7 Proven Strategies to Increase Your Blog’s Traffic by 226%

Traffic Strategy #1: Kindle Select 90-Day Traffic Plan

Did you know that self-published books now represent 30%+ of e-book sales in the Amazon Kindle Store?

You used to need thousands of dollars and a contract with a large publishing house to get published. That’s changed. Anyone with an idea worth sharing can be a published author within a week and, more importantly, drive a lot of search traffic to their blog.

I won’t discuss Kindle publishing in detail here (read Copyblogger’s excellent guide instead), but I will show you how to drive targeted traffic and reach thousands of people for free when you publish via Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

Here’s how it works.

When you publish your Kindle book, you can enroll your book in the “Kindle Direct Publishing Select Program.”

That makes your book exclusive to the Kindle Store for 90 days and includes it in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, where thousands of targeted readers can borrow it for free. You can even run a free promotion for a paid ebook for 5 of those 90 days.

There are two simple ways to use your Kindle book to drive traffic to your blog or landing page:

1. Link directly to your website inside the book  and  Use a free giveaway.

Let’s first go over how you can get search engine traffic by linking directly to your blog article site.

Traffic Strategy #2: How to create viral content

Everyone wants to create viral content, but most people fail. That’s because they don’t pay attention to the sites that successfully create viral posts, day in and day out. If they did, they would learn three secrets of viral content creation to increase blog traffic.

The first secret, which isn’t really a secret, is to write great headlines. 8 out of 10 people will click to read your content if you get the headline right.

This isn’t a new concept. In fact, it’s really old (like 1927-old).

Check out this ad from the roaring 20s.

Traffic Strategy #3: How to create evergreen list posts

Evergreen list posts are another proven strategy for increasing blog search traffic. A Moz case study defines evergreen posts as “content having a continued and sustained success” and also shows that evergreen posts can generate traffic years after their original publication.

60 Second Marketer sums up the dos and don’ts of creating evergreen content in this slide:

Traffic Strategy #4: Long-tail keyword domination

Create a spreadsheet when you first start doing keyword research.

In one column, add the URL. In another, add the key phrase that associates with it.

You’ll be good to go on volume and competition, but don’t forget about creating some context. This is where long-tail keywords come in handy. It’s good for those users who are more toward the middle and bottom of the funnel that are on their way to converting.

Traffic Strategy #5: Email traffic generation

Redicati revealed that there are over 3.6 billion email accounts worldwide and that more than 247 million emails are sent every day. Email experts also claim that, on average, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you’re going to make up to $42 back.

If you don’t believe me, just look at Quick Sprout. One simple email blast helped generate $43,036 in income in less than 24 hours.

Sounds great, but don’t get too excited, because most email lists are dead and yield no search traffic results.

How can you make yours come alive?

Simple. Build a specialized or ‘elite’ list and nurture your subscribers so that they always open and act on your emails.

Why do you want a list for a “privileged minority”? Because to succeed, you don’t need everyone on your list.

In fact, do all that you can to weed out those who don’t want or need what you have to offer – you ONLY need the right people.

Let’s first talk about the benefits of building an elite email list:

• You’re collecting only targeted leads.
• When you send newsletters, the open rates will be high.
• The click-through rate will blow your mind.
• You’ll get huge word of mouth referrals.
• You can build a profitable business with less than 1,000+ elite subscribers.
• Your email subscribers will be your #1 source of qualified traffic for relevant offers.

Traffic Strategy #6: Twisted guest blogging

I talked about guest blogging as a proven way to increase traffic to your landing page and build your list. Here’s a unique approach to guest blogging (that’s why it’s “twisted”).

One blogger recorded a 203% increase in traffic growth when his guest posts were featured on high-traffic and relevant blogs.

Did he target a select group of keywords with specific long-tail keyword phrases? Yes, he did.

Did he build backlinks in order to improve rankings? No, he didn’t.

And, take a look at the traffic stats for Moosa Hemani, who guest posted on Moz.com: