5 Easy Ways to Increase Blog Traffic by 858% (10x Page Views!)

You’ve worked hard on your blog day in and day out and now you’re ready to get seen.

But what’s with the low blog traffic?

No need to fear, learning how to increase blog traffic is easier than you might think!

With the right tools and knowledge, growing an online presence has never been easier.  

This guide to increasing blog traffic will cover: 

• How to promote your content on Pinterest
• How to use Google to rank in organic searches
• Basic SEO Tips
• Additional tools you should invest in to start growing your blog NOW
• How to use social media to grow your blog

Let’s get started!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and I could earn a small commission if you make a purchase using one. This comes at no additional cost to you and all recommendations are based on my experience.

5 Easy Ways to Increase Blog Traffic by 858% (10x Page Views)

By implementing the 5 simple strategies below, you can 10x your blog traffic!

But before we work on visibility, let’s check out your website’s performance to see how you rank in terms of speed – my favorite resource for this is GTMetrix.

Simply enter your blog’s URL and then click Test your site for a review of your blog’s performance.

If you aren’t into the technical stuff, look no further than Performance Score and Page Details!

Here are my results.

I host my super fast blog (just a 1.1 second load time!) with Siteground and if your load time was anything higher than 3 seconds, I would seriously suggest you make the switch to Siteground too – you’ll save 60% off your first year with my link.

Site speed has a direct impact on your ability to rank in Google results and when 40% of users will ditch a website that takes over 3 seconds to load, you’re risking points by jeopardizing user experience!

Here are my Google Search Console results for one week in October.

That’s 10,500 clicks from Google Searches – no clicks from Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook included!

Not bad for a busy mom who blogs maybe once a month these days!

But what about pageviews?

17,227 pageviews that same week!

Increasing your blog traffic is easy to do with good bones (like the right hosting!) and powerful resources.

I first started blogs on Wix and WordPress.com – and they failed!

So, now that you know how to determine site speed and a great place to self-host your blog, let’s move on to some strategies that will help you grow your site’s unique visitor count, sessions, and pageviews.

We’ll start with every new blogger’s favorite topic – Pinterest!

1. Promote Your Posts on Pinterest + Get Tailwind NOW

This might be obvious for those of you who were referred here from Pinterest but if you haven’t started with Pinterest for business yet, now is the time!

About 60% of my traffic comes from this powerful cross-over between social media and a visual search engine.

The keys to success on Pinterest are consistency and platform optimization – this includes both your profile and keyword research for your pins and boards.

Now, should you pin manually or with a Pinterest scheduler?

As a busy mom, I’ve gone with scheduling 99% of my pins on Tailwind and have seen AMAZING results.

Tailwind is a scheduling and analytics tool that includes Tailwind Communities for bloggers – all in one!

Tailwind pins at ideal times when my audience is most likely to be active – something I would have had to spend a lot of time figuring out – and allows me to be present on Pinterest even on my most unpredictable days.

Tailwind helped me to:

• grow my monthly viewers count to over 4.1 million
• reach 249.6 million Pinterest users
• receive over 38,300 re-shares on Pinterest
• receive over 92,900 repins on Pinterest

Without Tailwind, it would have been really challenging to accomplish this in just one year! 

You can try Tailwind for FREE and get 50 Ghostwriter credits – no credit card required. 

How to Use Tailwind Communities

Think of Tailwind Communities like Instagram engagement groups (except they’re actually allowed, haha) and in fact, were created by an approved Pinterest developer.

Communities are usually category based – i.e. recipes, parenting, fashion.

Since other bloggers in these groups are writing about similar content and want to share these topics with their Pinterest followers too, your pins will perform best if you share them with like-minded bloggers.

When considering “all niche” communities, it’s also important to consider that they tend not to be moderated as well as smaller, niche-specific groups.

Some of these communities have thousands of members and receive thousands of content submissions daily!

It can thus often be difficult for moderators to regulate content in addition to making sure that everyone is playing fair.

Imagine being one or two of these moderators and also trying to manage your own blog or business website at the same time – yikes!

Different groups have different rules and I’ve seen everything from one submitted for one shared to one submitted for five shares!

Some groups are also more strict than others and you can be removed for not adhering to the rules in a timely matter – like mine 😉 I’d rather keep it small than have people spamming the group and NOT reciprocating!

