Get More Blog Views

You spend hours upon hours on your blog, why not make sure as many people as possible see it? The point of a blog is to reach readers, and there are little tricks you can do to boost your visibility and gain more readers. Also, you want to make sure your content is delivered in a way that makes sure people are actually reading what you post. Blog audiences have expectations for content, just like genre readers. In fact, thinking of blogging as a genre will help you get into the right mindset as I present the “genre norms” and visibility tricks below.

Before we begin, I’d like to introduce the term SEO, Search Engine Optimization. Don’t be intimidated. All SEO means is making your content more likely for Google and other search engines to find and present to people searching on there. The better your SEO, the more likely people will find your post on a Google search.

Now let’s get into how to get more blog views, boost visibility, and gain more readers.

Provide Value to Gain More Readers

This is the first rule of blogging: you must provide value to your reader. Give them new information, make them laugh, or share something they can relate to. This may be the biggest expectation of the blogging genre. A reader expects to get something out of that click. People won’t open content that doesn’t have anything to offer them, so be sure to have a clear focus aimed toward your particular audience. Provide value and people will forward and share your posts, growing your audience organically.

White Space is Your Friend

The next norm for this genre is that people read blogs quickly, often skimming the content. There is a lot of information online, and we are constantly bombarded with new material every single day. In order to keep your audience focused on your post and actually reading, utilize white space wherever you can. Break up long paragraphs into smaller ones and avoid adding extra fluff or asides in your post. 500-1000 words is a good target word count. You can have a longer post, as long as you break it up into digestible pieces and utilize that white space.

Use Simple Titles to Get More Blog Views

This is hard for creatives like us. We want to come up with a fun, catchy title or a poetic, metaphorical one. A blog post is not the place for that. Why? Your title should be a key phrase Google would look for in its searches. It’s even better if it’s the answer to a question someone would type in the search bar. Look at the title of this post, for example. It answers the question, “How do I get more blog views?” Think of it like Jeopardy. If you would like to include something fun or poetic, use it as a subtitle. Look how Niki Kantzios did this with her post Tags and Beats: A Great Fuel in Your Tank. Keeping your title simple will get more clicks because people will know exactly what it is about.

Include an Image to Boost Visibility

Always include an image in your post. This is a genre norm, and it also helps when sharing on social media. People are more likely to click on something with an image. When finding an image to use, be sure to look for ones that are licensed for sharing (not just pulled from Google images). Sites like Pixabay and Pexels are a great place to get free images. You can use an app like Canva to put text on top, too, if you’d like to jazz it up.

An advanced option that really boosts SEO is to use alternative text for the picture. Alternative text is hidden key words that go with the picture. It makes your picture come up on Google images. Depending on who you use as your web host, the alt text option may be in different places. In WordPress, it is on the right sidebar when the image is highlighted before being inserted into the post. For Weebly, right click on the image and open advanced options. You can always Google how to include alternative text and get more detailed instructions.

Your First Line is a Hook

Just like with writing a book, your first line matters. People often only see the first ten or so words of your opening in email or as part of the article preview on a social media link. You need to make those words count and suck in readers! Reread the first line of this post. Do you remember it pulling you in? I often write the content of posts first, then go back and write the opening afterward. Remember, people skim, and there is a lot of content out there, so you need to hook readers immediately and show them the value of your post.

As you continue with your opening, be sure to include your key phrase somewhere in the introduction. Look back at the last sentence of my opening. My main key phrase for this post is “get more blog views.” I also identified two other related phrases, “boost visibility” and “gain more readers.” See how I snuck those in? That is a big SEO strategy—including your key phrase multiple times.

Break Up Your Post with Headings (like this one)

Using headings is essential for two reasons: one, it breaks up content for the reader so they can skim; and two, it is another big SEO strategy. There is a little trick to this one. Including headings doesn’t mean pressing “enter” or “return” and putting a single line of text before you type again. It means inserting a heading as an item. WordPress has a drop down menu where you can select between paragraphs and headings. This post uses Heading 4. Weebly has a drag and drop feature for you to insert a heading. Google how to do it for your particular web host to get more help.

Speaking of Google, one of the things they scan for when crawling through your page is headings. Sneaking in your key phrases is a mega SEO booster. Find the headings where I snuck in my key phrases.

Add Links Whenever Possible

I consider these SEO bonuses. Squeezing in links optimizes your connectivity to other sites. Google likes that. There are two types of links you can include, internal and external links. Internal links go to pages on your own site. An easy way to do this is to refer to another blog post on the same topic at the end of your current post. Want to learn more about how Google works? Check out this post by Erik Deckers on Google Analytics. I also snuck in an internal link above when I was discussing post titles. An external link goes to a page that is not on your site. See where I did that in the images section? I can’t always get links in on every post, but it’s icing on the cake if I can.

In Conclusion…

It’s time sneak in your SEO phrase or phrases again in order to get more blog views, boost visibility, and grow your audience (wink). Think of it like making a sandwich: open with your key phrase, put stuff in the middle, and close with your key phrase. Stick that phrase in wherever you can like in headings and the alternative text for pictures. Google really likes that.

Following blogging genre norms and utilizing SEO strategies will give you the best chances at having more people read your posts. The more you work on it, the more quickly it will become habit, and you won’t even have to think about it. People will be flowing onto your site like a streaming river.