Blog Traffic Tips

Subscribe to Comments: Download Plugin

The subscribe to comments plugin allows your blog readers to subscribe via email to comments made to your blog posts. The plugin is very versatile and requires some technical skills to install and customize but as long as you are used to playing with your WordPress themes you should be fine.

I usually install this plugin to produce a tickbox in the comments entry area in each blog post, which if ticked will email the comment maker each time a new comment is added to the topic. Some people have it automatically set to “on” if a person makes a comment but I prefer to leave the choice up to my readers. The plugin also includes a subscriptions manager area so your readers can change their settings without contacting you.

While WordPress comes with a default RSS feed for comments it’s smart to have an email option available. I personally prefer to subscribe to things like comments via email however I will use RSS for the main topics of a blog. As per usual the more options you give to your readers the better.

Subscribe to comments is a fantastic tool for keeping the conversations active at your blog. It makes your blog “stickier” bringing users back to provide more commentary as the conversation continues. If you actively encourage comment conversations at your blog - a smart traffic strategy - then this plugin is a must.

This is not a tip that I can explain the ins and outs of from a technical point of view. Story telling is a more creative activity, one which, when it comes to blogging I really love (I’m not so good around the camp fire story telling though!).

A fantastic traffic tip is to sit down and recount a story about something that just happened to you or one that you remember from your past that had strong impact on you. It’s best if you can tie it into the theme of your blog somehow and since most people blog about something relating to their lives it should not be too hard.

Don’t worry if you are not that great a writer, just think about how you would verbally tell the story and type it out. Keep it simple, you don’t have to impress people with your fantastic vocabulary, just let it flow naturally. The spellcheck will fix the most obvious errors and a good once over should bring it up to publishable standards (except for you perfectionists out there of course).

Stories are fantastic human attention grabbers. They invoke emotion and create that magic ingredient called empathy, which is one of THE best traffic building tools available to you. The more your audience can empathise with you and your stories the more rapport you will establish. Your loyal audience will grow as they come back each day to learn more about your life and how it reflects on their life.

We all know the best blogs are the best because of good content. Whenever you ask an expert for their one major tip on how to get more blog traffic they will tell you to write good content. Okay, so we know this, but let’s look a little deeper.

What Is A Pillar?

A pillar is the foundation for a structure that carries weight and provides the main support. Without pillars the foundation collapses. The same holds true for blog traffic if you are aiming for long term stability and growth. You need pillars, but in this case you need “content pillars” since blogging is all about content.

There is a style of blogging that is very much based on news. Whatever is happening in the moment is written about by the blogger. Sometimes a blogger can bring together views and news from many sources, often gleamed from tracking RSS feeds from various news sources online, adding a touch of personal opinion and presented in easy to digest summary posts.

This is a fine strategy if you don’t care too much about long term growth. If you can commit yourself to maintaining news posts and keep your knowledge and your blog up to date you can build quite a good following of readers. The problem is that when you stop posting often or your motivation moves elsewhere you largely have a blog full of old news and your traffic will start to dwindle as a result.

Content Pillars

This is where content pillars come in. A content pillar is a major article or feature that has long term value, which is not time or event dependent. The most common form of content pillar on a blog is a how-to article written in a tutorial style. Often the more practical the better.

Good examples include “how to choose the best domain name” or “how to repair a leaky tap”. These topics are going to remain interesting and valuable to people long after they are posted. Even if you stop blogging altogether chances are your traffic to these posts will remain relatively stable. In this sense your blog becomes a resource, not just a news distribution point.

To apply this principle to your blog all you need to do is sit down and churn out some quality articles specifically teaching your audience something relevant to the topic you blog about. Don’t just rehash what other bloggers are doing or give your opinion of current events, create something of “pillar” quality and your traffic will increase as will the long term value of your blog.

Of course that’s not to say you can’t write a blog purely for news, just be clear on your purpose for blogging and be especially careful if your goals are long term and your motivation is short term.

The best blogs usually offer a mix of the two types of content - “ageless” instructional pillar articles mixed with a good helping of current events. As I mentioned in the The Evolution Of Blog Traffic, pillar articles are often the linchpins for your explosive growth periods and it’s very hard to grow big without them.

Jealousy is a nasty emotion. Impatience is a frustrating state. Chances are if you just started blogging you may have experienced either of these feelings especially when you gaze at other bloggers and their massive hit counts. But not to worry, we’ve all been there, every blogger started at zero, just keep reminding yourself that the only way is up!

I have a blog traffic methodology that I teach in my Blog Traffic School course (soon to be launched) that is focused on The Evolution Of Blog Traffic. This is a concept that describes how blogs move through different growth stages, which unless you are famous or lucky, all bloggers have to go through. It goes like this.

The Evolution Of Blog Traffic
1. Start your brand new blog - no content
2. Produce content including key “pillars” articles
3. Network with other blogs using comments, trackbacks and email
4. Other bloggers you trackbacked/commented start to monitor your blog, usually through RSS
5. Start to accumulate links from other blogs, particularly when you publish a pillar article
6. “A” list (popular) blogger finds your site and links to one of your pillar articles, flooding you with traffic
7. More “A” listers are made aware of your site and each pillar article you publish has a compounding traffic effect
8. Rinse and repeat, growing off the back of network effects and quality content

In a nutshell this is a typical blog traffic growth pattern. Your blog is likely somewhere within the cycle depending on how much effort you put into producing good content and making sure other people know about it.

If you have only just started your blog then your first job is to produce great content working particularly on some pillar content. If you already have a substantial collection of good original content but not the traffic you would expect from it, work your network by contributing comments and trackbacking other bloggers. Bloggers love to see other bloggers mention their site and the trackback ensures they know about it increasing your exposure and the likelihood that they will do a post about your blog exposing you to their audience.

Get Recent Comments Plugin: [ Download ]

The recent comments plugin for WordPress blogs is an essential traffic building tool. The basic functionality is to allow you to list a summary of the comments made to your blog listed in chronological order with the most recent at the top. It is a customizable plugin allowing you to play with different variables by using different lines of code. I usually use the basic settings and list the five most recent comments in my blog sidebar.

How This Plugin Builds Traffic

The key element here is a concept known as social proof. Social proofing is an everyday human behaviour that causes people to take action based on what they see others doing. A fantastic but simple example of this behaviour is when you see a crowd of people with their heads tilted skyward looking at something airborne or on a building - most people walking by will also look up to see what all the fuss is about - that is social proof.

The whole idea of having comments within a blog is part of social proofing. When a new person visits your blog for the first time and they see other people leaving comments and interacting with your content the new visitor experiences a social proofing feeling about the validity and credibility of what you are publishing.

The new visitor thinks - “Hmm, there are comments here, that means other people read this site so there must be something good, I’m going to read too”.

By using the comments plugin you further enhance your social proofing generating repeat readership and instant credibility. Just be sure of course that you have some comments before using the plugin!

The other good point is that this plugin can increase your pageviews and visitor length time as readers click recent comments taking them to individual blog entries where they can get involved with the conversation you started by writing your article. Increased pageviews and visitor length time are two very important metrics when it comes to building a popular blog.