The most well-moderated communities are usually the ones that you’ll get the most re-shares in as well.

Another important consideration to make when joining and sharing on Tailwind Communities is the Monthly Pin Submission Limits.

I’d recommend starting with the Tailwind Pro plan for $19.99 a month.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• 50 Ghostwriter credits/mo
• 100 Posts/mo on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook
• 200 Post Designs/mo
• 1 Account per Network (Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram)
• 5 Tailwind Communities
• Smart.bio Custom link
• Advanced Analytics
• 1 User
• Unlimited Email Contacts
• 200 Email Sends/mo

In my experience, 100 pin submissions are far more than enough for a blogging beginner.

That said, you’ll want to be selective about the 5 Communities you join and watch your analytics to see which ones are working for you.

Once you have submitted a pin to your group, this counts as a submission against your 100-pin post-budget – deleting a pin that did not perform well will not give you another chance to submit one in hopes that it does better!

If you want to join an unlimited number of Communities and schedule up to 1,000 posts a month, try the Tailwind Advanced plan for $29.99 a month instead:  

• 250 Ghostwriter credits/mo
• 1000 Posts/mo on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook
• Unlimited Post Designs/mo
• 2 Accounts per Network (Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram)
• Unlimited Tailwind Communities
• Smart.bio Custom link
• Advanced Analytics
• 2 Users
• Unlimited Email Contacts
• 500 Email Sends/mo

That’s what I have!

Here’s an example of what a good Community looks like:

Now, let’s break down each of these terms since they can be a bit confusing! 

Re-Shares: the number of times that your Tailwind Community members have shared your content

Repins: the number of times your content has been repinned by your Community members’ audiences 

Reach: the number of potential impressions from all re-shares of your content on Pinterest

So, for me, this Community is working really well! 

In fact, 3,400 or so of the total 5,300 repins generated in this group are mine! Wow!

This tells me that my Communities’ audiences are also interested in my content.

Community Members

See my profile photo and display name?

The green bar to the right tells you that my content has been reshared by a Community member recently – woohoo! 

The grey number, 87, shows you that I’ve shared 87 of my pins with this Community while the green number indicates that I’ve shared 190 of other Community members’ pins. 

Remember how we talked about being fair? Tailwind will even reward you for sharing your Community members’ content by featuring your profile in their Weekly Highlights category for Top-Resharers of the Week!

Other Community members can even click to see my Submissions!

Pro Tip: Weekly Highlights are a quick way of finding high-quality content to pin on Tailwind!

Pinterest Manual Pinning Strategy

If you go with manual pinning, aim for around 30 pins a day.

This needs to be a combination of your own content and other users’ related content. 

You don’t want to spam your followers but at the same time, you do want your pins to be seen.

Start with a 1:1 ratio and be sure to adjust your strategy according to your Pinterest analytics – they’ll tell you within just a few days if your method is working out!

More Tips on How to Use Pinterest for Blogging:  

I find the following schedule has the most impact when I create new content:

• Write
• Create at Least 2 Alternative Pins
• Publish
• Promote

If you’re struggling with writer’s block or haven’t had time to create a new blog post, try designing at least two additional new pins in alternate styles for old pieces you’ve written.

It’s a great way to stay active on the platform even when you’re not up to writing something new!

Pinterest is a visual game and if you want to be competitive on this platform, you need to consistently design gorgeous 2:3 ratio images to draw readers in!

If you’re brand new to Pinterest, start by checking out Canva* and get creative using the following guidelines:

• Include your blog post’s title
• Include your website’s name at the top of bottom of your image – this may deter pin theft later
• Use a maximum of three differing font styles
• Keep it to one script font or less – your pins need to be easy to read
• Images without people’s faces tend to get repinned more
• Pickup a few free stock photos here to get started
• Include a square box or other overlay above your image to make your text more legible!

*Canva is also an excellent means of designing gorgeous board covers to brand your Pinterest profile.

More Pinterest Design Resources: 

• 30 Best Hand-Lettered Fonts for Pinterest Pins
• Pinterest Profile Optimization for Beginners
• How to Research + Use Keywords on Pinterest

2. Create a Minimum of 2 New Beautiful Pins Daily

Continuing where we left off above, this is absolutely essential for drawing in your potential audience.

