How to Reach 100,000 Page Views: 10 Bloggers Share Their Secrets. Specific action steps you can take today to increase blog traffic.
Do you feel like you’ve tried everything to increase blog traffic?
Have you read tons of posts that say things like “I hit 100,000 page views” but then are super-vague on what to ACTUALLY DO?
Don’t worry. I’ve been there. And done that. I even got a T-shirt. (Okay, it was free from ConvertKit for finishing set-up…but still, I got a T-shirt).
You may have also heard big bloggers say “page views don’t matter.” Well, I’m here to contradict them. Page views DO matter up to a certain point. If you’re only getting 5K visitors per month, you’re not going to get enough newsletter subscribers. And unless you’re an affiliate superstar and completely beating all the averages, you’re not going to be making much there. And you can’t charge much for sponsored posts. Page views matter. Especially in the beginning to intermediate stages.
So, if you’re wondering how to get traffic to your website, I’m here to help. Along with my own advice, I got nine other bloggers to dish out their secrets of what has worked for them. This is a LONG post because it includes not only what has worked for us, but actions steps for you to follow.
I’m not going to tell you it’s going to happen overnight.
I’m not going to tell you it depends upon a magic pin that goes viral (I’ve never had a pin go viral…sorry). Though other bloggers in this article have.
I’m going to tell you what myself and 9 other bloggers have learned on our quest to reach the magical 100,000 page views monthly milestone.
And I’m going to give you specific action steps. Steps you can actually apply to increase blog traffic.
~~~~~This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission which helps keep my blog up and running but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Click here to read my full disclosure policy.~~~~~
Meet Our Bloggers
Jennie @ The Housewife Modern (the site you’re on now). I reached 100,000 page views (and shot over it) in December of 2019. It’s been a long, intensive journey.
Elizabeth @ www.tiredmomsupermom.com. She is a mom of 2 sharing positive discipline strategies at home from personal experiences so you can raise kind and independent children & lead a balanced family life. Her monthly page views were 117.3K for the month of December 2019.
Leslie @ https://playdatesparties.com. She has FABULOUS advice about parties and tons of free printables. She surpassed 100,000 page views in October and has continued to do so every month so far. If you’re interested in one her themed parties, you can download the printables for free, host your own party, and submit photos to her to be featured on her blog! If I had kids, I would totally be doing this.
Rachel @ https://chachingqueen.com. She makes a great income from blogging (way more than I do!) with an average of 100K page views per month.
Lisa @ https://www.gracefulabandon.com. Lisa is wife, mom of 8, and longtime blogger. You can see her at her primary site Graceful Abandon or visit her at one of her newer ventures The Moments At Home and Coffee And Keyboard.
Natasha @ https://natashalh.com. Natasha is a former classroom teacher turned WAHM and blogger. She helps busy women have healthy homes and low-media families with free printables and homemade bath and cleaning products. She blogs at The Artisan Life.
Jennifer @ https://www.jerseyfamilyfun.com. It’s a hyperlocal site for New Jersey families and families traveling to NJ.
Kristen @ moonandspoonandyum.com. Kristen Wood is a mama, photographer and recipe developer based in Flagstaff, Arizona. A vegetarian since the age of eight, she fully adopted a gluten-free diet in 2013 after seeing tremendous health improvements from doing so. When she’s not in the kitchen, she can be found roaming the forest or desert (camera in hand!).
Amy @ leapoffaithcrafting.com. She is the Cricut expert! In fact, she’s on the Cricut influencer team which was one of her dreams.
And our resident super-star. Lauren over at https://deliciouslittlebites.com She reached 100,000 page views earlier in the year (2019) and between mid November to mid December, she went a little over 300k with 265-275k being the average for each month. If I ever have a question on how to increase blog traffic, I ask Lauren. (She’s in a mastermind group with me).
content
All the blogging tips and all the strategies to increase blog traffic are useless unless you remember one fundamental point. There has to be GREAT content on your site. No so-so. Not I “whipped this up because I had a deadline.” And definitely not “my cat/kids/backyard looks cute in this picture, here’s 300 words describing the picture”.
I’ve learned from a lot of big bloggers and one thing I’ve noticed is how fabulous their content is. Fabulous as in “I wish I could download this and save it). The big bloggers themselves have emphasized the quality of the content is their number one reason for success.
I’m a member of multiple Facebook blogging groups and I see people asking for feedback all the time. I click through to their blog. And their blog posts is 300 words with no major theme. Nothing that is giving back to the readers. And they wonder why they aren’t getting traffic. They’re never going to get to 100,000 page views unless they increase the quality of their content.
