A few months into my blogging journey, I had a post published on a Tuesday at noon (as I usually do). And then…hardly any traffic came to my blog. By the end of that Tuesday, my blog had just four viewers for the whole day, two of whom were me—me visiting my blog on my phone, to make sure the post came out okay on phones, and me visiting my blog on my laptop, to make sure the blog came out okay on computers.
So, to those of you who are frustrated because their blogs are not getting as much traffic as you had hoped, I was once one of you. Therefore, I hope that my past experiences with disappointment from low traffic will be of wisdom and even encouragement to some of you.
I will start by saying this—if you’re discouraged with your readership when you’ve been blogging for 12 months or less, please be patient with yourself. Building a loyal readership takes time, and if your blog is just a few weeks or a couple months old, you have likely not blogged for long enough to have cultivated that loyal readership. For many bloggers, that sort of work takes years. So please, don’t give up when your fifth post only has four readers, with three of the readers being you and your parents.
If you have been blogging for over a year and you still see little or no traffic, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you publish your blog posts on a regular basis, at least once every other week?
- Do you have relevant images on your blog posts?
- Do your posts use tags? (And, if you’re not sure what tags are, the answer is likely no, and feel free to ask me about tags in the comments section below.)
- Do you share your posts on social media?
- Do you interact with other bloggers by commenting on and subscribing to their blogs so that you see the bloggers’ posts?
- Do you make friends and family aware of your blog?
If your answer to any of these questions is no, then you are not doing enough to grow your blog audience. In coming blog tips posts on this blog, I will talk about why doing each of these things will help you grow your blog audience.
However, even if the answers to all these questions are yes, you should see whether you are having any issues with the content of the posts themselves that may be turning readers off. Issues with posts that turn readers off or keep readers away from your blog (speaking as a reader myself) include poor grammar, bad spelling, incorrect facts, a lack of focus on your topic for your post, and a lack of direction on your blog (example: if you go from talking about basketball to talking about politics in your hometown).
Hopefully, the above paragraphs provide bloggers with some ideas on how to grow blog traffic, if someone is struggling with it. That being said, if other bloggers have additional tips on growing blog traffic, feel free to comment below!
Please note that in observance of the 4th of July, I won’t publish a post next week.
Blind Injustice 
Happy Fourth of July, Brendan!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My first year blogging, I was happy to get 4-5 views per post. At the end of the first year, I had 30 followers and I was ecstatic! Now, I have over 4,000 and get between 250-300 views on the average day, so yes, hard work and persistence do pay off, but it doesn’t happen overnight. One word about tags … WordPress recommends using a combination of categories + tags = between 11-15 in order to be ranked higher on Reader and also to gain a spot on Google search engines. And those tags should be relevant, something somebody might be searching for information about. You gave good advice here, Brendan!
LikeLiked by 9 people
Thanks for sharing your blogging success story! It does take time, as you said.
In terms of tags, hmmm…I’ve heard varying things as of late about how useful those tags are with search engines. Which is interesting because when I first started blogging, the conventional wisdom was that tags always helped when it came to the search engines. They seem to be of some use overall, though (especially in terms of following posts that are tied in with certain tags), which was why I mentioned tags.
LikeLiked by 2 people
True, there is some debate about the value of tags, but … every now and then I’ll hit on a tag that will cause my stats to shoot up for a day … a couple of months ago one of my music posts must have been tagged just right, for I had over 1,000 views on that one post alone! No method to the madness that I’ve figured out yet! But, one other thing for new bloggers … consistency! Post regularly, answer every single comment, and visit other people’s blogs as often as possible.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Interesting! I haven’t noticed anything quite that extreme (yet) in terms of tags and stats shooting up, but I’ll keep an eye on that. And yes, consistency is very important.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It happens only rarely and I’m never quite sure why, but one time I got over 1,300 view in one day! You can imagine what that makes your stats chart look like for the next 2 weeks!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is my second year going on and I have 17 followers and about 70 views per post. I follow all the tips you have mentioned above except writing the post once a week, actually, I write once a month as I am a student, and its not possible to write once a week.
