See the graph above? This is a screen capture of my blog traffic over the past 12 months, as seen through Google Analytics.
What stands out to me is the increase in traffic starting January 1st – which coincides with the New Year’s resolution I made to spend more time building my blog.
So I decided to rearrange a few things here, and established a number of ways I could produce more content. Over the past 6 months, I discovered a number of things that helped me increase my blog traffic.
Here’s what I found, and what hopefully can help you too:
1. I started using our Scribe Content Marketing plugin.
You might now know this, but Google is a behemoth when it comes to search traffic. This wasn’t news to me, but what I did learn is that long tail search was bringing me a majority of my traffic.
While I was getting decent traffic, I really wanted to step up my game and take my blog seriously. I knew that Scribe would help me with keyword research and optimizing my content. And apparently it’s helping a number of other folks as well.
Learn more about Scribe and how it can help you.
2. I actually began to write more and produce content.
It seems pretty brainless that the more you write, the more traffic you’ll get – right? At the time I made my resolution, I was publishing a blog post 1-2 times a month at best. Now that’s easily 1-2 times a week. If not more.
Not only did I think that writing more on my blog would be beneficial, I also added some code snippets to help those building site with the Genesis Framework.
You might think that there’s such a thing as too much content, and that you don’t want to bombard your subscribers with all that information. That’s why I decided to get creative and built my code snippets using WordPress custom post types.
3. I focused my efforts on social media and sharing.
You might find this hard to believe, but up until a few months ago I didn’t have a way to share any of my posts with social media. No Tweet This links, no Facebook likes, no way to share on LinkedIn or give it a +1 on Google Plus.
So I installed a social sharing plugin, and also added a Twitter Follow button below each post and in my sidebar. Not only have I seen an increase in followers, I’ve also seen an increase in traffic through social media.
4. I began to take building my email list seriously.
While I don’t personally sell anything to my blog readers, it’s a great way to talk about the things that are going on with us at Copyblogger.
I added a newsletter signup box to collect email addresses for those who wish to receive an email each time I post. I write about our content marketing software that we develop, so indirectly this helps sell our products.
When you have an email list, you’re able to increase traffic as many folks will read your post and naturally want to comment.
The Proof is in the Pudding
Now you want to some insight into the numbers, eh?
Between July 1st, 2011 thru January 1st, 2012 I was getting an average of 408 unique visitors a day. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but for a stagnant blog with minimal fresh content I thought it was ok.
Then I began to take things seriously and over the past 6 months, between January 1st, 2012 and July 1st, 2012 – the average rose to 1092 unique visitors a day.
That’s a 267% increase in blog traffic!
So how are you doing with your goals and content? Are you writing regularly or spending time on social media while promoting your blog?
Let’s talk about in the comments below.
You’ve done well and personally I wish you wrote 3 times a day! hahaha
Easiest tutorials i’ve ever followed.
On my blog which is all about WordPress, i’ve created a free video series using static pages which is 24 pages.
I would like to create a page for code snippets but really having a lot of problems displaying php code. Not sure why as i’m using a good plugin for it.
I’m in the pre-launch phase of my home automation blog and I am focusing most of my energy on building my connections so I actually have someone that will read my content. What did you focus on at first when starting this blog? Was it social or something else?
Great results Brian
You’ve certainly written much more content recently and you have all the social media buttons and most of us are probably following your example.
I’ve started writing more frequently and I’ve added your “sign up” box in my sidebar and I’m getting pretty good results.
Well done on your traffic increase and thanks for sharing how you did it.
Since I’ve mentioned the sign up box…. what conditional statement would I add to your code …
if ( ! is_singular( ‘post’ ) )
in order to display the box posts in the category “genesis videos” only?
Apologies for taking liberties.
Thanks for the tips Brian. Your next post should go over how to build a “Join My Newsletter” box below each post!
Thanks Alex – and I have you covered with the post on How to Add a Newsletter Signup Box I had linked to here.
Totally adding this to my blog!
I’m in the midst of attempting to rebuild my blogs too. I’m starting off well with my intention to create more blog posts, but my next task is to move onto much faster hosting (my current setup is dog slow). After that, I need to rewrite all my themes to work far better on mobile devices. Then I want to add all the sorts of stuff you mentioned, social sharing, email lists etc. Considering how badly I’m doing things right now, it really shouldn’t take much to beef up my traffic quite considerably.
Good stuff Ryan, props to you for getting things going.
Since you’re looking to move hosts, naturally I have to suggest Synthesis hosting, which is lightning fast and optimized for Genesis should you go that route.
