Learning how to grow your blog traffic is hard. Trust me; as a veteran blogger, I know a thing or two about it. But if you are ready to skyrocket your traffic, I have 27 tricks to increase blog traffic that will make 2024 your best blog year yet. After all, these tips helped me have the best blog year I’ve had since I started.
Past Editions: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Kate the (Almost) Great!
27 Tricks To Increase Blog Traffic You Need in 2024
I have split these tricks into a couple of different categories: The Blog Itself, Social Media, Business, and Outsourcing. While these all contribute to your blog and brand, they are separate categories. And I have to split them up somehow!
The Blog Itself
Published a new version of the post about my plugins
I had to cover this topic first as a bunch of plugins are about to be featured!
This blog post is a round-up of all of the plugins I use. I hadn’t published a new version of this one in a while; I spent a couple of years updating the original version regularly, but eventually, I got to the point where it was worth making an entirely new one.
Finally, these are only plugins for self-hosted WordPress, as that’s what I use. If you use Squarespace, for example, the exact plugins will not be available. But my hope is that they will give you an idea of plugins to look for if you see a WordPress one doing something that you like.
Check the post out here!
52 Blog Post Ideas Health Bloggers Need
I switched to Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA. This plugin “allows you to elegantly inform users that your site uses cookies and to comply with the EU cookie law GDPR regulations” (Cookie Notice). While I don’t think this is a law in the US, as I have readers across the world, I need to follow it for them.
I switched to this plugin as I was having trouble with my previous one and it’s important that I follow the law.
Blogging 101: Terms You Need To Know
Updated 404 page with most popular posts in 2022
One of the plugins I have, Smart Custom 404 error page, enables me to use a custom 404 page. A 404 page is the page you get when you type a url wrong or try to go to a deleted post and get a 404 error, notifying you that what you’re looking for isn’t found.
I use that plugin so that instead of losing traffic by people getting a general 404 error page, I can gain traffic by redirecting them to other pages.
What I did that landed this a spot in this post is I updated my 404 page with the top 20 most popular posts in 2022. I also edited it so there is an image for each post, as well as the name of the post, and both of them are linked to the post. That way, if the page has a problem loading the images or it takes a while, the reader can see the same information in a different format.
I also edited the images so they are more uniform, which looks significantly better!
Best Social Media for Bloggers: How To Manage Your Social Media
Turned on Icegram Engage – Popups, Optins, CTAs & lot more
This plugin is an “All in one solution to inspire, convert and engage your audiences. Action bars, Popup windows, Messengers, Toast notifications and more. Awesome themes and powerful rules” (Icegram Engage).
I use this plugin for my pop-up subscribe bar(s). I was using a different plugin for this, but one day it decided to mess up my website, causing the site to go down for a day.
17 Things Needed for Making a Blog Successful
Started Affiliate Marketing the PIPs Way
This is a course designed to help you, you guessed it, make money from affiliate marketing. “PIPs” stands for “Passive Income Pathways”.
This course helps find affiliates to join, how to write good blog posts for affiliate links, how to prepare your blog for success with affiliate marketing, and so much more.
To be completely, honest, I haven’t finished this course, but I have made a dent in it, and it has already improved my blog. As always, I don’t share the specific things I did as a result of the course because that is proprietary information, but Affiliate Marketing the PIPs Way is only $27, and I think it’s great for new and expert bloggers.
This is one of the courses I got through the 2023 Genius Blogger’s Toolkit, which I’ll mention several times in this post.
How To Brainstorm Blog Post Ideas: 12 Questions To Ask Yourself
Guest posts
Something that massively impacted my blog traffic this year was my abdominal surgery in May. I knew ahead of time that it would be intense, although I hadn’t anticipated how intense it actually would be, so I prepared to be unable to blog for at least a month. One way I did that was by setting up guest post blogs.
