Has Your Blog Traffic Flatlined? Here’s How To Bring It Back To Life
Is your blog traffic on a slow decline into oblivion? Do you need ways to resurrect, revitalize and rejuvenate your traffic stats back to life?
Blog traffic can stagnate or decline because of a number of factors, including mediocre content, lack of link-building efforts and outreach, and targeting the wrong topics and audience.
Here are some ways to give your blog traffic some much needed CPR and infuse life into your stats once more.
1. Evaluate your business environment
Do you think your target audience is the same as it was 5 or even 2 years ago? Well, here’s what might be wrong with that.
Your business may have changed. Your business environment may have changed. The industry you work in may have changed. Your customers may have changed.
One or all of these may be true. You’ll only know if you stick your toes into the water and check the temperature of your market.
For example, if you’re a company providing SEO services and you haven’t kept up to date with the latest Google algorithm changes, you’ll soon be singing to an empty stadium.
What you can do:
Conduct some market research, do a few surveys. Using the results you get, create some brand new buyer personas for your business. Find out what the people want, and then give it to them.
Upgrade your skills and your offerings and make sure you’re giving your customers the value they’re looking for. When you’re in the right business and are doing well for yourself, the passion you feel will reflect on your company blog too.
2. Audit your content
Is your content mediocre? Does your content team still believe it’s ok to churn out 500 to 700 word articles that say little and engage even less? Fire those guys!
Your content not only needs to be on the ball, as far as your customers needs are concerned, but it needs to be the best in its category.
What you can do:
Tell your content team to learn new terms – like 10X content and epic content. And then do what it takes to create it.
Optimal blog content length is now 1600 words. Keep your blog posts above 1500 words if you want them to get more shares and links.
Learn to write captivating headlines and test them using tools like HeadlineEnvy or KingSumo Headlines. Make sure your headlines are optimized to get clicks and traffic.
3. Review your user experience
Does your blog have the same depressing theme it had 5 years ago? If it does, your visitors probably hate it. Especially if it’s not mobile-friendly.
And if it isn’t mobile friendly, then Google probably hates it too. User experience is an important search ranking factor right now.
What you can do:
Revamp your blog theme. Make sure it’s light, fast-loading, responsive and looks great on mobile devices. Use Heatmaps to understand how visitors are using your blog.
Make optimal use of fonts, colours, whitespace, bullet points and other blog formatting options. Give your visitors a great user experience and they will reward you by spending more time on your blog.
Must Read: Using skeleton screens to enhance user experience
4. Let’s Pivot! Let’s Pivot!
While the dictionary defines pivot as a verb that means “to turn on,” Silicon Valley defines it as “We failed. Now, we’re starting over, possibly with something completely different.”
Essentially it is used to define a failed venture that is changing focus. Pivoting has been the reason for many a successful venture in Silicon Valley. Paypal, Twitter and Instagram are just a few.
What you can do:
It takes courage to admit that what you’re doing is not working and that you need to change your strategy and focus. If your content and traffic strategy is not working to get the kind of traffic you want, pivot to a new focus that is more likely to succeed.
Leo Widrich writes about how the Buffer blog pivoted a number of times, from writing about Twitter tips, to social media tips, to lifehacks, writing, customer happiness and business.
5. Promote your blog
Your blog isn’t going to promote itself. “Publish and pray” does not work with the glut of online content we’re facing today. You need to find ways to make your blog content stand out from the clutter.
What you can do:
Start an outreach program to reach out to other influential bloggers and get links back to your blog. Use social media, guest blogging and influencer marketing to build reach, traffic and backlinks.
Bookmark the always updated blog promotion tips here if you ever run out of ideas to promote your blog.
Must Read: Promote your website on Reddit to generate traffic
6. Stay inspired
If you’re not inspired about your company’s vision and purpose, how do you expect your content to inspire your readers?
The Buffer blog and company followed a change in vision from being “just a social media offering” to becoming “a true utility helping their customers to live a more efficient life in general.”
What you can do:
Create a vision statement for your business, the people you work with, your clients and customers, and the ultimate goals you want to achieve.
Push the envelope. Make your vision statement inspiring and a little bit scary. If you can’t energize yourself, you won’t be able to revive your blog and your traffic.
Real change happens from the inside. Your blog traffic is like the lifeline of your business. If it’s flatlined, you need to give your business some life-saving CPR and bring it back to life, so you can do the same for your blog.
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