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Your blog post is perfect. You’ve put so much work into it. But now, there it lies. A jellyfish floating aimlessly a sea of content. It’s so transparent and small no one can even see it, especially when it’s surrounded by millions of other jellyfish (blog posts).

Find out how you can drive traffic to your blog for FREE!
It may feel like you’re writing to an empty ocean, but there are ways of making you stand out and be found.
In this article, I’ll cover:
- How to increase blog traffic and get your blog post noticed by google
- How to keep your reader’s attention
- How to promote your blog and increase blog traffic
By the end of this, I know that little floating blog post is going to be found, shared, and loved by your prospective customers.
1. How to get increase blog traffic and get your blog post noticed by Google
To get noticed by Google and increase blog traffic you need to optimize your blog for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). All that means is that before you press post, you check that your text, headings, images, meta descriptions, tags, and categories are all shouting to Google – I’m about THIS VERY SPECIFIC topic!!!! Look at me!
Let’s take a look at these in more detail.
Check your keywords
The first thing to check is your keyword usage.
Tools like the Yoast plugin for WordPress make checking your SEO and use of keywords and related keywords effortless.
But if you don’t have that, check that your keywords appear in your header, your first paragraph, some sub-headings, and throughout the text.
For example, if I have a second-hand clothes business and I want to write a blog post is about top tips for finding designer second-hand clothes. My main keyword is “second-hand clothes” and my long-tail keyword is” designer second-hand clothes.” So I need to make sure this appears in my Title and that I use “Heading 1” formatting.
H1 – Top tips for finding amazing designer second-hand clothes
I’m then going to have all my top tips as sub-headings and text beneath that.
H2 – Number 1 – Check out the online second-hand designer items on these sites
This sub-header should have the Heading 2 formatting applied.
By tagging this text as a header or subheader gives the Google bots who crawl about my website clues to what the blog post is about.
Then, just do a sense check to see if your keywords appear 4-5 times in your body text. Don’t try to stuff every single sentence with your keywords, however. You want to write as naturally as possible.
Add SEO / meta-descriptions
Before hitting publish, check that you have entered all the additional reference details.
In WordPress, you can create a “Meta Description”. This is the short preview text that appears just below your title on the search engine results page (SERP). Squarespace calls it the SEO description.
If you don’t add this information, Google will just take the first few lines of your blog post.
That’s not ideal, as that may just be an introduction. Your SEO description/meta description should sell why people should read your blog.
So make the most of this small space and convince people to read. Don’t forget to add in your keywords as well.

Add tags and categories
To help Google understand what your page is about, it’s a good idea to add a tag to it. This tag helps other people find related content across your site too.
Tags are case sensitive so double-check that you don’t have blogs tagged “designer bag” and “designer bags” as this will confuse your readers and Google bots.
Categories are your high-level groupings for your posts. These should align with your content pillars. (See How to Start Your Blog for your Business, for more about pillars).
Again check that you don’t have multiple spellings of category names as these duplicates will affect your SEO.
Write with featured snippets in mind
Google uses something called “featured snippets.”
When you ask a question, Google presents you with an answer without having to click on the website.
It’s basically a short answer to a simple question.
To get featured, however, you need to answer the question in a short sentence, video or a numbered list or table.
Below is an example of a featured snippet to the question “Where can I buy vintage dresses.” There’s a nice numbered list there, plus the enticing “more items” highlighted at the bottom.

However – featured snippets only tend to feature if your web page is already ranked in the top 10!!!!! But if you are in a niche category – with niche keywords – then definitely try optimizing your blog post for featured snippets.
Even if you aren’t in the top 10, it’s still nice to have a simple structured answer to your central question early on. I believe that will help convince the reader that you have the answer and are going to answer it in a simple, structured way.
Add internal links
Internal links are links to other content on your website, or other relevant blog posts. 4-5 links is a good number.
It’s also a way of telling Google – hey – my website has lots of useful content on it and if you follow this link you’ll find even more useful content.
Your linking enables Google bots to determine the skeleton of your site and determine how useful it will be for people searching for your particular product or service.
If you don’t have any links, your site will look like an empty vessel (or jellyfish – to continue the metaphor).