I solicited guest bloggers in the Chronic Illness Bloggers Facebook group, as I only wanted health-based posts. I gave them my criteria – word count, number of images, content, etc. – and scheduled them in my blog to be posted throughout my recovery. I also scheduled social media promotions for the posts and I let the guest posters know when the posts would be up so they could share it if they wanted to.
Getting guest posts helps because it shows search engines that your blog is updated, even when you’re not the one updating it. It helps if you have a planned time off, such as surgery, parental leave, vacation, etc. It also helps your guest posters by providing them the opportunity to show who they are to your audience.
I specifically told people that they should choose a post that demonstrated what their posts were generally like. I also told them to include a short bio about who they are and what their blog is, as well as including their social media links. This collaboration brings attention to their blog, and if they share with their audience that I published their guest post, it brings attention to my blog.
Why You Need a Blog Newsletter + What To Send Your Newsletter
Changed to the Monster Insights Popular Posts Plugin
This is part of the Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights plugin. That plugin is how I connect my blog to Google Analytics, so instead of having a plugin for popular posts and a plugin for Google Analytics, I activated this part of the plugin to show my popular posts. You choose which posts to show based on comments, shared, and curated.
Since there isn’t an option for “highest view count,” I do it by curated. I check what my most popular posts were in the last 5 or so years and type those in, as doing anything more automated requires the paid version.
Blog Traffic for Beginners: Keep Your Traffic Up This Summer
Got Jetpack Boost
This is a new plugin separate from Jetpack that helps you “Boost your WordPress site’s performance” (Jetpack Boost).
Boost gives you a score for “your website performance across both mobile and desktop devices. It gives a general idea of your sites’ overall performance” (Jetpack Boost). It also provides ways for you improve your score.
Some of the things it helps you do are: optimize critical CSS loading, defer non-essential JavaScript so your site will load quicker, and so much more.
It helps you make your site faster, easier to navigate, and more successful.
How To Improve Your Blogging Skills: 8 Skills You Need
Updated my most popular posts
There are a few reasons I did this.
One, updating posts helps you with search engines.
Two, I wanted more ways for people to share my posts, so I added new images to the posts. This made it even easier to share on Pinterest.
Three, some of the ad banners in those posts were discontinued.
Finally, one of my previously favorite plugins – Better Click to Tweet – stopped working due to everything happening with Twitter. (I will not call it anything else.) While it didn’t show readers that there was an error in my posts, paragraphs that used to be split up no longer were. But it still showed search engines that there was an error, which I didn’t want.
Learn more about my $10 ebook for health bloggers.
I started by making new images on Canva, as they have so many free templates available. I specifically worked on images optimized for Pinterest because that’s how I want people to use them. This means they are vertical, are very eye-catching, and don’t match my traditional image branding.
When I uploaded them to the posts, I used my image carousel plugin to display them at the end of my post and at a smaller size than normal. That way, they don’t make my blog load significantly slower than normal.
As mentioned, some of my banner ads in those posts had been discontinued. Not only did I replace those with new ones, but I also have joined more affiliates since I last put ads in those posts, so I replaced them with ads for some of the affiliates I’ve joined since then.
Finally, I added more CTAs (or calls to action). These included newsletter sign-ups and ads for my ebooks, both of which you’ll see a lot of in this post 😉
These are the specific posts I edited:
- 9 Arthritis Products That Help My Rheumatoid Arthritis
- The Products I Loved (And Wanted) in Grad School
- POTS and Heat Intolerance
- What Every POTS Syndrome Patient Needs for the Summer
- 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Received My Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosis
- Beginner’s Guide: Rheumatoid Arthritis Flare Up
Authentic Mental Health Blog Post Ideas That People Actually Want
Updated a few holiday posts
Similarly, I updated some holiday posts in August. While the process here is similar to the above, it’s slightly different, as is the purpose.
To get the most out of a time of year when posts are applicable – whether it be the holiday season, a specific season, or an awareness day/month – I start updating them and including them in my social media schedule 2-3 months ahead of time. The first step is always updating the posts themselves.