Your major focus on each blog post is: “What is the reader getting out of this?”
It’s better to post 1 great article each week than to post 2 or 3 mediocre ones. You’re going for quality, not quantity.
Google and readers are requesting more long posts. Think in terms of thousands of words, not hundreds. But do NOT write words just to increase your word count. Each word should be deliberate; it should provide details and quality content to the reader.
Natasha emphasized this with her story of writing posts that weren’t geared towards her readers. And what she did to fix it. In her words: “I blogged for six years without understanding the importance of creating content that solves a problem and that people are actually looking for. I created craft tutorials that I thought were interesting and then wondered why they flopped. I participated in “Wordless Wednesday” posts and shared a single picture or two as a post every week for years. I wondered what the same handful of posts were always in my top ten and why new posts never gained any traction.
That changed in 2018 when decided not to reopen my Etsy shop after having a child. Instead, I turned my attention to finally learning SEO and trying to figure out how to write content that solves problems.
In the past 14 months, I’ve deleted or de-indexed over 600 posts. Most of these were low quality (old Wordless Wednesday posts, Etsy treasuries, etc.), but I also de-indexed posts that don’t fit my niche now and weren’t receiving much search traffic. Although I’ve written dozens of higher-quality posts during that time, which definitely accounts for some of my traffic increases, my views have consistently increased since I started removing low-quality content.”
Action steps:
1. Read “The Ultimate Guide on How to Write An Awesome Blog Post“. Comment with any and all questions you have. I WILL get back to you.
2. Apply the advice in your article to future posts.
3. If you have time, go back and re-vamp old posts with this advice.
4. Always read the top three posts for the keyword you’re trying to rank for. Then make your post BETTER. Include information they left out. Find an expert article you can reference. Be the BEST, not just one of millions of bloggers.
Know Your Niche
It may sound counter-intuitive. But to hit 100,000 page views and increase blog traffic, you may need to niche DOWN.
Both Lauren and I had expanded our niche to the point that it was unpractical to continue to produce content in so many areas. In fact, Lauren credits part of her GROWTH due to posting about FEWER topics. She picked party planning/preparation and stopped posting family life and DIY/home projects. She still enjoys those projects, but now her message is so much clearer.
Over a year ago, I had expanded into basic cooking advice and some humor. The cooking advice was getting zero interest. So while I kept the content on my website, I stopped producing new content on it. And the humor actually still gets good traffic. But it’s not the focus I want for my website. I’m dedicated to helping homemakers with recipes, free printables, and inspiration. That still leaves a LOT of areas for me to explore. But now my readers know what to expect.
Kristen also did what I did. Expanded beyond the scope of the blog and then pulled back. In her words: “I once expanded to include other things — photography & blogging resources, etc., and recently decided to niche down, scrap those and focus on recipes primarily. And did it seem to help with traffic? YES! I think it’s important to dig down to your roots and your original motivation with the blog, as well as looking at your most popular posts to really dial in on your niche.” Yep, you read that right. Focusing on FEWER categories resulted in HIGHER traffic.
Lisa also has had experience in niching down. In her words: “One of the scariest things I did as a lifestyle blogger was niche down. However, niching down is more than narrowing your topics; it’s knowing your ideal reader so well that you answer the questions she’s not even sure she’s asking…and then LOVES you for answering them! Having that kind of a focus is how you connect with your reader and gain loyal fans.
Doing this meant taking my site with nearly 1,000 posts on it and cutting it down to less than 200. Then I began adding content that was keyword researched and valuable to my readers. It was scary and somewhat painful, but truly worth it for them and for me. That’s when the growth really started to take off!” Yep, you read that right. Lisa hit 100,000 page views by DECREASING the number of posts on her site.
Action steps:
1. Go to “Blogging Binder” and sign-up for the free blogging binder.
In there is going to be a “Focus Worksheet.” It’s going to force you to focus because there is limited space. Especially focus on the “What do I blog about?” If you need more than the two lines provided for the first question, you might want to niche down.
You might also find the category brainstorming page helpful. (Actually, you should find everything helpful- especially the goal worksheets and stats trackers.)
For 6 of the 10 bloggers, Pinterest is their largest source of traffic. One of the best things is that Pinterest can be an instant/fast way to increase blog traffic. Unlike SEO, which takes time to build your ranking. Pinterest is one of the biggest reasons so many of us have reached 100,000 page views. It’s a wonderful source to increase blog traffic.
Elizabeth is a big fan of manual pinning. Lauren has a Pinterest VA. Leslie and I use Tailwind (affiliate link). Kristen has tried both Tailwind and manual (and noticed no difference). So I think you can deduce that the actual METHOD of pinning isn’t going to be the make or break factor. But HOW you pin is.
