5 Key Blog Growth Hacks to Use in 2021
Do you want to market and grow your blog, just like the heavyweights in your niche? With a little know-how, you can transform your blog from amateur to champion.
Here are the 5 key hacks to get you there.
1) Optimize your content around keywords.
You may be able to create an amazing blog that truly resonates with an audience – however, this is fruitless if your blog is lost under the countless others in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
Optimizing your keywords allows you to amplify your content through larger traffic volumes; 81% of online purchase cycles begin with search.
Let’s get started.
Step 1: Keyword Research
If you have a good idea of the kind of terms your target audience is searching for, you can start keyword research. Tools like SimilarWeb, Google AdWords, and others make this fairly straightforward.
When deciding which keywords you want to rank for, you must consider:
- Search volume: How many people are searching for the term?
- Relevance: Will this keyword draw in the right kind of traffic?
- Competition: Is it possible to rank well for this keyword?
You should prepare a long list of relevant keywords to incorporate into your content creation efforts.
Step 2: Optimize Your Content
Now you can start incorporating keywords into your content. Key areas your keyword should appear include:
- Title tags
- Meta descriptions
- Alt attributes
- URL structure
- Body content
And rather than spending your time memorizing SEO best practices, just get a plugin to do it for you. If you use WordPress, SEO by Yoast will show you exactly what you need to optimize for each blog post.
2) Write long-form, comprehensive content.
According to research by Buzzsumo and Moz, the vast majority of online content is fairly short:
It would seem that many bloggers aren’t putting the required effort into creating long, detailed content that converts. As a result, the same study also found that long-form, research-backed content has a strong correlation between shares and links.
Research has also shown that long-form content gets better ranking in search.
So if you want your content to really stand out, put the effort into making it more comprehensive than your competitors.
3) Blog more frequently.
Many digital marketers hate to hear this fact, but the more you blog, the more traffic you get.
Research from Hubspot found that companies who published at least 16 posts per month received 3.5X more traffic than those who published 0-4 posts.
Planning to blog 16+ times a month can be overwhelming for many, but if you use WordPress, you can make use of an editorial calendar plugin to keep on track.
For some, it might be worth investing in some freelance writers to catch up on the slack. Writers can be found with nearly all skill levels (and rates of pay) on freelance websites like Fiverr or Guru. Consider the cost against the potential payoff for your indexed traffic.
Ensure you learn how to stay organised as a blogger to ensure maximum possibility for success.
4) Cross-link to other relevant posts.
In every blog post, you should look for opportunities to insert relevant links to other blog content from your site. This is good for SEO because:
- It encourages click through.
- Google considers internal links when indexing your pages.
Cross-link the right way, and you’ll see a boost in SEO and increase traffic to your blog.
As time goes on, and assuming you’ve created excellent content, your blog posts will become part of an interlinking network that points to one another, increasing your domain authority and ranking.
First, find relevant posts related to your new content. Then, look for key phrases in your new post to serve as the anchor text for the links. These should be related to the current post’s topic, since Google will use this information to rank the post.
5) Guest post on high-traffic niche websites.
Finding opportunities to guest post on high-traffic niche websites can give your own blog a big boost.
Getting backlinks from high authority sites is great for your own website’s SEO. Ideally the website should be related to your niche, meaning it has an audience that would also be interested in your blog. This way you can also get traffic through the post directly.
Many high authority blogs offer guest posting opportunities. Some may not want you to link back to your blog in the post you write, but they almost always will give you a link back in the author’s bio.
How do you find guest posting opportunities?
Think of a keyword related to your blog or a topic you’d like to write about, and then use it to find sites that might accept related content. You can perform a quick Google search for:
- Keyword + “write for us”
- Keyword + “guest post”
Most blogs will have published guidelines on how and what to submit. Just make sure you aren’t pitching posts to your direct competitors.
Author Bio: Cordy Bartlett is the self-proclaimed marketing extraordinaire and founder at SoftwireMind, the leading resource for online entrepreneurs looking to scale their site like a high-growth startup.