Whenever I update any posts, I remove old or broken parts, whether it be a widget or a link. Similarly to the previously mentioned updates, I add new ads and images to them.
What’s different, though, is that I added new ads specific to 2023. One of the sites I’m an affiliate for is Etsy, and they have a lot of ads that mention specific years. So I swapped in those ads.
If you’ve seen my gift guide posts, you’ve also likely seen the widgets I have that make it extra easy to buy a product. I’m able to update those directly from Collective Voice without editing the post itself; they tell me what products in what widgets are not for sale any longer and they offer replacements. So I can update those posts without going through my website.
12 Simple Ways for Bloggers To Get Ready for the Holidays
Was mentioned in a few articles
While I’ve been featured in different places over the years – I’ve been blogging since 2013, after all – this was the year that I was featured on some bigger sites than I have in a while. Oh, you know, like WebMD. No big deal or anything.
I ended up redoing my As Seen On page, which I first built last year. This page is super simple; it’s just the logos of places I’ve been featured and links to specific pages if applicable.
This year, I was featured on WebMD, Flowly, and HealthCentral.
Essential Social Media Tips for Bloggers
Posted holiday posts in September and October
As I mentioned, I start working on things for the holiday season in August every year as I want things to be registered on search engines and more starting in October.
In August, I published 12 Simple Ways for Bloggers To Get Ready for the Holidays. While its focus is the holiday season, it is aimed at bloggers starting work in August. It includes 4 categories of ways for bloggers to prepare for the holiday season and why they should prepare for the holiday season in August and September.
In September, I published Expert Holiday Blog Post Ideas You Need This Year. I wrote this so bloggers have time to write the posts described before it’s too late for them to be helpful. The post ideas are split into 3 categories: round-ups, advice, and affiliates, and there are over 17 ideas.
Also in September, I published Surviving the Holidays with Chronic Illness: How To Survive, Thrive, & Have a Great Time. This is aimed at chronic illness patients to plan for the season well in advance and it’s a round-up post. I asked my fellow chronic illness bloggers to send me posts they wanted to be featured or to permit me to dig through their archives and mention posts that I would find applicable. It includes posts about food, gifts, managing illnesses, and more.
Posted gift guides in November and December
I always post my gift guides on the earlier side, starting in November. I do that for a few reasons.
One reason is that Hanukkah started on December 7 this year, so I wanted to maximize my earning and blog traffic potential by not focusing on people celebrating Christmas.
Another reason is that many people like myself start shopping months before Christmas. My family was behind our normal schedule and didn’t send each other our Christmas list until November. I know; we’re real slackers.
Another reason is that I always include personalized gift ideas in my gift guides, and those can take longer to ship because of the personalization.
Finally, as I mentioned, if you want to give enough time for search engines to include your posts before the event they’re about, you need to publish them a few months before the event in question. Starting in November is the best way to do that.
What I Would Do If I Started a Blog Today
Scheduled a holiday blog post promotion for every day in November
Since I’ve been blogging since 2013, I have a LOT of blog posts for holidays. Whether they be gift guides or more general holiday posts, I have a lot. So I decided to take advantage of that.
For every day in November, I shared a holiday blog post on both Twitter and Facebook. I alternated between general holiday and gift guides and rarely posted the same post on both sites on the same day.
So if I shared a post about gluten-free recipes on Twitter on one day, on the same day I shared a gift guide on Facebook, and vice versa. On Twitter I went from recent posts to the latest posts and on Facebook I went from the latest to the most recent posts. You get the picture.
Look. The holiday season is only 2 months of 12. I have to take advantage of it!
Starting a Chronic Illness Blog: Tips for Blogging with Fatigue and Pain
Social Media
Took Next Level Pins course
This is an awesome course for new and expert bloggers alike. It helps you make pins that work for YOU and your content so you’re not relying on what works for other people. It helps you solidify your branding and focus on what works best on Pinterest for you.
Try Next Level Pins course here.