Add external links
Adding external links to your blog post is also another good way to showing your blog post’s value.
However, use with caution.
Make sure that the sites you link to are credible and not spammy in any way.
I use a Moz browser add on that tells me the Domain Authority of a website.
Domain Authority is basically a ranking mechanism used by Moz. It’s a score out of 100 that tells you how well your rank in search, but it’s also a guide to the authority of a page. If you have a high score it means lots of other web pages have linked to your page because they trust you.
If I Google “Jellyfish behavior” – I get the following Search Engine Results Pages (SERP)
The Secret Social Lives of Jellyfish | Hakai Magazine (DA 74)
Jellyfish – Wikipedia (DA 98)
The Surprising, Ancient Behavior of Jellyfish | www.caltech.edu (DA 91)

Unsurprisingly, Wikipedia has a high DA of 98.
But there are two sites which are directly related to my search query on the social behaviour of jellyfish and have good DA scores too.
Now, I’ve checked that two sites have good DA scores, I can add these external links within my blog post to these sites.
I may add a hyperlink in my blog to tell readers where to find more information on a side topic in my blog post. Or I may want to add a citation or credit using a link.
I like to add links in my blog posts because I want to give people helpful references and sites to get specific detail or tools that I think will help you.
I try to make sure that those links are of high quality and have great DA scores.
That reflected glory – helps tell Google – that my jellyfish behaviour blog post is of good quality and that I want to participate in my community.
Outbound links bring balance and authenticity to the overall SEO health of a page. If you think about it, the highest-quality articles submitted for professional reviews always reference their sources. Outbound links help achieve authority in the same way when you reference the sources used in the creation of your content.”
— Bobby Holland, founder of SEO company Bipper Media
There is also the potential that the linked site may check you out!!!!
Add alt-text to your images
One last task to complete for SEO. That’s adding alternative text to your images and graphics. Also known as ‘alt-text,’ this is text which describes your images to visually impaired people.
It also tells Google specifically what your image is about and how it is related to your keywords. Just be as explicit as possible, making sure you explain what’s in the image and any text.
In WordPress, you can upload your images and then edit the alt-text in there.
In Squarespace, you need to add the image, and then put the alt-text in the caption and then hide the caption.
It’s an important step to complete to help your blog stand out.
2. How to keep your reader’s attention
Make sure your blog is readable
Unless you have a paid proofreader, try using the Hemingway app to check your readability.
It gives you a readability score and highlights which sentences it thinks you could improve. You can edit all your text directly in this app and then copy it over to your blog publisher.
Let me put my first few paragraphs in it and see what my score is.

Let’s try and tweak that sentence highlighted in yellow and make shorter sentences.

There we go. Much stronger and snappier.
Keep your reader engaged and longer on your blog post with multimedia
Adding multimedia to your blog post can be a great way of breaking up big blocks of text and keeping your reader engaged…and entertained.
This is a terribly unfair comparison, but take a look at these two blog posts. One is from an accountancy firm and the other from Social Media Examiner.

The one on the left is just a dense block of text.
There’s only 1 image and it’s bad quality.
It’s also impossible to scan.
Social Media Examiner on the other hand punctuates its text with lots of engaging multimedia:
- Title graphics just below the hook
- Video summary
- Screenshots
- Quote graphics
Peppering your text with engaging graphics, audio, video, screenshots or quote graphics or even GIFS can help entice your reader to keep reading and spend more time on your blog post.
If they like your style, then that may convince them to read more and spend more time on your website.
If you have Google Analytics enabled, you’ll be able to see this in the “Average Time on Page.”
Ask for engagement
It’s a really simple one, but at the end of your blog post, ask your readers what they think? Do they have anything to share or that they would add?
Invite them to participate in your blog post too with their perspective or tips.
Sometimes you just have to ask.
3. How to promote your blog and increase blog traffic
Once you’ve written it, optimized it for SEO, and packed it full of engaging multimedia you are ready to promote your blog to the WORLD!
Create a blog post copy planner
For each blog post, I like to have a section at the bottom of the page where I plan out my social media copy to promote the blog.
That way I can easily reference the key points from my blog post and write my social media copy.
I also write out the exact copy I’m going to post on each social media platform and the hashtags I’m going to use.
(Click on the image below to get your free copy of this Blog Post Template & Social Media Planner)

