How I doubled traffic to my website
June was another record month for my blog and I hit over 284,000 pageviews on my website. It was also a record month for my blog’s income as well. July was even higher at over 330,000 pageviews. Traffic is super important when you’re trying to monetize your blog. More traffic = more money. 
So, I wanted to share 10 tips to double your blog’s traffic. UPDATE March 2019: My blog now gets over 500,000 pageviews/month. UPDATE February 2020: My blog now gets over 600,000 pageviews/month. UPDATE April 2020: My blog now gets over 700,000 pageviews/month. Please note that this article contains affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure at the bottom of the page.
10 Things I did to grow my blog’s traffic
1. Learned how to master SEO (Search engine optimization)
By far, the most useful tip I can give you is to learn how to do SEO. I’ve been blogging since 2010 so I read every article I could find. I absorbed and implemented the info right away. So, now I know it like the back of my hand. Why is search engine traffic so important? First, it’s high quality traffic…usually the best type of traffic you can get. They are actively searching for info. That means they are more likely to be in buying mode…and hence more likely to convert. They will stay on page longer, too (and yes, this helps your ad revenue, too). Second, search engine traffic is long term and sustainable. Unlike Pinterest (which I love, by the way…more about that later) or other social media, it doesn’t fluctuate all the time. And, it doesn’t take ongoing effort to get more traffic. While it’s a slower traffic builder than Pinterest, it’s much more stable and your articles can rank for years to come. In fact, I have many articles from 2011, 2012 and 2013 that consistently drive traffic for me month after month. So, while I’m busy working on my business or more blog posts, SEO is working it’s magic for me behind the scenes 24/7. It’s really a source of passive traffic, once it gets going. In fact, my SEO traffic enables me to do really well with affiliate marketing. In fact last month, I was able to earn more than $7,000 from Amazon Associates and close to $12,000 in total affiliate sales. Of course it also earns extra money on ads and my products. I’ve coached more than 100 bloggers on SEO (over the phone)…so that they are empowered and can do it themselves. I started to run out time in the day, so I converted this training into 2 ebooks (and these are much less expensive than hiring me for a coaching session). First, I would start with Easy On-page SEO ebook. It covers everything you need to do to SEO optimize your blog posts so they can do well on Google. This is really the first step in writing a blog post that is optimized for SEO. While the ebook is designed for beginners and intermediates, many advanced bloggers got a ton out of it, too. So far, the feedback has been amazing, even from people that have taken other SEO courses. 
For step 2, you’ll want to build powerful backlinks to enable your posts to rank higher. Check out my Easy Backlinks for SEO and you can check it out here. It is jam packed with information on how to build backlinks to improve your SEO and Domainw Authority – it’s the subject that most bloggers know they need to do, but have no clue how to do it. They seem to get overwhelmed, because they don’t where to build them, and they think it’s harder to do then it really is. Since this subject seems to breezed over in most courses/ebooks, I decided to cover it in depth. This information seems to be fairly unique and it creates a huge amount of synergy with the other courses/books out there. Most of them cover on–page optimization and key words. These topics are so important and provide the basis. You need this to succeed. But, on-page optimization (which I love), only covers 50% of your SEO. The other 50% comes from off-page optimization (i.e. backlinks, domain authority, etc.). And, this is what my ebook covers. 
If you’re not ready yet, feel free to join my FREE SEO email course. In this intro course, I cover 10 SEO myths and mistakes that newer bloggers make and how to fix them. 
If you need help with key words, I highly highly recommend Mike Pearson’s Stupid Simple SEO course. Yes, that’s what it’s called, and I love the title. In this in depth course, Mike explains how to do key word research to focus your blog topic, best way to structure your blog and much much more. I HIGHLY recommend this course. And, you will see rave reviews for it everywhere. Yes, one might argue that I’m helping my competition here, but it is amazing and covers items that I don’t cover in my ebooks. I think the two are complementary and I want my students to succeed. I’ve been blogging for a long time (since 2010), and it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to SEO. I see so much fluff out there when it comes to SEO and courses. But not with Mike. He is one of the best. Not only does he know SEO, but he also knows how to explain it in a way that’s easy to understand. It’s great for newbie bloggers as well as intermediate and advanced bloggers. SEO is so critical to the success of your blog. This course is definitely worth it! 
You can sign up for his free email SEO bootcamp here.
2. Learned how to use Pinterest…the right way!
One of the biggest missed opportunities I’ve had is not using Pinterest for business sooner. Ironically, I had been using Pinterest since 2012. But, I wasn’t using it the right way to drive traffic to my site. In fact, I had no idea how much I was missing. So dumb. Fast forward a year later, and I was generating over 30,000 visitors a month to my site! I should have done this sooner. Now, at the 2 year mark, I usually get 140,000-150,000 pageviews to my site per month. 