How To Be a Health Blogger: Writing Blog Posts
We all know that social media networks – especially Instagram – have an algorithm. But did you know that it includes that, if you aren’t posting Reels, Instagram won’t show your in-feed posts to people?
That’s one motivation for posting Reels. But why have I been posting them with little to no hashtags?
For one thing, hashtags aren’t the End All Be All of Instagram like they were in 2015. For another, if I’m posting Reels more for my other content to be seen, it doesn’t matter to me if tons of people aren’t seeing them. I’m posting them more for the sake of posting them than for anything else.
25 Awesome Blog Post Ideas for Beginners
First of all, you should always include an image description, either in the text or in the alt text. For everything I schedule ahead of time, I have to do it in the text rather than alt text because alt text isn’t available in my schedulers.
Image descriptions not only help low-vision followers but also help if your followers are somewhere with low internet or cell service; image descriptions mean they can still tell what you’ve posted without seeing the image.
Here’s what I’m talking about:
Now for the reason why I do this!
I noticed that the preview for those posts – without expanding to see the full post – made it harder for people to access the link to get to my blog. When it comes to getting blog traffic, you’re better served if you assume people are lazy and make it as easy as possible to get to your content.
And to be clear, when I’m talking about being “lazy,” I’m not referring to people who need an image description to access my content; I’m talking about people seeing they have to click “Read More” to get the link and consciously choosing not to do that.
How To Write a Blog Post in 10 Easy Steps + Free Blog Post Template
I send my subscribers a newsletter every Monday, and sometimes more frequently. I post new blog posts on Tuesdays, except for gift guides, which are posted on Fridays.
So I decided that when I have a new blog post, I would send it to my subscribers the following Monday.
What I do for those is add the blog post title in the subject line, with “{new post}” at the end. The body of the newsletter is generally the first paragraph of the post followed by “(Keep reading)” which is linked. Then, I include the preview image of the post, followed by the blog resources I have in almost all of my newsletters.
Here’s an example:
This way, people who aren’t all over social media still get access to my new posts. And did you see the sentence about “this is what I sent you last week”? When I have a free download that is available to everyone, whether or not they’re a subscriber, I send it to my subscribers early. And I also have free downloads that are available to my subscribers only, if you’re looking for a reason to subscribe …
Occasionally posted on Instagram directly (not using Tailwind)
This is something I did more because of my surgery than intentionally, but it did help!
As I’ve said six million times, I had major surgery in May. I knew that it would be a few weeks before I was ready to even attempt being normal, so while I wrote and prepared content for Twitter and Facebook ahead of time, I didn’t do that for Instagram.
The reason this made a difference is that the vast majority of my in-feed posts are scheduled ahead of time with Tailwind. This is necessary because I have so much happening in my life outside of my blog and advocacy work: I work ~36 hours a week, I have 2-5 doctor’s appointments a week, I have so many food sensitivities that I have to make most foods from scratch, not to mention the fact that I live with constant pain and fatigue.
But third-party apps are essential for saving time running your blog, the original app doesn’t like it if you ONLY post via third-party apps.
That’s why I figured it made sense to post on Instagram directly in the weeks following my surgery.
I ended up only posting when I had an update or reflection, which meant that I posted once a week for the first few weeks. Considering I normally post every other day, that’s a big adjustment.
After a few weeks, I was more myself to go back to my normal Instagram posting. But posting that sparingly meant that when I did post, I had something to say, and I got more interaction than I had in a while.
Your Guide to Making and Using a Media Kit as a Blogger
Did another multi-day Instagram posting challenge
Last year, I decided to spend 7 days posting every day on Instagram, called the Real Life with Chronic Illness Instagram Challenge. Well, I decided to do it again this year, although for 5 days, and I think I’m going to do it every year from here on out.
Every single day, I posted in my Instagram feed, a new Reel, and more Stories than I normally do. As you can probably gather from the title, it focused on real life with chronic illness.
While I talk a lot about chronic illness on the blog and on social media, I don’t show a lot of my real, day-to-day life, often because I’m busy dealing with it.