Anyways all of the pieces of advice were awesome, they will surely help someone.
Good Luck 👍👍
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks! And I’m glad it sounds like following most of those tips seems to be helping you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great advice Brendan!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Although I do pay a bit of attention to my analytic since retiring my blogging (at it 12 years now) is partly my way to decompress for that day. Being a 71 year old guy in a wheelchair doesn’t allow a lot of retirement options even though I think I’m 40. This “stay in place” pandemic just high-lighted to me how important having that “someone else” to decompress from my day, and the current lack of common sense, stresses my need for that. I try to keep my blogs subject specific and if I hit the right target groups I generally get better returns on my stats however the real benefit is that I was able to “unload’, why take blood pressure pills when you can just back that pressure off of you by speaking up…
LikeLiked by 3 people
So, it sounds like your attitude about blogging is to simply not worry about stats or anything like that a whole lot. In a way, what that means is that you need not burden yourself with trying to get more traffic (or at least not burden yourself with that more than you do just using your blog for what you want to use it for).
LikeLike
One thing I do know is the “importance” of words so I wouldn’t say my “attitude about blogging is to simply not worry about stats”. A good blog can be very helpful and informative when delivered at the right time. I enjoy writing and I enjoy fact checking so with my blog I can do both. As a childhood polio survivor I often write my blog based on my personal experiences which is, in good part, why the current group of social justice activists follow me. They prefer solution based activism rather than just someone who complains a lot but never has a solution.
As I mentioned, I’m retired, I don’t really want more work despite the fact that I still do the occasional “small” contract. To me, a small contract is under $500, can be done in less than two days and requires 4 or less pages as deliverables. I usually get those as a result of someone having read something I wrote. There really is nothing “simple” in my attitude about blogging. I’m sure you are aware, as a blogger, how much work goes into it before you hit the “monitor” but even more importantly to my blog is my SEO planning. I recognize the power of blogging in the overall scheme of social media (very generational) but it does provide a venue for my voice which I hope is educational to some.
I started SEO planning as a career in 2000 (following ten years as a government policy analyst) where words do matter. It is more convenient for government to use descriptive adjectives in policy, much less directive than a verb. Anytime I approached my manager saying this wouldn’t work in the community, the standard response was “we write it, we’ll let the community inspectors apply and enforce”.
I couldn’t work in that kind of environment so I retired early. I would like to consider myself wise enough to know I have to reach the “policy makers of tomorrow” and not a handful of my generation who are more interested in the benefits and activities of “private” senior care (assisted living) than they are in social justice issues.
LikeLiked by 2 people
After 20 years working in healthcare I changed careers and went to work as a government policy analyst with a lot of statistical analyst. Stats can be used in a lot of different ways and it has been my experience that stats can be affected by ideology plus wording. As a polio survivor who has lived almost 40 years longer than I was led to believe I would live as a child my way to “de-stress” at the end of the day. One of the draw backs of aging (following a divorce 20 years ago) I retired single and not having anyone at to discuss the stresses of the day with, so I blog.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes–and for some of us, that is the purpose of blogging (blogging as journaling). I hope that blogging is a good de-stressor for you though!!!
Your observation about how stats can be affected is definitely true. In my experiences, they can be affected by what you said, as well as by what tags you use in your blog post and whether those tags line up with what people seem interested in.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Look at my post
LikeLike
When I started my fgsjr2015 blog site (and related blog sites) about six years ago, I didn’t fully understand the whole WordPress.com function and potential. My goal was simply to make my many posts internet accessible through the various search engines, and perhaps through links I could leave here and there, when relevant. But now I see how much more the blog sites are, and what can be done with them, via the WordPress.com system.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Truth be told, such was the case for me a number of years ago when I started my blog. But boy, I have learned so much since then.
LikeLiked by 2 people