While SEO organic traffic is the long term game (and you really want organic traffic…believe me), it can take a while to build up. In fact, it can take 6 months or more. So, in the mean time, you should leverage Pinterest traffic, as you can build traffic much quicker. Update: I am currently getting between 200,000 and 300,000 pageviews per month from Pinterest alone. The number of viewers I have is higher, too, but views is often not a very relevant number…clicks are what counts! And, in my opinion, the combo of Pinterest and organic traffic is ideal. They can in fact become synergistic. And, having a diversity of traffic is good thing. Here’s an article a FREE Ebook I wrote with some great Pinterest tips – Pinterest Power Push. It’s 70 pages packed with helpful info. You can sign up here. 
In addition, the best resource I can recommend to get a jumpstart on Pinterest is Carly’s course called Pinteresting Strategies. It is amazing. Carly has been getting over 300,000 pageviews/month from pinterest. So, learn from a true master. I love her down to earth style, too. Her course made a huge difference in growing my traffic. Highly, highly recommend. I now get 200.000 – 300,000 pageviews/month just from Pinterest. Use PINNING5 for a $5 discount. Also, Carly has some other resources that can really help you. I thought this ebook on 7 Pin Title Traffic hacks where she share 7 changes to get more traffic. And, it’s so reasonably priced. Worth it!
3. Leveraged Viral Content Bee for more social shares
I love Viral Content Bee as it’s a great way to get more social shares. Basically, you share other people’s content, and then you accumulate points. You can then use those points to have others share your content. You can use this for facebook, twitter, pinterest and stumbleupon. You can use for some or all of these, pending on your preference. There is both a free and paid version of this. I’ve been using the free version.
4. Stopped doing share for share Facebook threads
I have found these to be a very poor use of time. They can take up a LOT of time, for almost no return. Same with comment for comment threads. It doesn’t matter if they are for pinterest, facebook, twitter or where ever. The biggest issue for these is that most the bloggers blog about topics that are different than yours. So, it often doesn’t make sense to share their content with your audience. Nor does their sharing of your content do much good, if they are sharing to their audience which may have no interest in your content. You just won’t get the engagement or traffic your expecting. And, again, this is a very time consuming effort. I’d rather spend my time building more content.
5. Guest posted on other people’s blogs
This is a great way to build backlinks to improve the domain authority to your site. This helps with off page SEO. Sometimes, when you do this on very big and popular sites, it can also drive a substantial amount of traffic to your site. I have generally done this through networking with other bloggers I know. I have found Facebook groups, especially blogging groups) to be a good source for this. Truthfully, I should be doing more of this, but my time is a bit limited. I know…we all have the same problem. But, doing some guest posts can really help. I try to only publish high quality content when I guest post (this is the idea…you want to help the other blogger, too…and want to make them happy). I optimize the articles for SEO and, I always share the articles on social media. I have also seen that sometimes in these facebook groups, bloggers are doing round up posts. They often ask you to submit a paragraph or two (sometimes accompanied by a photo…make sure it’s your own photo). I always try to participate in these, provided that the topic is relevant for my blog. Note: I teach many other ways to grow white hat backlinks to improve your domain authority during my one on one coaching sessions).
6. Used tailwind for pinterest
As I said, I love Pinterest, and it is such an amazing source of traffic. I have found tailwind to be super helpful for scheduling pins. It allows you to schedule pins throughout the day (which helps you). And, let’s face it, I can’t stay in front of my computer all day. Also, Tailwind has some amazing analytics, so you can tell which pins and which group boards are performing best…so you know what and where to pin more often, and which boards to avoid. Here’s my affiliate link. You can test it out for free here. And, if you use my affiliate link, if you decide to become a paying member (like I am…and it is soooo worth it), you can get $15 off. If you buy it for a year, it just costs $120…or $10/month…for UNLIMITED pins…and after the $15 discount, just $105. This has been one of the few services I have paid for and I’m so glad I did. But, don’t take my word for it. Try it for Free here.
7. Optimized old posts
This is very important. It’s one of those things that can help your articles rank better…or continue to rank well. I will generally look at my top 10 articles every few months and see what I can do to make them better. Sometimes this means adding to the content (e.g. add a paragraph or two), or add another picture, or make a new pin. I also look to see if I can create additional internal links to other relevant posts (both in bound to to the post and outbound…especially if I wrote new content that’s relevant to the post. I will see if I can do some off page backlinks as well, and make sure affiliate links are optimized. I try to just work on 1 article per week. It’s often my top 10, but sometimes, I look to see articles that aren’t ranking so well (but I think they should). And, if they have a lot of searches done, I will look to optimize those as well. (I will use google search console to help with this. Oh, and now I developed an advanced SEO course that shows you my method for improving rankings on existing articles. It’s called Easy SEO Revamp and there’s no other course out there like it.