The reason that I did the series for a second year is it helped me anchor in my purpose for doing health advocacy in the first place: helping other people, either people like me or people who love people like me. However, it had the bonus of improving my engagement and growing my account.
As a whole, this series was really good for me. It increased account engagement (as I expected) and I got a lot of lovely messages from followers that they felt seen or that it helped them understand their loved one better.
What does this mean for you?
For one thing, doing a series connected to your blog/social media’s primary purpose can boost your engagement and followers. But for another, it can help you better connect with your purpose, which can inspire you moving forward.
Another thing is that, if you aren’t already posting a lot of one type of content on Instagram – such as in-feed posts, Stories, or Reels – it can show you if you should be. Maybe you put all your effort into in-feed posts, but posting on Reels is much more beneficial for you. Maybe you should be posting more in-feed posts. You get the idea.
You can see everything, including my Stories, in this highlight.
Here are the in-feed posts I shared:
- Why I share my health experiences
- Why don’t I “look sick”?
- I’m still wearing masks
- The most Boston chronically ill moment I’ve ever had?
- My support system
Here are the Reels I shared:
- Preparing for Medical Appointments
- About My Illnesses: Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Normal ways for physical health to impact mental health
- One of the things that majorly helped my POTS symptoms
- You’ll never regret romanticizing your life
12 Tips for New Health Bloggers
Starting posting a Reels series
One of the aspects of my job that is the hardest for me is Reels, as I’m not naturally someone inclined towards video. But I had a flash of genius and realized I should take advantage of my gazillion health problems to make a series about them!
Doing these has given me a helpful direction for making Reels. It has also helped me focus on individual conditions and explain them in-depth, or at least as in-depth as they can be in less than a minute.
This is important because a lot of my content is for people with chronic illness in general, but digging into one specific condition helps me drill down into hashtags and keywords for that specific condition.
I haven’t made Reels for all of the conditions I have yet, but I’ve done a bunch. Here are the ones published so far:
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Endometriosis
- Sjögren’s
- Asthma
- POTS Part One (Dysautonomia)
- POTS Part Two (POTS)
- Tarsal Coalition
I still need to do fibromyalgia and chronic anemia and then, so far as I don’t develop any more illnesses, I’ll be done with that series.
You can watch them all in this highlight!
Getting Smart with an Editorial Calendar for Bloggers + Free Editorial Calendar
I genuinely did not realize that I had no way to easily sign up for my newsletter until this fall; it was all “sign up and get a freebie.” I decided to rectify that and make it super easy to sign up!
50+ Incredible Free Blog Resources
Followed a bunch of people on IG
One of the things about blogging and running its social media presence is that you’re not in a silo. You will have to be aware of what’s happening in your niche and industry.
I am trying to regularly follow a bunch of people who talk about similar things I do – chronic illness, one of my specific illnesses, etc. – who have different backgrounds than me. Honestly, that’s because I already follow a lot of people similar to me; I don’t need to add another white cishet person to my following list.
As a result of my following more people, more people followed me. To be clear, it’s not why I did it. It’s important to me that the people I follow are different. I don’t want to follow 3,000 accounts of people who are exactly the same. But engaging with other people introduced them to my content.
What Blogging Platform Should I Use?
Business
Secured a trademark
So you know how my whole brand is based around “Kate the (Almost) Great”? Well, funny story … it wasn’t trademarked until this year.
I applied for it in 2022, but it takes time for things like that to move through the federal government.
But I felt like I had maybe gone about things backward: I registered an LLC and then 3 years later had a trademark. Which my whole company and presence is based around.
I’m glad I finally fixed it (and therefore protected my business), but I do wish I had done it earlier.
The Dos and Dont’s of How To Get Your Blog Noticed
Updated naming in a million locations
As a result of my trademark registration going through, I had to change my blog name in a gazillion places.
