How to get traffic to your new blog?
by Andis Klavins
In this post I will talk about 10 most common mistakes what new bloggers make.
You’re trying to sell something on your website straight away
Most of us decide to write a blog to get some income and this is right.
But … not at the start.
When you start new blog it’s like you are in the middle of big desert, if you will sit there and start selling bottles of drink no one will buy them from you, just because no one will know you even exist.
And even if some travelers will see you, they won’t buy simply because you are a stranger without any recommendations or authority and who knows if your drinks are good for the health.
Instead of trying to sell your drinks (information, tutorials etc.) in the middle of desert you might need to give them to people for free, and when they will get to know you and your products, they will come back very often and buy them from you, trust me on this.
You’re concentrating on getting traffic at the start.
Many of us think, if we will get traffic to our blog, we will earn money, so we’re working on it very seriously and we use different SEO’s or social media promoting technologies straight away from the beginning.
So you have come to a small city. You rented a small shop somewhere close by, posted advertisements all around, now sitting and waiting for customers. But they are not coming.
Why?
Just because your shop is still new and not on a main road. So instead of trying to get people visiting your shop (blog), you should go to that main street where people are and show them your stuff. Then they will get excited about what you are doing and will ask where they can get it, you can give them your address.
Following the instructions top bloggers give line in line.
You have found some successful bloggers in your niche; you have introduced yourself to their success stories and you think if you will repeat everything the same way, you will get the same results.
Wrong!
Why?
Just because they are popular, thousands of people visiting their blog every day and read the same method. And hundreds of them have given a try.
Whole internet is overloaded with this method, mostly with copy pasted parts of their example texts.
If you will get one email from someone offering you some product, you will probably have a look at it, but if you will get hundred similar letters about the same product from different people, you will probably report all of them as spam. A matter of fact!
But these methods are still goldmines.
Why?
They still give you ideas how to do your thing. Only instead of repeating it exactly how they do, think about how to do the same thing but in different way.
If they make their sandwiches with sausages, may be you can make them with cheese.
Did you get the point?
You try to show off your blog to public too early.
When we start our first blog, many of us have fears, if we are good enough, if we’re doing it right, do people like our content?
And we try to send them around, show to people to get responses and link, and traffic …
Thanks God, if your content is poor and no one wants it at that stage. If not they will come and visit your blog. And what they will see here? Empty blog may with one-two-three posts.
It’s like they come to your shop where you selling only one or two pairs of shoes. They will probably go away and not come back even when you will have hundred posts, just because they remember – it is an empty blog.
So before you show your blog to anyone except your family make sure you have at least 8-10 posts, so people can have something to choose between.
You are not updating the content in to blogs regularly.
We don’t have time.
Off course we don’t have time for this blog, it not paying our bills and we need to spend a lot of time at the side earning our living.
And we post when we can, sometimes once a week, sometimes once a month.
This is quick way for your project to die.
You have a very few readers, and you will need to make them happy now. Every single one of them.
They should be happy enough to spread word about your blog, because this is the only way how you will get new readers at this stage and start growing.
And they will be happy only if they will get something exciting from you on a regular basis.
So write at least two posts per week for the first three months and after you can cut it down little bit, when you will have a lot of authority and trust.
You are too serious.
Don’t be so serious in your posts.
Seriously 🙂
Very few people want to read scientist tractate about moon phase impact on sea snails in the Arctic.
Try to write with your own words like you tell a story to your friend.
You forget to edit your previous posts.
This is a common mistake not only for new bloggers but also for established ones too. We write posts, but after some time we realize that things have changed and this method doesn’t work anymore, or it does but … in a different way.
We don’t tend to go back to them to edit our previous posts, instead we leave them as it is. We think they are outdated so no one will read them.
Wrong!
Our posts stay in internet forever, and older posts even get more traffic then new ones due to established links and trust in search engines eyes.
But when people will read them, they will quickly realize you are telling things what don’t work anymore.
Do you think they will check when it was posted?
No, they won’t.
They just think you are not expert in this field and you will lose your authority and your readers.
You are not interacting with people.
Many new bloggers just publish their posts and share them on social networks, but never interact with their readers after that.
They think all they should do, is to write good content and people will follow them, right?
Wrong!
Very few people will follow you or even subscribe to your mail list if you will ‘not communicate with them.
When people read your post, they just read it and go to next one somewhere in the internet.
When they decide to follow someone, they want to follow a real person behind this blog and they want to get to know him.
If you will reply to every comment in your blog or mention in your social networks they will feel like they are talking to a real person and most likely will follow you and become your regular readers or even fans.
You are looking for opportunities on becoming “rich overnight”.
It’s like stealing apples from grocery shop over corner, you can do it once but can’t do it again in the same shop, otherwise you will be caught.
Exactly the same situation is with the digital world, you can steal someone’s traffic, or get tons of traffic very quick by using some spamming technologies, but it won’t stay for long, and if you don’t have lots of quality content behind your campaign, you will be caught very fast and your blog will be forgotten in peoples mind.
So much better is to build content and links slowly but with strong fundament, so they can stay for ages.
You don’t make a plan.
Blogging is pretty much like chess, you will need to plan three moves ahead.
If you will allow things to go how they intent to, you will never success.
You will need to make a written plan, pretty much about anything in the beginning.
You blog about wine, great, but if people don’t enjoy your posts you should change and blog about whisky for example.
You want to create link portfolio with 300 links from authority sites, and you will try to get them from Forbes, CNN and BBC, but if you will fail you need to replace them from Fox and Independent for example.
So write down how exactly you’re planning to achieve it and what will your plan B be, if you fail in any point.
Happy blogging!