Gain Traffic to your Blog

So you finally put on your wings and took the leap of faith! You started your blog! Excellent! You are on your way to an exciting adventure. 

If you have read my post Start a Blog, you have gotten a lot of direction with setting up the blog on the back end. If you haven’t read it and you’re floundering a little bit, click that link and see if your questions have been answered. If not, please feel free to ask a question either here, or at that post, in the comments section.

Hello? Anybody There?

Ok, so your blog is set up, you’ve written a few posts, you’ve added some eye-catching photos, you’ve added some links to your Etsy page (if that’s part of your monetizing strategy)…and you wonder if anybody is seeing your masterpiece. 

We have a two-fold situation. How do you get your target market (audience) to see your blog. And, how do you know if anybody is visiting your pages. And if so, which pages are they viewing? 

Getting your blog seen is a deeper, longer conversation, so let me answer the second part of that equation first. 

Free Stats!

It’s important to know your traffic stats. This gives you a lot of real-time data about how many visitors you have, which pages they are visiting, how much time they spend on your site, if they click on your various links (affiliates, ads, Etsy, etc), if they are returning, and so much more. All of this is valuable information to help you see what is working and what might need tweaking.

It’s easy and free to get access to this data. I have used a company called StatCounter for previous blogs and also for CrazyCoolCrochet.com. You get so much detailed data for free! They are not an affiliate, so I’m not trying to sell anything. 😉 

Why we need Traffic

Aside from stroking our egos and getting validation for our awesome writing, cool website design and killer products/service, we need good traffic numbers to attract the better advertisers, sponsors, affiliate revenue, our own product sales, and on and on.

The reason so many of today’s bloggers are making such big money, is because they have mastered the art and science of getting huge traffic to their blogs.

To be clear, you don’t need massive traffic to make good money. But it certainly takes you to the next level. 

I started earning revenue during the first 3 weeks of going live even though I only had maybe 30 visitors a day. Those initial earnings were from my Etsy sales. But, the majority of my Etsy traffic was from this blog. It all ties in. By design! Multiple streams of income at work!

I also started earning Google Adsense revenue right away. Just a few bucks, but that will grow as traffic grows. EDIT: By month 3 CrazyCoolCrochet.com was earning around $100 a month in Google Adsense. This is really good for such a new blog! All of the processes discussed in the Month 2 Income Report REALLY work!

I have kind of a love/hate relationship with Google Adsense. Their ads can be so intrusive (so sorry readers!) and I don’t have a lot of control over where they are placed. But they are easy to work with and easy to be approved with a new blog. You don’t need much (any?) traffic to be approved either. So that makes up for the intrusive ads I guess.

There are several advertising programs outside of Google Adsense that generate huge revenue. Most of the big bloggers (in terms of monthly revenue) apply to companies like Mediavine as soon as they reach 30,000 monthly page views. That is the minimum number of page views you can have to be able to apply. 

Yes, that’s a lot of traffic (but certainly attainable after the first few months), but in return Mediavine pays out huge returns. The aforementioned big bloggers usually double (and then some) what they were earning from Google ads. Oh, and by the way…Mediavne requires that you be in good standing with Google Adsense. So there you go. You have to use Google Adsense if you eventually want to graduate to the big money.

How to get Traffic

And here we are. THE traffic question of the century! How do we get the traffic to our blog?

Luckily for us, social media makes this SO much easier! Thank you Pinterest. Thank you Facebook (never thought I’d say that). Thank you Twitter. Thank you Instagram. If not for all of you, bloggers would be up a creek!

It is agreed by all whose opinions on this topic matter…Pinterest is the mother lode of traffic for bloggers. But particularly so for bloggers in the handcrafted arena.

Instagram

As of this writing, Instagram is the current social media darling. But I have personally found that it is rare to have an Instagram viewer leave your photo (even if they liked and commented), to back out and go all the way to your profile to click on your link. Uhg! People are used to clicking and landing where they want to go. But, it doesn’t hurt to develop a presence on the hottest social media site around…so we may as well join in. Hopefully the Instagram gods will someday allow photos to be clickable.

Pinterest

On the other hand, with Pinterest, depending on how you created your “pin” (photo/graphic), you might click on the pin and be taken straight to the pinner’s blog post or Etsy listing. Or you might click on a pin and it goes to the pin’s description with your blog link easily accessed.

Pinterest pins also live in infamy to infinity and beyond! As long as your pin’s keywords (more detail on all of this later) are being searched for, your associated pins remain accessible. You get a lot of bang for your buck! (Of course you don’t actually have to pay for anything.)

However, you can pay to promote pins. I tried this early on to see how it affected traffic. This blog was only about 3 weeks old and had maybe 30 visitors a day. I paid around $59 to have one of my pins (see pin below) promoted for 2 days. Traffic skyrocketed! I got around 900 visitors. Yeow! And then it plummeted again and I was so depressed. 🙁  The good news is that that pin was saved (re-pinned) almost 300 times and still brings in traffic! So, yes, it can be worth it to pay to promote a pin. 

Facebook

A lot of bloggers also set up business Facebook pages. I haven’t done that (yet). I previously had a FB page for another blog and didn’t have much success with it. So I”m gun shy. Of course if you happen to have boatloads of personal FB ‘friends’, then it’s a no brainer. Set yourself up with a FB for your blog!

Twitter

Twitter is almost useless for blogs such as CrazyCoolCrochet. With yet another blog, I did have a Twitter account. It didn’t help my blog at all, but it did keep me connected with other bloggers in my niche (business startups).

Why is Twitter useless (in my opinion)? Tweets are here today and gone tomorrow. Yes, tweets are still there, but they pretty much disappear the instant you post. They get pushed down the line instantly. You can use clickable links though, so depending on your blog it could work for you.

More Pinterest 

Pinterest is so important to our overall revenue strategy it deserves a blog post all its own. Click on this link to read much more must have detail about how to Monetize your Blog with Pinterest.

For now, START PINNING! It can take some time to have your pins circulate so start now. And be sure you set up a business account (learn how HERE)! If you already have a personal account, you can easily switch it to business and not lose anything. (More on that can be found here) as you might not want to mix business with personal here.)

You can find my Pinterest pages here (please Follow me!): CrazyCoolCrochet

I’m going to post 3 examples of my pins that all go to the same blog post but attract different audiences.

The first one is designed for a male audience. The middle one, female. And the 3rd for the curious. Creating eye-catching pins is paramount to success. Your pins are competing with a whole bunch of other pins. The long, colorful pins with photos or graphics and great text get the most attention. I decided to veer very far from the norm with that 3rd pin above because it will stand out even more. It is SO different that you can’t help but stop and look. Pretty darned clever eh?

A lot more detail on Pinterest tricks and tips HERE!