For example:
- Every social media network where my blog name was in the name of my account
- Every bio of every social media network where my blog name was
- In my blog sidebar and on any page mentioning KTAG
- Every site that connects influencers to companies who want to partner with them
- And more!
The reason this helped me is that updating all of those places showed search engines, social media networks, companies, and more that I was still active in those locations. You might think it’s a small thing, but it really isn’t.
Why I Switched to MailerLite from MailChimp for My Email Newsletter
Outsourcing
The thing about my surgery was it allowed me to try outsourcing for the first time.
My choices were either “hire someone to schedule my Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest for a month” or “don’t post on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest for a month.”
Obviously, it wasn’t much of a choice.
I initially looked for someone who could manage all of those. I ended up not finding anyone who fit what I wanted and my budget, so I hired one VA (virtual assistant) to schedule pre-written Twitter and Facebook posts and one VA for Pinterest management.
As I recovered, I felt good resuming my Twitter and Facebook post creation and scheduling. It wasn’t anything my VA did; I just have so many particulars about my posts that I decided to keep doing it myself as I recovered from surgery.
Pinterest, on the other hand …
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Pinterest is essential for your blog. It is a visual search engine and it is arguably more important than Google.
While I’m pretty good at Pinterest now, there’s so much that I don’t know because I simply don’t have time to learn about it and implement what I learn.
It was amazing how much more time I had because I handed off Pinterest management, so I decided to keep with it. And whoo boy was it the right choice!
Here is a snippet of my analytics from my host:
Normally, I lose blog traffic over the summer. But for the first year in 10 years of blogging, I gained blog traffic over the summer.
Again, I had more time to focus on the aspects of my blog that I am the best person to handle. And between my VA’s expert Pinterest management and my focus on other parts of my blog, my blog grew significantly.
Why Isn’t My Blog Getting Traffic?
Outsourced copywriting
Finally, I decided to outsource some copywriting of blog pages. These are pages that I created several years ago but needed massive updating. And since my to-do list is always growing, never shrinking, I knew that I would benefit from handing off revamping these pages.
The only one I’ve done so far is my Start Here page. My friend Victoria, who is working on a business degree and has a pretty good handle on copywriting, wrote it for me. I told her what I wanted: a genuine launch pad for people new to KTAG.
The previous version was mostly links to relevant pages and I wanted it to be more than that. I didn’t want it to be ginormous, but I didn’t want it to be a page that people regretted going to. She asked me some more follow-up questions once she started writing it, as well as posed some ideas to me.
As a whole, I was very happy with the results, and I hope to knock some more page updates with her help. You can reach her about copywriting at contact@victoriaannmeyers.com.
How I Prepared My Blog for Vacation
Get all of these tricks for blog traffic in this freebie! Happy blogging!
Like this post? Share it! Then check out:
Are You Plagiarizing on Your Blog? How You Might Be + Why It’s Bad, What Do Bloggers Do?, Setting Up a Blog for the New Year: Why & How, My Proven Method for Blogging with Limited Time
Want to be an even better blogger? Get my signature ebook for health bloggers, Take Your Blog (And Income!) to the Next Level. It’s just $10 and includes blog and social media ideas, templates, places to grow your blog and income.
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
Lots of great info here! Definitely will be reviewing this closer when I have a chance to do some traffic improvements on my blog!
Wow!!! This is a wealth of information. Pinning this for future reference. I want to dive deep into your blog. I was diagnosed with MS a couple of years ago and there’s so much I want to read here. I have a lifestyle blog so I don’t do medical posts although I do want to share my personal journey this year in order to connect with my audience and be authentic about my reality. I found you on the Facebook page & I am so glad I did. Happy New Year & thanks for the inspiration. XO- MaryJo @masterpiecesofmylife.com
I’m stoked to have found your blog! I suffer from chronic migraines, I follow a few blogs related to that, looking forward to reading more of your stuff. This article here is really comprehensive, wow! Some stuff I was aware of, but many things I was not – thank you for posting this
this is what i have been looking for. boosting traffic thanks for the info.