Thanks for the insights. Your content is always on point and extremely shareable. I often forward links to your articles to my clients. Thank you.
Thanks so much Greg, that’s great to know. It’s high praise to know that not only do folks find value in what I’m writing for themselves, but enough to share it with others.
Great post, Brian. I have certainly noticed the increase in quantity and quality of your blog posts through 2012. I’m someone who decided to subscribe so as to not miss these useful articles.
Appreciate that Chandler, and I thank you for the efforts you’ve made in supporting the Genesis movement as well as sharing my stuff!
This is something I really need to work on. I’m pulling 200-300 most days and I know a big part of that is the content. I also really need to dig in with Scribe. I really like the placement of your email sign up box. I’m planning on moving mine form the sidebar to after the post content. In fact I had some free time the other day and started that before deciding to focus on another project so I’m halfway there.
Did you notice a change when you put the signup form after the post content instead of the sidebar? Rafal wrote up a nice article on signup forms, which prompted my decision to make a change, but I would love to hear your experience regarding placement and conversion.
Unfortunately I’m not geeky enough to track things like signups so I don’t know the effect that moving it below my posts have made.
I will say that to me it feels more natural there, and that the sidebar is more useful for folks getting to know me.
Brian, Scribe has helped me so much with SEO it is not even funny. It is by far the best SEO product on the market!
That’s awesome, so great to hear!
Scribe really does work. I have noticed that when I write a review of something and I use Scribe to optimize it, it often will rank in the top three results for those search terms. What I have a harder time with is “optimizing” blog posts that are more reflective and not “how to do such-and-such” or “review of such-and-such.” And those are the ones that usually end up getting more comments! So I tend to take a two-fold approach of having some content that is super-SEO-optimized and some that I don’t really fool with on the back end but engage in discussions in the comments.
Wow, your results are out of this world. The main thing was the keyword search and optimizing your content. The website builder Easy WebContent does a great job at helping with that too. It really produces great results in getting more traffic to your site or blog. Great you found something that worked for you.
Writing more is definitely an important step. Some people just don’t understand the more content you have, the better reach you will receive.
Completely agree. There’s really no way to (effectively) grow a blog if you’re not adding more content to it.
All great points. There is one more that deserves mention: your content is an extension of your personality. I’m a firm believer that all selling is personal and what motivates people to come back again and again is about more than just deciding “this is useful stuff…” It’s also about having a good feeling about the writer. You’re generous with your advice and you take the time to respond to people directly. Combined, that’s an experience that is hard to find elsewhere.
One of my biggest pet peeves with blogs is that authors don’t spend enough time answering comments. Now I don’t think it’s realistic to attend every one of them, but it doesn’t take a lot of effort to reply in brief to comments. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about “thanks” replies, but just something simple that let’s the commenter know that their voice was heard.
I recently moved my vector image site to WordPress using a Genesis theme. I did a total redesign so that the site is much more user friendly and looks more up to date, added a newsletter signup form and started writing articles which I hadn’t done before.
Holy Moly! even though I’m not seeing the numbers that you do, it’s about 50 times the traffic I was getting before… literally over night.
I knew it would make a difference, but had no idea it would make THAT much difference. (happy dance!)
Thanks for all your great info.
Isn’t it amazing how much changes (subtle or otherwise) can impact a goal?
I know that when I replaced my 3 social media links in my sidebar with the Follow Me on Twitter larger button my count went up much quicker than it had.
Good stuff! I’ve also seen results on my websites/blogs when I write more frequently. Fortunately, the more often you write, the easier it is TO write.
Scribe SEO is also a fantastic tool – well, it’s more than a tool, actually. It’s like having an SEO expert sitting beside you. Scribe SEO’s also very educational – you learn things you never knew you never knew! I highly, highly recommend it to everyone.
Developing relationships on Twitter also leads to great things. If people like you, they’ll link to just about anything you do.
Good stuff.
I’m averaging just over 100 uniques a day on my main blog, with my goal to be over 400 by year’s end. We’ll see. I do know that I have spent a considerable time over the past few months using social media, and I believe that has contributed to doubling my traffic in that time.
Loved this post and the ideas you presented. I’m in the process of rolling my old blog over into a new domain, new design and a new plan. Now I have a bit of inspiration to keep me going. Thanks!
Woot, great to hear Sarah!
Brian, do you think more people are starting to sign up to get blog posts via email versus in an RSS reader? That is true for me but I don’t know if it’s just because I’m getting lazy about using Google reader.
