5 tipps to get more traffic to your Blog

Ah, I usually shy away from blog posts like these…There is no step to step thingy on how to get more followers. I mean, what do you want with all them? 😉

A huge follower base is awesome but as much everyone is focussed on quantity, I personally aiming for more quality followers. Yesterday, I’ve built up the Facebook Community Group: BLOGGER COMMUNITY 2016. This is an open community where everyone is invited to join and share. Just after one day I figured that there are many Newby Bloggers, all with the same question on how to get more traffic.

Relevant Context

Ok, I know this seems obvious or at least it should. But still I think it is the most crucial part of blogging. What I often do is brainstorming on Post-It’s where I ask myself what I would love to read. Of course, you will never satisfy everyone but this again should never be your goal.  Once I have a topic that I am interested in a try to come up with a catchy title. A catchy title is important because it is the first things a reader sees and it mostly decided whether he or she continues reading or closes your page. See here is an example from the food section:

                                        Great Chocolate Cake I made last week

                                                                  vs.

    The best, vegan Chocolate Cake I had – made with just 5 ingredients

Both titles contain the same content in the end but the second definitely makes me want to see the recipe. What do you think?

Join Group Boards on Pinterest

When it comes to traffic, Pinterest still is my number one source. I join a lot of group boards where I can post inspiring pictures/recipes. There is an awesome page called PinGroupie that shows you group boards from your niche and you see the statistics of the respective boards means how many repins, likes they have on average. If you want to join these boards you usually need to ask the admin of the boards for permission. Once you are accepted make sure you don’t always just post pins from your Blog but also from other blogs you like. It’s about sharing cool stuff and not self-promotion.

Work and collaborate with brands/outstanding companies and fellow bloggers

Sharing is caring, right?! In order to spread your message over the internet, you need to connect. Not only will you learn a lot from the work with other but you also get more traffic to your own blog. Guest posts are a great way of interaction. Pimping your own blog and contribute to another is an amazing way to get great content. Don’t be shy! Just ask other bloggers if they like to do guest posts. Sometimes it’s even refreshing to have a non-food related blog post on a food blog or visa verse.

In order to work with companies, it gets a little bit more tricky. From this point, this is my personal opinion and I know everyone thinks different about it, which is legit and good. Most of the offers I get from companies, I reject. Why? I like to have freedom when it comes to posting content. When I get an email, saying: Hello Blogger, we love your blog. We are an awesome pillow company*, and we love to send you 4 pillows. Write a blog post about and share it on your Twitter and Instagram tagging @awesomepillowcompany and #awesomepillowcompany. You should do 4 Instagram posts within the next week. You will get a lot of Followers and Attention when we share your post on our account with 372 Followers. Thanks, Molly

HAHA. Thanks but no thanks. Here is what I do. I created a media kit that looks professional, where I state my conditions. I am happy to talk about prices and requirements and a good company should be open doing this too. I love when I am not forced at all and when it comes to finally choosing whether to accept the offer or not, I always go with the credo: Would I buy the product anyway and is it somehow beneficial for my followers. (as a side note: I have a lot of collaborations with start-ups, where I post all the stuff for free, because they don’t have any budget and I believe in the potential of the respective start-up. So make yourself a good media kit and always follow your instinct!

This is a page where you can see some Media Kit Inspiration and there are also lots of pages where you can download templates. If you are familiar with Photoshop, I suggest you are doing your own version, otherwise, you can find easy Word templates such as this one for free.I totally made that up but you get the point.

SEO

Here is a little bit more of a technical aspect to this topic. SEO might sound scary but it basically says how well people are finding you on the internet. To me, it is still a big black whole how these search engines work. There are a lot of tips and tricks out there on how to be ranked higher. I tried so many but still no clue if they really worked. One thing, I am cheering for is the SEO YOAST Plugin. This Plugin is for all non-techy people like me. Very easy! You just need to insert text and it’s pretty much self-explaining and the most practical thing I have on my WordPress plugin list.

As my blog grew and I wanted to be correctly indexed on Google and have a clean SEO and look of my page, I asked a digital designer to pimp my blog. Nicole from enolic.ch definitely helped my blog to look sexy and I am happy to further work with her in the future.

It all comes down to…

A blog is not just about posting something and then it’s done. Posting something and seeing the numbers of people who have watched the post means nothing to me. I’d rather like to see the impact. I think a blog will grow, when you people can relate to you. This might be an awesome make-up tutorial, a great Christmas recipe, or a very personal post about sickness or a disorder. What I really like the most is when I get comments from people reading my posts and telling me that they have been moved, thrilled, shocked, interested, calmed down or whatever by my blog post. This gives me the power and motivation to continue. I know it is a good feeling to know that people are actually reading what you are putting up. Give it all a little time and find your way in the blogging jungle

*I totally made that up but you get the point.