Note: If you’re not sure what Tailwind is: check out this article “Features of Tailwind You Should Be Using.” One of the best features of Tailwind is tribes. They’ve driven tons of traffic to my site.
Lauren emphasizes that improving her photography always results in an increase in traffic from Pinterest. I second that (and learned the same from Pinch of Yum and Sally’s Baking Addiction ages ago). Pinterest is a VISUAL search engine. You have to have fabulous photographs and images.
Elizabeth says: “I think the biggest thing that really helped me go from 10K to 100K was the realization that pin titles overrule keywording when it comes to LAUNCHING a pin. If a well-titled pin does well in the first few days of launching, that pin will have a better chance of catching keywords and will later start ranking for related terms.”
She also notes that she worked 10 months to get her profile well keyworded and categorized for her parenting niche. This is an important point. Your profile, boards, and pins all need to be keyword-optimized with good descriptions. Her strategy: 3-10 pins per post (depending on how well the post is doing). Elizabeth pins to all relevant boards on her account.
Leslie and I both have taken “Pinning Perfect” and follow their recommendations (mostly). We have at least 3 pins for every post (sometimes more) and try to pin to 5 of our own boards. That’s the big thing. Pinning Perfect has more tips about ratio of your content to others, how to make pins, templates, etc. But both of us pin less than Pinning Perfect recommends. We only pin about 10-20 pins per day. (As I implement the advice and update my old posts, I’ll be up in the range they recommend).
Lisa pins to a lot of boards! She creates 3 pins per post (to start with). She drips them out about 2 weeks apart and schedules them out to all relevant boards, from most specific to least. Pins go out to anywhere from 7-20 boards and this seems to be working well for her right now. She also (like all of us) goes back and creates pins for old posts.
Natasha creates 2 pins per post and posts each pin to 3-4 boards.
Amy makes 2 to 3 “pretty pins” per post and uses Tailwind to schedule them to about 15 boards (half hers, half group boards). Around Christmas, she schedules about 50 pins per day, now she’s down to about 30.
(Side note: Pinterest has said they are devaluing group boards…if you’re going to continue to use them, only keep boards that are providing you with repins, saves, and clicks).
Jennifer @ Jersey Family Fun is one who hasn’t had good luck with Pinterest. But since her site is focused exclusively on events and things to do in New Jersey, that makes sense.
Action steps:
1. Analyze your current pins. Do you need to work on your pin image quality? If so, start with this FREE graphic design mini-course. I loved it so much, I went on to purchase the full paid course. And my designs have improved at least 100%.
2. Are you making at least 3 pins for every post? If not, start to do so now. If you have time, go back and add more pins to previous posts (if the quality of the post is good).
3. Do you have enough boards? Your boards should overlap some. For example, my “Pumpkin Cake Cheesecake” is routinely pinned to: “Halloween & Pumpkin,” “Desserts to Die For,” “Everything Fall,” “The Best of Pinterest,” “Recipes to Make,” and “The Housewife Modern.” You won’t be able to do this with everything. For example, my blogging posts only get pinned to three boards…it’s just too redundant to make multiple boards dedicated to blogging content.
4. Make sure your board titles include a major keyword. Make sure all your boards have keyword heavy descriptions and hashtags (but keep the description conversational while you work in the keywords).
5. Um, I’m sure I don’t need to say this…but you all have a business Pinterest account, right? It’s required if you’re promoting your blog on Pinterest.
6. Go to Google Analytics and figure out what your most popular pins are. Create new pins for them and pin them.
SEO
For 4 of the 10 bloggers, search traffic is their highest source of traffic. Personally, approximately 60K of my 100,000 page views a month are from SEO. Another 30K from Pinterest. The rest is e-mail list, referral, Facebook, etc. (Note that I’m now over 100,000 page views, I jumped from 80K to 115K very quickly.)
But all 10 of us emphasized that SEO (search engine optimization) is important. Search traffic is great because you’re going to connect with people who want exactly what you’re posting about. If you want to increase blog traffic, you have to spend some time learning SEO.
If you have a fabulous opt-in related to that content, you can get more e-mail subscribers. A lot of new bloggers think SEO is too big or too complicated or that you need to be an expert. So the vast majority of them don’t focus on SEO AT ALL. Which means that you- being smart- are going to have a better chance of ranking once you start doing the right things.
SEO is a topic about which entire courses have been written. A few quick rules:
1) Aim for long-tail keywords with lower search volume. You’re more likely to rank.