You never know when a pin is going to take off but you have a higher chance of that happening if you create them more often!

Creating new pins also gives you an opportunity to experiment with different styles and colors.

Different audiences appreciate different pin styles.

Here’s an example of some pins I’ve created for a client versus my own.

See how they’re all totally different? 

Understanding your niche is the key to creating great pins. 

Just run a search on Pinterest to see what’s already ranking and take in everything you can about the design. 

For example, the niches above are home decor versus making money online. 

A Pinterest search for home decor will quickly show you that visuals are queen. 

However, the make money online category brings up images with bold text and is information dependent. 

My brand’s colors are pink, black, white, and grey – I love the idea of being fiercely feminine and my ideal audience is moms in their late 20s to early 40s years old.

However, that being said, creating pins with less dominant pinks helped me to attract an even larger audience.

Have an ideal audience in mind but don’t limit your business.

Maintain the imagery and ideals that you want to your brand portray but don’t be afraid to experiment with new promotional content.

Best case scenario, it’s a hit and helps grow your readership and followers.

Worst case, you spent five minutes creating a new pin style that didn’t explode the way you thought it might! Chances are, it still brought you a few new readers you didn’t have before – winning!

Want to know something that all successful business owners and entrepreneurs have in common?

Successful business owners take chances!

Reflect on the entrepreneurs you admire most and get inspired.

3. Pay Attention to SEO and Sign Up for Squirrly SEO

I started focusing on my SEO and ditched Yoast a long time ago!

Squirrly offers way better value and more features that you don’t get with Yoast including: 

• Focus Pages – to help you with ranking!
• Calculated chances of ranking
• Determined current ranking drawbacks
• Unique treatment for individual pages
• 14 Days Journey to Better Ranking – basically, a free SEO course!
• SERP Checker
• Keyword Research Tools
• Keyword Research Assistant
• Full and Easy Overview on everything related to visibility issues
• Settings Assistant
• SEO Live Assistant
• SEO Audits
• Social Media Audit
• Blogging Assistant
• Duplicate Removal
• Weekly Site Audit – you’ll get a weekly email with a score out of 88 to tell you how your site is performing
• Plus a lot more!

I love Pinterest but after they accidentally suspended my account, I quickly learned that diversifying my traffic between Google and social media was the right call. 

Blogging and SEO are both long-term games.

Pinterest is good for quicker results.

SEO will give you years of blog traffic if you do it the right way and update old blog posts.

Pinterest pins, on average, have a lifetime of about a few months. 

This being said though, I still have Pinterest pins that rank first in search results one year later, thanks to the help of Tailwind!

How to Improve Your SEO Keyword Ranking

If you are going to take blogging seriously, you need to start learning SEO now.

I use Squirrly PRO on my blogs and my favourite tool for all of them is the SEO Live Assistant.

The Assistant shows me that I’ve done a good job optimizing my post for the keyword I’m trying to rank for.

Keywords are how search engines find you!

So, every time you write a blog post you’ll want to be targeting at least one and any other terms related to it.

To find keywords, check out this post on Pinterest SEO, and be sure to cross-reference your finds with Google search results for the same keywords.

Have a look at the websites on the first page and access their domain authority to see how your site compares!

Squirrly makes it easy to get your content 100% SEO optimized every time you create a new blog post with the live assistant’s 13-point checklist.

You can also go back to old posts and improve their odds of ranking in organic searches with the suggestions that the SEO Live Assistant gives you – it’s never too late to bring new life to an old blog post!

This is a preview of what the Live SEO Assistant looks like – before I publish anything, I always make sure that my content is 100% optimized to guarantee that my site ranks in Google results.

In addition to Domain and Clean & Friendly, there are also two additional categories for Title and Content optimization – the additional 8 points here are based on Squirrly’s SEO formula and it wouldn’t be fair to share it 🙂 

But I can tell you that it works!

Here’s a screenshot of my SEO Keywords Ranking showing what happened after I started using the Squirrly PRO on my blog. 

I went from ranking for a few hundred different keywords to nearly 10,000 in just 4 months!

What a colossal difference, right?

You can get your first month of Squirrly PRO for $20.99 using my link!