For each platform, I may have 2 or 3 different posts with different graphics, perhaps a carousel, or a video, or a quote to showcase my blog post. One post may highlight a surprising fact, the next a great quote, or another post saying that I have a really good solution to my customer’s problem, why not check out my post for more information.
If you are using Pinterest, think about creating up to 5-10 Fresh Pins using a graphic tool like Canva for your content. Just make sure you don’t pin them all at once or you’ll be blocked for being a spammer. Use Tailwind or your social media scheduler to space them out over a couple of months.
By doing all this, I’m maximizing my blog post’s exposure across all my accounts on different days and at different times. I’m making sure that blog post is NEVER going to be lonely.
I’m also trying to ensure I get maximum engagement from my posts. So I usually try asking questions at the end, or opinions and solicit interaction.
The more engagement you get the better your content performs in the algorithm.
Use a social media scheduler
Once you have all your copywritten out, you can pop it into a social media scheduler.
There are LOADS out there to choose from.
To pick the right one, just list out your requirements first and find one that fits.
So if you need to manage multiple accounts, you may need a paid version. However, if you are a solopreneur or small business, a free account on Buffer may be enough. You can have up to 3 social media accounts linked (but you cannot post directly to Stories).
Schedulers can save you masses of time.
You can have your own blog post campaign scheduled weeks or even months in advance.
Increase blog traffic through engagement
You need people to engage with your content.
Try these tips to boost your blog post engagement:
Comment on other blog posts and link to your blog post if relevant
Answer questions related to your blog post on Quora and Reddit
Send your blog post to your local business community groups and networks to include in their newsletters or feature on their websites
Ask bloggers in your industry if you can do a guest post
Syndicate your content
After a couple of weeks, take that wonderful optimized blog post and share it with other aggregate sites, like Medium or Flipboard.
Medium is a community publishing site. If you put your blog on Medium you not only earn royalties but you open up your content to even more ‘eyes.’
If your customers are on LinkedIn, I would also add your blog post (a few weeks later) as a LinkedIn article on your profile to drive even more traffic to your blog.
Just make sure that when you do this, you add a link back to your original content. On Medium go to Advanced Settings to set a canonical link back to your original content.
Also, don’t forget to post a snippet of your blog with a link on your Google My Business Profile.
Use Pinterest to increase blog traffic
Create multiple Fresh Pin images for your blog post and add them to your relevant Pinterest Boards, Group Boards or Tailwind Communities (making sure to space out the time intervals between pinning them so you don’t appear spammy).
Every link click on a Pin image can drive people to your blog post.
If you happen to create a perfect pin, you could create some viral traffic to your blog post – for FREE!
Repurpose your blog post
Don’t then leave your blog post to fester.
You still have lots more wonderful stuff to squeeze out of it.
Try repurposing it to make more content for your audience.
You could turn it into a helpful infographic for Pinterest. Or you could turn it into a Slideshare presentation that you load onto YouTube or Vimeo.
Even better, once you have a load of useful blogs, turn it into an ebook, a webinar or a course!!!

Conclusion
Hopefully, that’s given you lots to think about there.
Bottom line. Don’t just see a blog as a writing exercise. It is so much more.
You are going to need at least 6 hours to research, drafting, creating assets, publishing, posting social content, and engaging with your audience to really give your blog post the best possible exposure.
Use my template as a guide and create a set of process steps using Trello, Asana or ClickUp to make sure you don’t miss any chance to optimize your blog post.
But above all – aim to write the BEST, most informative, or most engaging post you can and PROMOTE IT!
If you need a little help crafting your blog post or helping it reach its potential, give me a shout.
I’d love to hear how you are getting on with your blog posts? Or if there are any other tips you would add to get more people to read?
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