2) If the top results for a keyword are all by major brands or universities, don’t target that keyword. You’ll never rank.
3) Go for evergreen (long-term) keywords that will be used for years. Trendy keywords = trendy traffic= temporary surge in traffic, not long-term success.
Natasha adds: “Whenever you want to write a new post, looking over the front page of results for your main keyword is incredibly helpful. This lets you see what the search engine is returning for the keyword and what they consider to be valuable and relevant. Notice if they do or don’t have a video in their post. Adding a relevant video is a great way to give your post an advantage over the competition!”
Amy notes: “I used to get about 50-100 google searches a day and now I’m up to about 3K. SEO definitely takes longer to grow.” That’s a great point! You’re not going to see SEO results right away. But keep plugging away at it. SEO is going to be a fabulous source of traffic for you. It just takes time.
I’ve got a few action steps below that will help get you started.
Action steps:
1. Read post “How to Choose Keywords.” Follow the advice in there: use a keyword search tool, Google, and Pinterest to define your long-tail keyword (and related keywords) for every single post.
2. Read the top Google results for the keyword you want to rank for. Make your post better.
3. If you can afford it, take Sticky Blogging SEO. It’s a fabulous course and I started ranking on Google within a month of finishing the course. I now rank in the top 3 for over a hundred different keywords.
4. Use Yoast.
listen to your readers
This is amazingly important! No, I’m not talking about the occasional negative comment from a hater (and yes, we’ve all gotten those. Hit delete and ignore).
Listen to the readers who are true fans. Who take the time to e-mail you. Who comment and like your Facebook posts.
Leslie took this to the next level in 2019. She says: “I let my newsletter subscribers decide on a theme for a holiday series. It wasn’t fancy, just an email that asked them to respond with a vote for one of two options. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of one of the options, so I created 12 holiday projects around that theme. Two of my three highest performing holiday posts were from that series.”
Jennifer @ Jersey Family Fun also has taken reader feedback to improve her site. She focuses heavily on Facebook because she gets so much engagement there. She also uses her newsletters to connect with readers. She maintains a very large Calendar of Events. She watches those analytics and when she sees a particular type of event doing well, she creates additional content around that or landing pages for it. Lastly, reader questions caused her expand what information she shares on the Calendar of Events.
Kristen echoes this advice: “Feel free to ask your readers questions! You will find that they love to be a part of the process and in turn you will be creating content you know will be seen and appreciated.”
Action steps:
1. If you have an e-mail list already or a Facebook page with some fans, make a survey. You can use Google Forms for free to make your survey.
Good questions to ask include:
• On a score of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest), what is your overall experience of our blog?
• What type of content would you like to see more of? [Make this an option where they can pick as many answers as they want. For example, with my blog, the options are “free printables,” “recipes,” “holiday content,” “inspiration,” and “finance information.”]
• What product/service do you wish I would create for you? (This is a FABULOUS question and I include it every year in my annual survey. I’ve gotten some great ideas. And some off the wall ones!)
• What has been your biggest struggle the last year? (It was this question that gave me the idea of creating a financial product…I had no idea my avatar has financial concerns!)
• What type of content would you like to see less of?
• What products would you be interested in purchasing? [Make this an option where they can pick as many answers as they want.]
• What is your age? [Offer age ranges]
• What is your marital status? [Offer multiple choice]
• What is your gender?
• Where do you live? [You can make it a choice by country, continent, or some other option.]
• Do you have children? If so, how old?
• What are your favorite magazines?
• What is your favorite reading genre? (Or what are your favorite books?)
• What is your opinion of {insert-issue-here}?
• What is your biggest challenge when it comes to {insert-topic-here}?
• What is one thing you want to accomplish during the next year?
• What could I do better?
• What other blogs and social media sites do you like to visit?
Don’t ask ALL of these. Try to limit your survey to 3-10 questions. And 10 is the absolute max. I try to keep my surveys at 6 or 7. If it’s too long, people aren’t going to take it.
Then create content around their answers. Did multiple people say they were struggling with getting their kids to behave (if you’re in the parenting niche)? Then create some posts around that. Not just one post. Do one for toddlers, school-age, teens, behaving at home, behaving in public, whatever you know that is specific.
E-mail is vital! If you don’t have an e-mail list, start NOW!
Lisa says: “If I could go back in time and tell my younger blogging self one thing it would be this: DON’T WAIT TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST!!! Focus on growing it and loving it well. Give your list your best stuff. It’s amazing how a well nurtured email list will sustain you through the ups and downs of traffic and algorithm shifts.”
