blogging

How I Grew My Traffic From Organic Search By 1,465% In 12 Months

By |February 12th, 2016|

Today you’ll learn how I grew the amount of traffic I attract from organic search from just 52 visitors 12 months ago, to 814 visitors clicking through from the SERPs last month. That’s an increase of 1,465% within the space of a year – or nearly 16 times the amount of traffic.

I didn’t do anything particularly spectacular or out of the ordinary. I just created content on a regular basis, and the results are exactly what should happen. As I’ll show you, this growth was based on publishing a new blog post just once a week. (Mostly, anyway!)

If anything, the traffic growth could have been a lot more. As I’ll show you, for the first three months my publishing schedule was in fact just one post a month!

And even once I moved to once a week, the odd week was missed here and there. In the end, we’re actually talking just 35 new posts over the 12 month period. But the result is that the blog now attracts hundreds of new visitors every month through the search engines, and that will only continue to climb.

Had I published the full 52 posts for a year’s worth of weekly publishing – a full third more posts – my traffic may have been a third higher too, nearly 1,100 a month from search.

So in this post I’ll show you:

  • The exact stats, how they’ve grown over the course of the past 12 months, and how that relates to the growing number of posts I’ve published. I also show you what they looked like for around a year and a half before that, along with some analysis of each stage, so you get the full picture.
  • How to harness that traffic, as it grows, for business purposes. There’s little point attracting traffic for traffic’s sake.
  • How the content created for your blog isn’t just for your blog. Find out how you can leverage it for a wide range of marketing activities.

And I wrap up up with five key takeaways you can apply to your own business.

Don’t Want To Read? View As A SlideShare Or Video

But first, a quick proviso…

[…]

Read More
 6

How To Blog When You’re Not A Blogger (And Bring Big Benefits For Your Business)

By |December 18th, 2015|

A lot of small business owners shy away from blogging, despite all the benefits it brings.

Here are just some of the reasons – or excuses – provided:

  • “I don’t know what to create content about”
  • “I can’t write”
  • “It’s just not something I want to do”
  • “I don’t have time”
  • “My type of business is different”

Perhaps you can relate to one or more of those? Or maybe you have a different reason (let me know!)?

Either way, I wanted to show you how you can still blog as a business, and enjoy all the benefits of blogging and content creation in general, without needing to consider yourself as a blogger. In fact, you don’t even have to create any content yourself if you don’t want to.

[…]

Read More
Comments Off on How To Blog When You’re Not A Blogger (And Bring Big Benefits For Your Business)

Top Content Marketing Predictions For 2016

By |December 4th, 2015|

As one year draws to a close, it’s normal practice for business owners to start reflecting on the year past, and consider what they want to achieve for the coming year and how those goals will be achieved.

Marketing is of course central to business growth and success, and it’s a fast-changing scene. One of the most important changes over the past 12 months is that there is far less distinction between online, digital marketing and more traditional, offline marketing.

As online access and smart phone usage has become ubiquitous and central to most people’s lives across the world, it’s now all just marketing.

Regardless of your type of business, if you want to reach prospects and customers, you have to be where they are. And they are everywhere, and across multiple devices.

The only way to reach them effectively is through content. Content allows you to be where they are, to attract them through ‘pull’, inbound marketing, to build up trust and relationships.

This is of course content marketing – using content for marketing purposes. According to Seth Godin, content marketing is the only marketing that’s left. Those businesses still ignoring it are ignoring marketing and will struggle.

So with content marketing central, how’s it shaping up for the next 12 months?

Here are my key content marketing predictions for 2016…

[…]

Read More
Comments Off on Top Content Marketing Predictions For 2016

How To Promote My Blog (10 Must-Do Steps For Every Post You Publish)

By |November 13th, 2015|

I’m on a journey of expanding the reach of my blog, and shared previously how organic traffic to the blog has increased not far off 6x over the course of 6 months. It continues to rise, with organic traffic for this month already 50% up on the same period last month.

I’m now aiming to ramp things up a gear – not just for organic traffic, but for traffic in general. Continuing to learn and explore how to promote my blog effectively is an exciting challenge!

Of course, I already have in place some of the required steps in place – or it’s likely you wouldn’t be here reading this! So far, so good…

But to further increase my traffic, more steps are needed…

[…]

Read More
 3

Should You Be Blogging As A Business? (6 Big Benefits)

By |November 6th, 2015|

If you had any doubts whether you should be blogging as a business, this post should clear it up once and for all.

Some businesses of course are a blog. Or they start life as a blog. Over time, they figure out how to start earning revenue. The numbers start to build, the revenue climbs with it, it becomes a business in and of itself.

But that’s not what I’m referring to here.

I’m talking about taking an existing business, and adding blogging to it as a new and lucrative marketing channel. Of course, you may already have a blog for your business. Perhaps you add the odd post occasionally.

But are you actually blogging as a business, with regular content and a proper strategy designed to attract your marketplace, build your traffic, generate new and highly targeted leads for your business, and feed into multiple other marketing activities that can explode your online presence?

If you’re not yet, here are 6 big benefits that may just persuade you otherwise.

[…]

Read More
 7

Blog Content Ideas: 57 Ways to Effortlessly Generate Engaging Ideas For New Content

By |October 30th, 2015|

While a regularly updated blog is a key part of an effective online marketing strategy, a lot of businesses fall at the first hurdle. They struggle to come up with new ideas for blog content, and because of that never really get going and consequently miss out on all that blogging has to offer for their business.

Why should you blog?

In terms of measurable results from blogging, three of the main benefits are:

  • Enhanced search engine visibility – in other words, increasing levels of traffic from organic search
  • Support for social media activities and other forms of content distribution – you have regular content to share or repurpose into other forms and distribute elsewhere. You build links and traffic, as well as build visibility, authority and credibility.
  • Improved sales and lead generation – your blog content attracts your market to you through different channels, which you can convert into leads for your business and monetize. Did you know content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as other types of marketing, while costing 62% less (DemandMetric)?

(Want three more? Here are 6 big benefits you get from blogging as a business).

However, without the regular supply of blog content ideas, none of the above is achievable. The good news is that generating new ideas for your blog is a skill like any other, and is easy when you know how.

So here are 57 different ways to generate engaging ideas for new content for your blog — or indeed any other type of content to attract your marketplace to your business.

[…]

Read More
 2

How To Get More Blog Traffic: 101 Essential Tips

By |June 25th, 2015|

Maybe you’ve just started blogging and you’re wondering about the traffic part. Or perhaps you’ve been blogging for a while, and it’s all feeling a bit, well, empty.

You check your traffic stats – again – and feel a bit disheartened. Again. Should you continue? Or is this ‘blogging for traffic’ thing a bit mythical?

It’s easy to lose heart and become demotivated. Far too many give up way, way too soon.

It takes time. The most important tip of all is to hang on in there and keep blogging. For traffic, it’s the best investment you can make.

It also takes certain key tactics that can make all the difference, and accelerate your traffic attraction. This list of 101 essential tips for getting more blog traffic gives you most of them.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say, and you won’t get all of this built and in place at once either. But implement a new tactic every few days or so and you’re one step closer each time.

You’ll start to see your traffic build and your blog transform. You, the influencer. You, the authority. Yes, you. It’s all within reach.

[…]

Read More
 7