully engage, lowering bounce rates which lifts traffic as high quality site visitors leads to more of the same. The cumulative gains can be immense over time.
#20. Make Sure Your Blog is Mobile Friendly
With increasing numbers of searches and site visits coming from mobile, having a responsive, mobile-friendly blog is super important to drive more qualified traffic. If your blog isn’t optimized for smartphones and tablets, you likely have a huge blindspot hampering your growth.
Start with the basics by making sure your site adopts responsive design, where elements scale and rearrange based on screen size. If you’re using WordPress with a quality theme like Kadence, GeneratePress or Astra, then theme will already be set up for responsive design.
Next, make sure that areas of text aren’t cut off awkwardly on phones or require the reader to zoom in. Check that CTAs and menus work on touch screens. Verify load speeds are fast even on 3G/4G connections..
Test your mobile UX thoroughly on both iOS and Android devices of varying sizes. Fix anything subpar. You want visitors effortlessly arriving at information via smooth scrolling and tapping, never pinching or swiping awkwardly. Mobile readiness leads directly to more engaged visitors = traffic boost!
#21. Consider Running Paid Ads
Once you’ve tapped into organic reach across channels, paid advertising can accelerate results even further. Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn make it easy to promote specific posts. For boosting your blog traffic, I’d start by running ads on Facebook.
If budget allows, start by test promoting your best performing pieces of content. For example, promote that comprehensive guide or viral case study to laser targeted demographics on Facebook. Send traffic to relevant lead magnets tied to your email list, for instant list growth.
Analyze results adjusting bids and budgets until you dial in a set of cost per lead metrics that make the best sense for your business. Let Facebook’s advanced algorithms do the hard work for you, matching your ad content with those most likely to convert.
Smart paid promotion works hand in hand with organic to expand reach for your best posts when it makes sense. Just keep close tabs on performance, honing in on qualified visitors that ultimately drive ROI for your business through conversions. This extra exposure can significantly boost your blog traffic and email subscribers.
Should You Always Aim For High Traffic?
Finally, I want to discuss the pros and cons of aiming for high traffic to your blog. It’s important to keep a realistic view of the different success metrics, especially when we’re focusing on growing an actual business.
The most important thing to remember is that high traffic doesn’t always equal high conversions. For example, it might be relatively easy to rank your blog post for a high traffic informational keyword. I did this myself in the summer of 2022 when I published a blog post about the safest countries in the world.
That blog post shot on to the front page of Google within a couple of weeks, bringing a huge traffic boost to my site. But upon studying the analytics it became clear: that traffic had a really low conversion rate.
People searching for that term weren’t relevant to the website’s core revenue driver (helping people relocate and get residency in Europe). The article topic was loosely relevant to the core topic of the site (people relocating want to know which countries are safest), but it wasn’t enough to drive them to convert.
The one benefit of all that traffic? It brought in a healthy amount of revenue from display ads. The lesson here is, don’t just focus on traffic. In some ways it can be a vanity metric. Unless your main revenue driver is display ads, it’s best to focus on keywords that indicate a natural interest in your business services.
Actionable Next Steps
Growing an audience for your blog takes time and testing different strategies. Start by ensuring your content quality is high and your site speed is optimized. Build authority through guest posts on reputable sites. Leverage social channels and email lists to repurpose evergreen content.
Keep exploring techniques covered here – from scoring media placements to tapping into AI tools – that align with your goals. Not everything works for every niche. But used collectively over time, these proven organic traffic growth tactics will compound to drive more qualified visitors to your business.
For tailored guidance on avoiding common SEO pitfalls, download my free guide “18 Costly SEO Mistakes that Coaches and Consultants Make (And How to Avoid Them)” below.
