How to Increase Blog Traffic for Free

I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. As an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Last Updated on June 14th, 2019

Confession time.

I rarely publish new blog posts on one of my blogs anymore. Between writing blog posts for my other blogs, writing copy + content for clients, raising three girls + just life in general, there just aren’t always enough hours in the day to get it all done.

The fact that I don’t publish new blog posts there all the time has NOT decreased the amount of traffic I get to this blog, though. In fact, it’s increased traffic.

Whaaaaaaat??????

That’s right + I’m going to share with you how I do it so you can increase the traffic that flocks to your blog/website, too.

#1 Increase Blog Traffic for Free by Focusing

There’s Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SEO, oh my! The biggest mistake mommy bloggers make is that they try to be on all of these platforms + manage all of these platforms.

All this does is leave you exhausted + wondering why none or a very small amount of traffic are trickling to your site.

Instead, pick two things to focus on + give it your all. My advice is to focus on:

• Pinterest
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

These are the two areas that are going to give you the biggest results. BONUS: Both are FREE ways to increase traffic to your blog/site. These are the two areas that I give my all + it pays off.

If you haven’t heard of her before, Ana from The She Approach is a wealth of information on increasing blog traffic + Pinterest.

#2 Try Something New to Increase Traffic to A Mommy Blog

It might sound counterproductive since I just told you to choose SEO + Pinterest + give it your all but you do have to test the waters for other avenues to attract new traffic, too.

You’ve probably heard the saying that goes something like you keep doing the same things over + over again but expect different results. This applies here.

If all you’ve been doing is writing blog posts, slapping a link on social media to it + then you hear crickets, it’s probably time for a change. Again, I would set your sights on Pinterest + SEO.

Ana from The She Approach offers you highly actionable tips on increasing blog traffic + how to use Pinterest to do this for a highly affordable price without having to spend $197 for each course on the topic.

Even if you decide not to focus on Pinterest + SEO then try something new. Try one new thing at a time so that you can run a true test to see what is working for you.

Maybe you guest post on a popular site that reaches your niche. Maybe you get quoted in a magazine article that reaches your audience. Maybe you simply add sharing buttons to your website + blog posts.

#3 Make it Easy to Go Viral

Get other mommies to do the work for you. Make sure that your website + ALL of your individual blog posts have share buttons. Mommies can share your information with other mommies.

After all, who is better at sharing than MOMS?

Moms can pin your pins to their Pinterest boards to reference later + to get other moms to pin it to their Pinterest boards. You can add these buttons for free to your website + blog so make sure they are there!

#4 Update Old Content

Once you have a lot of content on your blog or your blog has been around for a while, like one of my other blogs, you don’t always need to produce brand new content all the time. You can actually breathe new life into old content, instead, which is almost the same as creating new blog content.

Check out 10 Ways to Update Blog Posts to Increase Traffic to find out exactly what you need to do.

What can you do today to start making some changes that can attract more traffic your blog + to your business?

BONUS: If you decide to buy one of Ana’s ebooks with with my link, I’ll throw in my Mommy Business Blogging eBook FREE.

Go ahead. Grab your blog traffic ebook or your Pinterest ebook today. You know you want + NEED to increase traffic.

#5 How to Use SEO to Increase Blog Traffic Free

Use SEO to drive more traffic, they say.

You say, how in the heck do I do that? Then you freeze + do nothing, which is the worst possible marketing strategy for your blog.

As a blogger, the way you market your blog can make or break the traffic you drive to your blog. When you use the right online marketing techniques, you can drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your business.

When you use the wrong techniques, you can miss out on the traffic + then you can forget about turning the traffic into any kind of money. 

SEO is the bridge between traffic that is milling around out there on the Internet + the traffic you drive to your blog. 

Do Your SEO Homework

Before you start batch writing blog posts + before you start going through old posts to SEO ’em up, take a step back to make sure that you truly understand the types of people you are trying to attract.

The bottom line is that you have to understand these folks better than any other blogger that is offering the same type of information, products or services that you are. 

Use the free version of tools like SEMRush to help you find the keywords  your people are using to search for the information you offer (or are going to offer).

You can also consider paid search tools like Ahrefs. 

This is the foundation for creating content people want to read + that they can find because you’re using keywords that helps the content rank higher in the search engines. 

Talk about a win-win.

I am no SEO expert but I did take Mike Pearson’s Stupid Simple SEO course. He has a free version you can check out + I highly recommend it. Mike only offers his paid course a couple times a year but starting out with his free course is useful.

Place Keywords Carefully

Once upon a time, keywords were the easiest part of SEO. All you had to do was scatter it throughout your content to attract the right traffic to your blog.

In the SEO industry, this is known as keyword “stuffing.”

Google got smart a few years back + now if they catch you keyword stuffing, it can remove you from the search engines altogether.

And…nobody wants that.

Instead, use the keyword you want to rank for up to 3 times in the body of your content + then in some strategic places that I go into detail about in in the last section of this post.

External Sites Can Help You Use SEO to Drive More Traffic to a Mom Blog

Onsite SEO is when you use keywords + SEO strategies on your website + blog to attract traffic.

Offsite SEO is when you leverage external websites to rank in the search engines.

When other websites or blogs link back to your website or content these are backlinks. Backlinks from quality sources can help you climb the search engine ranks.

Guest blog posts are one of the best ways to gain backlinks to your content + rank higher in the search engines. 

Add SEO to Headlines + Sub-Headers

Creating fab content is #1 in importance. Creating that fab content also has to do with how you format it.

Formatting + SEO go hand in hand. When you’re formatting website copy or a blog post, make sure you use your keyword in the headline (H1) and in a sub-headline (H2).

For example if you’re trying to rank for “best doula in New York City,” then include this keyword phrase + variations of it in your h1 (Headline) and h2 (sub-headline) tags.

This way, you spread out the SEO juice across the page in all the right places. 

Leverage SEO to make it easier to find your blog. It’s not always about how much traffic your drive to your blog with SEO but it is all about driving high quality traffic to your blog. SEO is what helps you achieve this.