4. Sign Up for Google Search Console

This tool is amazing and a must-have if you want to rank in Google!

You may actually be surprised to learn how you rank and for what terms when you first try it.

One of the tricky things about using Jetpack for WordPress is the inability to see what search terms people are using on Google to come across your site – not to mention it’ll slow your page load times down tremendously (getting rid of Jetpack saved me around 2 seconds – talk about bloat).

However, with a very quick and easy setup of Google Search Console, you’ll be able to see exactly what terms are bringing you traffic.

Learn how easy it is to set up Google Search Console and start growing your blog with this powerful resource tool!

Now that you’re all set up, let’s start ranking higher.

First, once you’re on Search Console, click Performance.

Next, you’ll see a graph and some Analytics that will show you your Total Clicks, Total Impressions, Average CTR, (the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click to your site), and Average Position of your site in Google search results.

Looking a bit further down the page, you’ll see tabs for Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices, and Search Appearance.

Under Query, Clicks will automatically be displayed in descending order. Surprised by what you see?

Now, after you’ve investigated this for a bit, check out Impressions. While they are often correlated to your Queries, occasionally they’re not!

Ready for the next step?

Let’s go back up to our graph and click on Average Position. Scroll down to view your Query results again and check out your Position for each term.

Click it twice to display results in ascending order.

One or two-word search showing that you’re in position number one or three?

Run a Google for that keyword to confirm it!

Sometimes Search Console can be a little glitchy and might display information incorrectly.

Personally, I’ve found that any terms containing three words and up are pretty accurate though. But, to be sure, always run a search for yourself! Sometimes you’ll actually be pleasantly surprised too.

To start improving your rankings, try the following:

• Change your Blog Post Title to more accurately reflect the search term that is leading people to that page
• Update Your Meta-Description to make your post more enticing – use queries to phrase your description so that it matches searches
• In the body of your actual blog post, drop queries that are giving you fewer impressions for similarly related terms

All of the above will help to improve your Click Through Rate (CTR) and thus, help you rank higher in Google Search Results for terms where you are already ranking.

Pro Tip: While it’s great to be ambitious, working to improve your Position for terms that you rank between 11th to 20th has the best odds of moving you to the first page of Google Search Results.

Start here and then tackle other terms you’d like to rank for later on. You’ll see a jump in your blog traffic shortly!

More from Tips to Grow Your Blog: 

• The Complete Guide to Blogging for Moms
• 8 Blogging Myths You Need to Stop Listening to
• 5 Proven Blogging Rules for Success

5. Cross-promote on Social Media

Use your Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and any other form of Social Media that you are active on to promote your latest blog post or an older revamped one.

Ask your followers a question or offer an innovative solution to a struggle they might be having.

Especially important on Instagram: strong visuals are key to a successful promotion.

Depending on how you like to use your social media, choose between a relevant image you have taken yourself or one that you have created using stock photos and/or Canva.

While I use a combination of stock photos and images that I’ve taken on my blog, I don’t post stock photos on my Instagram account.

This is especially important when you’re creating sponsored content and working with brands.

You can learn how to grow your Instagram account with my free Instagram growth course.

If creating paid posts for social media is not something you intend on doing however, feel free to use stock photos on Instagram though.

Even better, use Canva to add your branding and/or your latest post title to it.

30-Day Blog Growth Challenge

Check out this original 30-day blog growth challenge template for Instagram and boost your blog traffic in a fun and interactive way!

This challenge offers actionable steps that take about 1 hour a day and will help you optimize your blog while writing 10 posts in 30 days!

The key is to focus on simple keywords and target topics that you know well so you can write quality blog posts quickly.

You can download the template for free now and use it to start planning.

Start the challenge by sharing it on Instagram when you’re ready to go.

To share it on Instagram, just open the app and find it in your Photos 🙂

Here are some more fun Instagram story templates.

Which of the above was your favorite idea for how to increase blog traffic?

Which terms surprised you most when you saw them on Google Search Console?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Enjoyed this post on how to increase blog traffic? Check out these related ideas: 

• How to Make Your Blog Ads More Attractive by Manually Inserting Ads
• Best Affordable Blogging & Influencer Tools
• Top 15 Feminine WordPress Blog Themes for Serious Girl Bosses