Erica from Littlemummy.com recently guest-posted with tips for new bloggers. For those ready to move on to the next level, here are suggestions that help you think strategically about your blog, getting more readers coming to it and comments.
Once you've mastered the basics of blogging if you're anything like me you'll become preoccupied with two things; traffic and comments.
Don't worry this phase will pass too so just embrace it! So let's tackle traffic first as without traffic there can be no comments. Traffic generally comes in three types; direct, search engine and referral.
Direct
Direct traffic is those visitors that arrive at your blog by typing in your URL. These will most likely be regular readers. You can increase your direct traffic by focusing on producing great content that readers want to return to read. It's likely that direct traffic will account for a large percentage of your comments. They are your friends, family and fans and so are more likely to be actively engaging with your content.
Search Engine
The second type of traffic is visitors landing on your blog from search engines like Google. These visitors will be searching for something specific whether it be advice, a recipe, a craft idea or information on a particular topic. You can increase your search engine traffic by employing 'SEO' techniques. This stands for 'search engine optimization' and relates to targeting certain keywords, ensuring that your photos and posts are tagged etc.
Simply using practical titles like 'how to make meringue' can go a long way. Google search rankings are based on a number of different factors though and if you're blogging as a hobby then it's not necessary to focus on it too much. If you're blogging professionally then be sure to pick a tight niche, target specific keywords and focus on increasing your PageRank. Traffic coming from search engines are unlikely to leave comments as they're usually just passing through to find whatever it is they're looking for.
Referral
The final type of traffic I'm going to cover is referral traffic. Referral traffic is made up of social media sites like facebook and twitter and blogs and websites that link to you. You can increase this type of traffic by attracting incoming links from other bloggers and promoting your posts on social media sites. This type of traffic will likely comment more than search engine traffic but less than direct traffic.
Comments
Now that you can see where readers comes from and what their purpose is it's easy to see how to increase your comments. Comments predominantly come from regular readers (direct traffic) so increase your direct traffic and you'll increase your comments. Build your community by inviting opinions, creating consistently great content and making your audience feel a part of your journey.
Which type of traffic for what?
The motives of bloggers differ. You may be blogging for emotional or social reasons. You may want to monetise your blog. Or perhaps you want to become influential so that other opportunities present themselves to you. Of course you may want all three :)
Broadly speaking if you're blogging for social/emotional reasons then you should focus on direct traffic and building your community. If you're blogging to make money then it's pure traffic that counts, and qualified (traffic that is actively looking for what you offer) traffic at that.
Search engines do a great job of sending you qualified (ish) traffic, qualify it even more by adding an offer and email list sign up to establish those that are most interested in what you have to offer. If you want to be influential then referral traffic is a good measure of this as it relates to how many bloggers are linking to you and how many people click your shared links on sites like facebook and twitter.
I hope that's been helpful for you in terms of understanding traffic and comments more. Google Analytics is the most robust and accurate package if you want to delve into this side of blogging more.
If you enjoyed this article please feel free to join my free 35 week blogging eCourse, it's already been taken by over 800 other mum bloggers.
-- Erica Douglas
Twitter - @Erica