Brian
Thanks for the latest newsletter message.
I’ve got to tell you I subscribe to 5 maybe 6 other newsletters not many really.
Every time I see one of yours in my inbox I can’t wait to open it. Why?
Because I know that there is something I can use that is actually substance and not fluff.
Your honesty and the fact that you aren’t selling directly to me is one reason I eagerly look forward to your messages. But I really love the stuff having to do with wordpress.
I’m really new to wordpress, maybe a month now and love what you can do with it.
I still am challenged on the code but at least I’ve figured out where you want me to enter stuff, css or php.
Thanks
Don
Thanks so much Don, really appreciate this. It’s awfully humbling to hear, and certainly will help motivate me to continue to produce the type of content I have been.
Great post as always Brian!
I am pushing myself pretty hard to get my content creation up and my long tail search terms rolled into each post while still trying to remembering to write for humans.
I have only seen a slight increase in traffic so far but I am starting to see some posts showing up on page one of Google for certain long tail terms.
I guess my first goal at the end of the day is traffic but what I would rather is a core group of about 1000 avid subscribers that value my content which is why I follow your model very closely.
My second goal is to build towards being able to join the affiliate program and promote the tools that copyblogger media have provided me with.
Thanks again Brian! Keep the great content coming!
p.s Thanks for fixing your mobile version of the site, it is the only way that I read your blog ; )
Thanks for the great post Brian. This is my first ever comment on your blog.
I’ve been a reader of your blog just recently. It was because of your theme: eleven40. – That I stumbled in here. I love the contents of your posts, simple yet informative. Keep it up!
By the way which brings you more traffic? Search engine or Social Media? Just a survey question if it’s ok.
God Bless!
Thanks so much for leaving a comment Jed, and for introducing yourself. I get more traffic from search engines, but there are some days from time to time when I’ll get retweets from guys like Chris Brogan and Brian Clark. Obviously those days social media bring more traffic.
Appreciate the reply Brian. Thanks so much!
I’m now a fan of your blog. God Bless!
Great Work Brian!
I am very surprised with scribe content marketing plugin and its seems to have all the ingrediants that one plugin should have and its been producing great results and thanks for sharing great information.
Hi , Brian, I have just read about scribe SEO when i click on the copyblogger.com Yesterday. I am ready curious that do it really worth paying certain amount in subscribing the scribe SEO service. Today , i read about your post here on how to increase the traffic. This really inspire me to move forward with scribe SEO !!
Thanks you for your sharing on this topic!
I really love your blog, Brian. Not just because you are very honest and reflective, but also because as a Genesis user, I find your super-clear Genesis tutorials invaluable! Whenever I need to do something on Genesis I come here first and it’s like free candy when I find a tutorial that fits.
Thanks so much, that’s awfully kind of you. Glad to know my efforts to keep things clean and simple are paying off!
Hi Brian,
I’m brand new to blogging! Just launched 6/13. I’m a Copyblogger, Studio Press, Synthesis, Genesis and soon to be Scribe girl! Your staff has been worderful to me…here’s a shout out to Cody at Synthesis. My goal is to post every 3 day! I’m blogging a book as a strategy to get it written. Thanks so much for the trips on how to connect the social media sites. That was my project for this week and here’s your blog with ALL the answers to my questions…awesome! I think your company ROCKS!!!
EnJOY,
Francesca
Thank you SO much Francesca for such an endearing comment. Really, it means to much to hear that kind of feedback about our company and products. You’re site looks amazing, and you made a great decision from having Heather at Viva la Violette do the design. I’ll mark your site to be added to our showcase next time we update it!
Great post, Brian. I have been following your blog for a long time. Lately, every single post has been of great interest to me! You’re right on the mark with your topics… awesome job! I have had Scribe since it came out, but I really need to start seriously using it. By the way, I noticed there are many sharp peaks in your Google Analytics graph… do these represent the number of different re-designs you’ve made?
I’d guess that the sharp peaks are the days I posted, where the sharing was at a high.
Brian. . . the unwritten note that I’m taking away from this post is the fact that you were only averaging a few hundred unique visits per day. I’ve been following you for a long time and have been using StudioPress for several years. Because I’m familiar with you, I assume everyone is familiar with you.
I have a small blog and small traffic. I have been working diligently to do a lot of the things you have described here and I am seeing results.
I have found that social media is such a powerful tool to increase traffic. When I make a post and share it, it gets significantly more traffic.
