“How We Increased Organic Blog Traffic by 203.5% in Less Than 3 Months – And You Can Too” plus 1 more

How We Increased Organic Blog Traffic by 203.5% in Less Than 3 Months – And You Can Too

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 09:39 AM PDT

This is a guest contribution by Kristina Allen, marketing consultant for AdEspresso.

Over the past couple of months my team at AdEspresso has increased our organic blog traffic by 203.5% and I'm going to share the secret of exactly how we did it!

Step 1: Conduct Keyword Research

When we first started working on driving (more) organic traffic to the AdEspresso blog our team began with keyword research. We used SEOmoz but you can easily get a keyword list using Google's free Keyword Research Tool.

When using Google's keyword tool simply type in a couple of relevant key phrases and then Google will search for related keyword ideas along with their search volume.

Because Facebook advertising is a really popular topic the overall keyword list is pretty gigantic so I immediately sorted the list by highest number of searches.

I then went through and highlighted in green the keywords that I thought I could easily turn into blog post topics. (I also highlighted in yellow keywords that I thought would be good for us to try and use as anchor text in link backs to our site – but that is for a different project).

The keywords I did not highlight were skipped over because they were either too generic or would not have made a good blog post topic for us. For example, "facebook ads coupon" was skipped over because we do not have any Facebook ad coupons to give away and a blog post about Facebook ad coupons wouldn't have helped us drive the right people to our blog.

Most people who use Facebook ad coupons are first-time social advertisers who are looking to experiment with Facebook ads. Our software is made for Facebook advertisers who know what they're doing and are looking for an easier way to create ads and also deeper insights into the performance of their campaigns.

It's really important to select your keywords carefully because the goal of increased traffic shouldn't be about getting a bunch of people to visit your site for a few seconds. It should be about driving high quality traffic.

Step 2: Include Keywords in the Post URL

Once you have your list of keywords it's time to get to writing! Simply start going down the list and turning keyword ideas into blog post topics.

For example, one of the keyword phrases we researched and deemed appropriate for our blog was "facebook ads on mobile" since AdEspresso can help you create and analyze mobile Facebook ad campaigns. With the keyword phrase "Facebook ads on mobile" in mind I wrote a post called 5 Tips for Rocking Facebook Ads on Mobile Devices and published it to the AdEspresso blog. I made sure to include the keyword phrase in the URL of the blog post like this for SEO purposes:

Another keyword phrase we want to rank for is "Facebook Suggested Posts" I wrote a post called How to Run Suggested Posts Like the Pros. The URL for the post includes the keyword phrase of course:

However, you will notice the title of the post does not include the word Facebook in it at all. That is because I thought How to Run Facebook Suggested Posts Like the Pros didn't sound quite right. However, the body copy does include the word Facebook quite a bit and we are still able to rank for the phrase in Google:

This leads us nicely into step three…

Step 3: Include Keywords in the Post

When you're putting together your post be sure to include your targeted keyword phrase in body copy of your blog post frequently but naturally. Do not keyword stuff your post as this will likely get your penalized by Google and will definitely turn away intelligent readers.

What I do is write a post draft without thinking about adding the keyword phrase in at all. This allows me to focus on creating high quality content without worrying about the technicalities that come along with SEO.

After the post is finished I go back and see if and where I included the keyword phrase naturally. Usually I've included it enough times naturally that I do not need to make any edits. Sometimes I'll have words flipped around a little bit and just need to make small adjustments with phrasing.

For example, using the keyword phrase "Facebook suggested post" I might have written "when putting together a suggested post on Facebook you should…" in my article. If so, I'll just adjust it so that it reads, "A Facebook suggested post should include…" allowing me to get my target keywords in while saying essentially the same thing in a natural way.

Step 4: Stick to a Posting Schedule

One of the top rules for building up readership for any blog is to stick to a posting schedule. Whether you're running a business blog or a personal one, frequency + high quality content will get you far.

Sometimes the hardest part of sticking to a schedule is wondering what you should blog about next – that's the beauty of having a keyword list. You'll never run out of great ideas! You can quickly go down your list and find a topic that people are actively searching for and help them out!

If you have a business blog, research shows that the more often you post the better your customer acquisition results will be:

Since we started actively trying to increase organic traffic to our blog we have been posting twice per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. While we would love to post more frequently, we're a small startup team and we all have a million things to do. Posting twice per week is a schedule that we know we can manage and stick to, so that's what we're doing for now – and the results are positive!

Step 5: Understand that Growth May Be a Slow Process

When it comes to increasing organic traffic for your blog, understand that it may be a slow process. Unlike posts that go viral through social media channels, organic traffic takes time to build; however, it is often the gift that keeps on giving for years down the road.

A post that goes viral will likely send you a lot of traffic over the course of a day, week or even a month and then die down. A post that drives organic traffic will continue to send you a steady stream of visitors over the long haul. That's precisely why organic traffic is highly important for any blog. While you are building up your organic traffic you should also be sharing your posts via social media and bookmarking sites for the biggest boost.

And there you have it, the step-by-step process we followed to grow our organic blog traffic by 203.5%! We'll continue to follow this process (and stay up to date with trends in SEO) to provide high quality content for our blog readers on topics we know they're searching for information about.

