You have been working hard on your blog to create the best place to express your wanderlust with others. You finally feel like you are established, now it’s time to turn your attention to traffic and I’m not talking about the morning commute.
Follow these five tips to drive traffic to your blog and you’ll be raking up those hits in no time.
Content is King
Your content is why people will visit your travel blog so first you have to ensure you are creating engaging articles that would appeal to your target audience. Not only should you provide a variety of text with images, infographics and videos you also need to make sure you have considered what it is that your audience really needs.
What would entice a would-be visitor to your blog? Content will often fall into the two categories of educational or cool and funny. Which would your audience prefer?
Researching the type of content your audience will respond to is key before creating your content. You can do this by looking at Google Trends and checking out Quora to see what questions are being asked. If you’re still stumped then read this article about how to use blog topic generators.
Keywords are your friend
Don’t worry, we’re not going to get technical. There’s something about keywords and SEO that makes people get nervous, but if you want to drive traffic it has to be a part of your strategy.
Google drives billions of searches a day. When search engine optimization is done right it can help drive traffic from Google and will ensure web users get the information and answers they are looking for. But with more and more websites competing for the most popular keywords how can you make sure your voice doesn’t get lost? The answer is long-tail keywords.
What are long-tail keywords?
Long-tail keywords are search phrases of 3 or more keywords. Targeting long-tail keywords gives you a real chance of getting a top ranking in Google as they are easier to target as these phrases have less competition.
For example, maybe you’ve just written an awesome guide to backpacking around Thailand. You’d love to rank high for Thailand backpacking holidays, but you’d be competing against so many travel agencies. However, if you focused your reach to say solo backpacking in Thailand or female advice on backpacking Thailand your chance for ranking is higher.
It’s easy to come up with these long-tail keywords. Start by typing a phrase in Google and see what auto-complete comes up with. Scroll down the results for specific keywords and see if there are any other suggestions from Google. Once you have decided which long-tail keywords would work best for you, you can put them in the Google Keyword Planner to see where they rank.
You’re aiming to find a long-tail keyword that have a high search volume and a low competition. Once you can find those phrases it’s time to create engaging content around it.
Find your tribe
When you promote your blog it is essential that you engage in the current travel blogging communities that are out there and that are engaging with you.
When you promote your blog it is essential that you engage in the current travel blogging communities that are out there and that are engaging with you.
Use Google Analytics to see which websites drive the most referral traffic to your websites. Research which forums your audience visits and get active. If someone mentions needing advice such as an itinerary road trip plan for America, go ahead and point them to your post. Ensure that you don’t come off as spammy, which is important for your credibility.
Engage in discussion and blog comments when it is appropriate. Ensure that you keep your Instagram and Facebook blog updated with your latest travel destinations. You can share quality pictures from new travel locations including landscapes, exquisite meals, people, monuments, and street photographs (learn more on websites similar to https://www.topazlabs.com/learn/how-to-do-street-photography). Make everything look authentic. With enough persuasive content on social media, you can easily become a valuable member of the blogger community in no time.
Are you mobile friendly?
Going mobile friendly is the ideal way to engage a young audience. On average millennials spend nearly 3 hours a day on their mobile phone or tablet. Your blog might look perfect on a desktop but you need to make sure those stunning visuals can transfer across to a handheld device.
Another thing to consider is your speed, as visitors won’t wait around for your page to load. Have you ever checked your site speed? It couldn’t be easier. Simply enter your url at Google’s Page Speed Insight Tool. Here you’ll get a speed score as well as some handy tips on how to make your page faster.
Network
It’s important to establish good relationships with other bloggers in your field. If you’ll looking to build blog traffic having other bloggers to engage with could help this. Developing good relations will also mean pitching ideas about guest posts on each other’s blog a lot easier.
Linking to outside sources as well is important, this signals to Google that you’re not a spammer and will help you to build a good relationship with the other blogs you link to.
Driving traffic to your blog can be a daunting experience but by following these five steps you will be able to create a more engaging website that can reach a whole new level of potential.
Written by Sarah McCann, the Blog Editor at Irish Parcels a courier comparison service helping businesses of all sizes become more efficient.