The sharing of your Google Analytics graph, as well as your characterization of how you graded your own traffic levels, was a big help to me. Not only for a numbers comparison of your traffic with mine (big guy vs. small fry), but also to get some insight into how you felt about the traffic you were getting.
Inspirational and motivational, as always, Brian. Thanks. I’m now off to: (1) jot down my own, new and re-energized strategy and (2) share this post on social media and with a few key clients.
Looks like the latest peak is when you post about the 15″ MacBook Pro brian
Nice share, thanks for the tips 
Hi Brian,
Thanks for such an insightful post. I am working on increasing my readership, however have only just started out so am not expecting mass results soon.
Depending on which blog I read, there are different interpretations of how often you should write… Would you recommend (regardless of how often a post/article is written vs quality of blog post) to ensure you have enough quality content on your website before diving into the many techniques to increase traffic?
Cheers,
Pete
Yeah, adding content to your site should be the first thing you do – as most people won’t stick around even if they get to your blog if there isn’t anything to read.
Thanks Brian.
It feels like deja vu to me. I changed to self hosted WordPress in may of this year and that proved to be a good choice. Visitor (and more importantly engaged visitors) numbers increased just because of that!
The ‘use’ of social media as a means of ‘promoting’ your blog is still underestimated by a lot of serious bloggers. In my opinion that’s a key to success. I say ‘a’, because all the other ‘little’ efforts add up to the total success of a blog!
// Jan
Great post Brian, currently I concentrate on both things, writing more posts every week and trying to get more social like sharing my posts, other people posts etc..
And I started noticing that traffic gets higher but sometimes it happens like the too much content scares the readers away.
Is that even possible, like too much information is bad???
thanks for sharing
I’ll have what he’s having!
One question: Do you primarily use Google analytics to track your site’s performance?
Yes, that’s pretty much all I use for my analytics.
Thanks for such an informative post Brian.
I am also looking to create more content for my photography related blog and have been striving for a few months now to publish three times per week. However, this has been difficult to achieve though I have been pleased that I was able to do an average of ten posts per month so not too bad.
I agree with regards to sharing via Social Networks, I certainly see visitor ‘spikes’ on post publishing days primarily from Twitter and Facebook. It would be great to see a similar response from G+ but at present it is not happening.
Love your site Brian and I regularly pass through this way and never fail to learn something new. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, it is very much appreciated.
Phil
Phil, you might like to check out this post I just saw on G+ about how Darren Rowse of Problogger is using Pinterest to promote his photography site dPS: this hot new social network is perfect for photographers and other image – driven sites. https://plus.google.com/u/0/112726038360301567381/posts/SfCx7RU6aHy
Sorry to cross post but seems too topical to miss: how he is using G+ to push traffic to his blog talking about how he is successfully using P+ to generate traffic!
I will add another good step (I would say a tip). If you are using shared hosting it is time to move to a VPS Hosting or Dedicated Hosting. You can see the difference in few weeks. Shared hosting is ideal for small websites. VPS or Dedicated servers can afford a higher number of visitors and it is really fast and stable.
I also decided to try SEO Scribe. Recently I moved to VPS hosting (bought from VPSWEBSERVER) and hope this twist will give good results.
Increase in traffic by 267 % in 6 months seems a great achievement. Production of more content seems the magic behind it supported by social sharing. If readers share our blog posts it will really show a good improvement in total traffic. Newsletter sometimes remind readers about updates in our blog but if we use it very often they may unsubscribe. So I usually do not support this option for promoting my blogs.
Thank you for your insight. How long was your blog recieving 408 unique visitors? I am new to the blogging world and have noticed that once a week I will get a surge and it will then drop back down to average. My average right now is only in the low hundreds. Thanks again.
For me it ultimately grew as I posted more. Obviously I was on social media quite a bit trying to promote the posts as well.
Nice increase from where you were in January. However I am sure a lot of us would like to know how you got to 1000-1500 visitors per day before your January changes. The 267% increase is great but many of us would have a 1000% increase if we had the magic formula to get to that level.
I can only offer a little advice:
Time
SEO
Keywords
Post Often
Links
Share
Would love to hear your thoughts on how you got to January’s numbers.
Wayne Melton
Hi Brian… Nice to get in touch with you… really very helpful to know about these details. I am going to implement these details over my blog. Thanks a lot
Hey Brian, your strategy for increasing traffic seems so easy yet its so powerful. Thanks for sharing your story. Looking fwd to be more engaged in social media.
Ram
Great tips. I believe what Brian say, because I believe his reputation through his remarkable genesis theme creation. I think point 2 and 3 are very essential