This post was written by Kristina Allen, marketing consultant for AdEspresso, a Facebook ads manager that allows you to quickly create and a/b test Facebook ads for maximum campaign results!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How We Increased Organic Blog Traffic by 203.5% in Less Than 3 Months – And You Can Too

9 Ways to Keep You Fresh, Inspired and Creative

Posted: 04 Jul 2013 09:03 AM PDT

Image by Rares Dutu

How do you keep yourself fresh, inspired and creative as a blogger?

I was asked variations of this question three times this week, so thought I’d put my mind to giving a public answer.

There are certainly times when I don’t feel overly ‘fresh’, ‘inspired’ or ‘creative’. However, I guess over the last 10 years of blogging I’ve begun to develop some rhythms and habits that enable me to keep consistently create content on a daily basis.

One of the things that I’ve intuitively done over the last few years is to put aside time each week for activities that help me keep fresh. These activities aren’t specific to blogging and I suspect they might be helpful for people working in many kinds of jobs – particularly those where you need to develop ideas and be creative.

Here’s a quick summary of the types of activities I try to include in my life each week:

1. Inspiration

When I’m not inspired, I find it very difficult to be creative or generate ideas.So every week, I try to build in moments to get in touch with my dreams. I put myself in places where I’m likely to be inspired. This includes everything from spending time with inspirational people, watching inspirational videos (I’m a TED addict), attending inspirational events, watching great movies and reading inspiring books.

2. Preparation

If I’m working on a big project (like a mega blog post, a presentation, or an eBook) I quite often feel quite overwhelmed with the process.

I find I can take some of the pressure off by setting aside ‘preparation’ time for the task of creating the project. I set aside time to research, read on the topic, talk to others and plan out how to go about getting the project done. This might sound a little like procrastination but I find by setting aside time for ‘preparation’, the quality of what I actually ‘create’ (next step) is much higher.

3. Creation

Each week I put aside significant time to ‘create’. For me, the creation is largely around creating content (blog posts, videos, eBooks, presentations) and because of the publication schedule I’m on creation needs to happen on a daily basis. I publish three blog posts per day across my blogs and I need to keep that schedule up.

For me, creation time is usually in the mornings. My Golden Hours are from 9-11am which is a time I protect from intrusions.

4. Completion

A few years ago, I went through a stage of creating a lot of content that would then sit unfinished for weeks, even months. I would get distracted by new things or lose inspiration along the way.

So I’ve started to build time to ‘complete’ into my week and I tackled the things that fall into this category. I often do these ‘completing’ tasks in the afternoons or evenings.

5. Interaction

I’m an introvert. I love people but they suck energy out of me so I naturally feel drawn to spending time alone. This works quite well for me as a blogger as I don’t need to be around people to blog.

However… while being around people takes energy from me I know that there are many benefits of spending time with other people. Sometimes my best ideas emerge in conversation and to grow my business, I’ve needed to bring in others to complement my skills and help me scale. Every Friday, I work in a friend’s office (it’s more of a man cave). Three to four of us (mainly people who are in my team) work side by side on that day. We spend some time working together in a meeting, but also time working on our own projects.

I love these days and often find amazing ideas flow out of them!

6. Mindless Activity

I recently asked my Twitter followers where they get their best ideas. I was amazed how many people said two things – ‘in the shower’ and ‘while walking/exercising’. I’m exactly the same.

I often get light bulb moments while I’m doing some kind of mindless activity. For me, it can be while I walk, shower or weed the garden! I noticed this several years ago so decided to punctuate each day with mindless activities. Most days, I take 15 minute walks 2-3 times a day. I also moved my shower from first thing in the morning to mid-morning.

I don’t schedule these activities for specific times each day but rather once I end something I’m working on, I will just do them then before jumping into the next activity.

7. Play

This one has a little overlap with some of the other activities. I like to set aside a little time each day to ‘play’. By play I mean numerous things including playing with ideas and problems (I journal, mind map and daydream) and playing with my kids (I often find doing lego or doing something creative with my boys stimulates ideas but is also fun time with the kids). I’d also slip photography into this category too.

Having a creative outlet that is not about creating something for the blog gives me a lot of energy.

8. Rest

Five years ago I was proud to say that I worked 60-70 hours a week on my blogging. While I often spoke about work/life balance, I was enjoying my work and so I worked hard – too hard. Unfortunately, I was setting myself up for a fall and came to a point where my heath suffered as I began to suffer from blogger burnout.

These days I not only teach work/life balance but practice it. I take more regular vacations, rarely work on the weekends and schedule a couple of hours off every Wednesday afternoon. I still work hard but I also prioritise rest and I see the positive impact it has upon my blogging (and life).

9. Self Improvement

Lastly, each week I attempt to do something that is not so much about creating content or improves my business but which improves me in some way.

Often we look at the early years of our life when we attend school or university as the ‘educational’ period of our life but I’ve found that if I’m not learning, not stretching myself or not working on doing something to improve skills or knowledge then I often become stagnant. As a result I like to take on mini-projects to work on who I am.

These might range from the fun, I recently took a Thai Cooking class, through to more serious and related to my work like reading a book, taking a course or attending a conference related to my work.

I’d love to know, what do you do to keep yourself fresh, inspired and creative?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

9 Ways to Keep You Fresh, Inspired and Creative