8. Upgraded my hosting
This is something I recently did (like last week), and it may not be relevant to many of you. My site speed was very slow. And, no matter what I did, it continued to operate slowly. (I believe me, I tried a bunch of things including making images smaller, image compression plugins, cloudflare and MaxCDN.) All of those things only had a minor impact. This time, I took the big plunge and upgraded and switched hosting companies. It only cost an extra $10/month and is totally worth it. They did their magic and brought the site speed down from 8.2 seconds to 1.2 seconds. I used BigScoots for my new upgraded hosting. They specialize in WordPress sites that get over 100,000 pageviews/month. But, if you’re having site speed issues, contact your hosting service. You may just want to upgrade your plan (I’ve done that a few times over the years, but this time it was time for a big upgrade with more personalized attention. Or call BigScoots and see if they can help you. I thought I was going to have to pay $100/month or something…but it’s no where close to that…I should have done this a year ago! Or maybe 2 years ago. If I had only known. Oh, and they switched me to https at the same time…FOR FREE! When you site speed decrease, user experience improves…and bounce rate declines. This in turn can lead to more ad revenue AND better google rankings. So we shall see what the next few months bring.
9. Only posted high quality content
Yes, I only try to post high quality content. Well, maybe 90-95% of the time. I try to write articles that are helpful and relevant to my readers and pack it with great, helpful and honest info. I tend to write epic posts (often 2000+ words) because that’s what is helpful for people that really need the info and also it tends to do better with the search engines.
10. Improved my pins/created more pins for existing content
As I’ve mentioned, pinterest is an amazing source of traffic, and it’s fun, too. One easy way to drive some more traffic is to create more pins for articles that you’ve already written. In April, I did 5 a week and it really helped…and I saw it in my traffic and my affiliate sales. I can’t keep at that rate ongoing, but for May, I’m going to do 2 per week and keep the momentum going. In general, when I write an article, I try to create at least 2 pins at the time of launch. I then test them to see which does better and then promote the heck out of the one doing better. Then, sometimes, if I will do another one a few months later. It’s a great way to give new life to your article. In fact, I found a few dormant articles that I wrote years ago that were basically getting no traffic…and then I created an awesome pin and voila, new traffic. So that’s how I doubled my blog’s traffic. And, you can do it, too.
Related articles:
- Easy Backlinks for SEO
- Easy On-Page SEO
- 11 Pinterest hacks to drive insane traffic to your blog
- Pinteresting strategies course
- 4 ebooks I recommend to for massive traffic to your blog
PRODUCTS YOU MAY LIKE:
- BLOG TRAFFIC EBOOK – How I went from 17,000 to 400,000 page views in 10 months. In this ebook, Lena shares 17 strategies she used to quickly boost her blog traffic. This will help accelerate the traffic to your website, regardless of niche and help you do it much faster. It is EXCELLENT! In fact, I plan on rereading it soon.
- ACTIVECAMPAIGN (For email marketing and CRM) – I should have done this years ago! But, I’m so glad that I finally took the plunge and invested in a CRM program. If you have a customers and if you are looking to improve your close rate and/or looking for more repeat/referral business, this is a MUST HAVE. Or, if you just need a mailing program for you blog it’s perfect (and way less expensive than the alternatves. Click here for your free trial of ActiveCampaign.
- TAILWIND (for Pinterest). Wow. This tool has already doubled the traffic I’m getting from Pinterest, and I’m just getting started. It’s a HUGE time saver. Here’s the free trial for Tailwind. After that, it’s just $10/month for unlimited pins (if you by the annual plan). And, if you use my link, you’ll get $15 off your first month. It’s totally worth it when you think about how much time it saves you and how much more effective you’ll be.
- PINTERESTING STRATEGIES: – Pinterest is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive massive traffic to your blog, especially if you are just starting out. I’ve gotten over 150,000 clicks a month from Pinterest. If you want a jump start on how to use this amazing platform, check out Carly’s course. It is simply awesome. She is so down to earth and straightforward, and you’ll see that in her writing. I LOVE this course (it was formerly an ebook, but now it’s new and improved.
- MAKING SENSE OF AFFILIATE MARKETING – If you’re interested in affiliate marketing and how to make money off of your blog, I highly recommend Michelle Gardner-Schroeder’s course. I learned so much from this course. It was easy to follow and had so many examples and action steps. Also, she has a lesson on Pinterest, and you can join her private Facebook which it totally amazing. I have learned so much from the group. It’s incredible. This is a bit more expensive than what I would typically spend, but it was so worth it, and I’m so glad I did it! I have already made back my investment and then some.