Everyone dreams of getting up one morning and seeing the start of traffic on their website. Today, competition on the web is fierce. The rules for positioning yourself in the first pages of Google evolve in line with updates to its algorithms. However, by respecting three pillars, the beginner web entrepreneur ends up understanding how to attract readers to his blog. Here are the three basic rules, detailed point by point, to generate visits to your blog.
1. Make yourself known on the web to attract readers to your blog
It is essential to position yourself on a theme when you start your activity on the Web. Once his target (or persona) is well defined, the entrepreneur just has to make himself visible to her by developing a traffic acquisition strategy. Let’s see together the different techniques to gain visibility.
The strength of SEO to get traffic
SEO = natural referencing
To appear in the first results of a search engine such as Google, the natural referencing technique is the most common. This, called SEO (Search Engine Optimization), consists in optimizing the editorial content of a blog or a site in such a way as to seduce the algorithms. Thus, they will make it more visible to Internet users. When his page appears in the first proposals of a key query, the author gains more visitors thanks to organic traffic. It is therefore essential to take care of your SEO. It is also necessary to develop the semantic field of these words and to structure the article with the right HTML tags. Published images must also be optimized.
SEA = paid advertising
A quick way to make yourself known and get your first readers is to use paid advertising or SEA (Search Engine Advertising). This method allows you to position yourself on certain keywords typed by Internet users in the first search results. Its advantage is that it quickly generates paid traffic on the blog by making it appear in front of its competitors. Its disadvantage is a variable cost depending on the choice of keyword.
Local SEO
We have seen the importance of SEO to get noticed in search results. Local referencing is intended to be more specific, since it is a question of attracting Internet users from a geographical area. For this, the lexical field and the keywords of the area in question must be worked on and optimized in the editorial content. For example, an Internet user who is looking for a hairdresser in Brandon will have an easier time finding him if the latter’s blog articles contain words referring to the city and its region. It is also in the merchant’s interest to take care of the local referencing of his Google My Business account if he wants to boost the traffic of his activity.
The importance of Net linking to get noticed by readers
Guest article
When a professional starts on the Web, it can take months before the first Internet users notice his presence. This may be your case if you don’t use advertising or your SEO doesn’t pick up. In this case, taking the time to prospect websites with the same persona and benefiting from very good traffic can pay off. By writing a guest post for them for free – with an external link to their blog – the author gets some of their traffic back. This guest blogging technique is a win-win for both parties, but requires writing interesting content that will bring the reader home.
Referral traffic
Obtaining backlinks (or inbound links) from relevant sites with high traffic pointing to your online business is difficult when you start. However, it is not impossible by relying on the referral traffic technique. This way of attracting visitors to you is also interesting at the SEO level since it allows you to harvest the “juice” of these sites. Indeed, if a popular blog points to a less performing blog thanks to a do follow link, it gives it some of its SEO power. Thus, the pointed blog gains more quickly place in the search engines and in visibility with the Net surfers.
Social networks and the newsletter: an interesting source of traffic
Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or LinkedIn are very effective in getting noticed. The goal is to use them to bring social traffic to his blog. The web entrepreneur publishes part of his editorial content on these networks so that it is known and shared. An article can even go viral and spread quickly through facebook blue tick service. The number of visitors to the blog then explodes in a very short time. Finally, to create an ecosystem, displaying the links of social networks on the pages of your blog is useful strategically speaking.
Emailing is also a significant source of traffic. If the editor already has an audience interested in his newsletters, he can add a link to his blog. If his newsletter is popular, his readers are likely to be interested in his online activity.
2. Attract attention to generate visits to your blog
The Internet user does not have much time. We must therefore capture his attention quickly if we want to bring him to his content.
How to capture the attention of the Internet user on his blog?
To challenge the reader, you have to address his emotional brain. Through the use of powerful words, the copywriter can grab their attention and get them to click on their page. For this, some recommendations are necessary:
- Use the strength of copywriting in the title of articles. Headlines should make you want to know more and read the entire content. Titles with numbers or that begin with “how” or “why”, which offer tips and advice, are the most consulted.
- Pay attention to the meta description. These are those few lines that are under the title of the article in the SERP. To make a good synthesis of its content with the keywords typed by the Internet user is a task that should not be rushed. This increases the chances of captivating and attracting the reader.
Give the user what he is looking for
It is necessary to answer simply and in a relevant way to the request typed by the Net surfer. Some of what he is looking for may already be in the title of the article and its meta description. The reader quickly identifies the results that are not useful to him. If this one type “How to make pancakes?” and Google offers him “The origins of pancake batter”, he probably won’t click on the page.
3. Improve technical performance and attract readers to your blog by meeting Google’s requirements
Even if its content and its SEO are excellent, the infopreneur will not attract the reader in a hurry if his blog has technical weaknesses.
Have a responsive blog
The majority of Internet users are mobile users. If the blog is not adapted to the screen formats of mobile phones or tablets, readers will end up with smaller pages that they will have to constantly zoom in and out. Reading will be less fluid and more tiring. It is very likely that they quickly leave the page in question.
Check the loading speed of your blog
Internet users have become demanding with regard to the choice offered to them. If the blog struggles to load its content, the reader will not wait and will close the page after a few seconds to go to a competing site.
Analyze blog pages
Having a blog is constant work. You have to be careful about deleted pages that still exist for Google. The user may encounter a 404 error.
Once the entrepreneur understands the importance of these 3 steps, he knows how to attract readers to his blog. It only remains for him to retain them by regularly publishing good quality content and developing his style. To do this, he can start by establishing an editorial calendar. Finally, that he does not forget that his reader remains a human! Prioritizing the user experience (UX) by putting yourself in their shoes is the best advice. This is the guarantee of creating content that is always relevant.