Natasha says: “Emails I’ve sent out asking a single question without any other content or links receive my highest open and response rates. I’ve learned a lot about how people use my printables, who my audience is, and what they’re looking for with simple one or two line emails!”
I personally have an amazing list. And it generates income. Once I featured a course. Only one person bought it…but that one sale earned me $149.10. Yep, just from writing two little lines in an e-mail.
Not to mention that I increase blog traffic each time I send out a newsletter. I generally get between 700-1,500 page views per newsletter.
Action Steps:
1. Sign up for an e-mail service. I highly, highly recommend ConvertKit. In fact I wrote a post on “Why I Invested in ConvertKit When I Wasn’t Making Money.” But if it’s cost-prohibitive, then try MailerLite. It’s free up to 1,000 subscribers, though doesn’t have all the features of ConvertKit.
2. Create a FABULOUS opt-in. You can see mine: Free Printable 2020 Planner, Free Printable Budgeting Binder, and Free Printable Blogging Planner. As you can see, they are all big (they range from 15-50 pages). I have gotten an e-mail list of 12,500 (with a new 1K-2K per month) in under two years.
3. Make a landing page for your opt-in. Post your opt-in: 1) above the fold on your home page; 2) at the bottom of every post; 3) (optional) on your menu bar; 4) sidebar; 5) share with everyone you know; and 6) make pin images and share on Pinterest, Facebook, and your other social media channels.
4. Write to your subscribers every week (or every other week) to keep them in the loop.
*Note: I could go on about everything you need to do with e-mail, but it would take a week. Maybe I should write a series of posts on it? Would you be interested? Comment below!
random tips
In our quests for 100,000 page views, we’ve all learned a lot. Here are some random tips that you can use.
•Interlink with your own posts. This is a great way to get people to stay on your site. And will help Google realize your content is related, that you write on the topic often, and that they should consider you an expert. Action step: go back and interlink every post with at least one other post (if the interlinking makes sense…don’t force a link in that is completely unrelated).
• Have share buttons installed on your site. I suggest SocialPug (now Grow). Action step: if you don’t have share buttons (and NOT the ones that auto-come with WordPress), get them.
• Never stop learning. Ever. I’ve been blogging for three years and still try to learn new stuff every single week. In fact, it’s written on my planner!
• Connect with other bloggers. Actions steps:
1. Check out blogging Facebook groups. If they’re low-quality or are just share threads, drop them. But you’ll find some diamonds among all the rubble.
2. Create or join a Mastermind group.
3. Don’t waste your time on commenting on other blogs. If you really enjoy another person’s post and have something to add, comment away. But specifically spending time building up comments on other blogs is NOT going to result in increased blog traffic. And rarely results in networking.
• Return on investment. Analyze what you’re doing and whether it is resulting in traffic. For example, I spent 30 days building Twitter followers, tweeting multiple times per day (not just my content, but other’s content and engaging questions/discussions). After 30 days, I had a sum total of….drumroll….7 page views from Twitter. Clearly I was not getting a good return on investment.
On the other hand, the time spent learning SEO led to me be being on page #1 of Google for over a hundred different long-tail keywords. Action step: write down what you’re doing on your blog. Determine if it’s resulting in growth and a better blog. If not, drop it or limit time spent on it.
• You can learn a lot simply from visiting successful blogs. How are they structuring their posts? How many times a day do they post on social media? How are they providing a great user experience? You can learn a lot from OBSERVATION.
• Make use of Google Search Console to see which posts are ranking, what Google really likes from you and wants to see more of.
Wrapping It Up
Elizabeth says “I really believe anyone can have great success with getting traffic to their website as long as the research and a lot of effort is put into optimizing all the things..and there’s a lot of things to consider.”
I second that. It’s going to take time and work to increase blog traffic. Blogging is not a get-rich quick scheme. Though it has the potential to be an amazing source of income. 100,000 page views is generally the point in which you’re considered a “professional” blogger. I really don’t like that phrase. Because I’m the same blogger I was at 80,000 and 100,000 page views. It wasn’t the increased traffic that made me a professional. Though it has helped with income!
To be successful, you have to be willing to learn. How to write. Photography (or picking good stock images). SEO. Pinterest strategies. And more. But it will pay off in the end if you’re producing fabulous content and don’t give up.
Comment below with what was the best advice in this article! Also feel free to ask any questions you have.
Ed says
Why are your font color so light! It’s really difficult to read!
Jennie says
Um, it’s dark gray on a white background. Have you tried it in a different browser? I’ve never had anyone mention this before so wondering if it’s just a glitch?
Jasmeet says
Hi
Thank you for this amazing article. Just one thing I want to point out is that Pinterest has been a lot hot and cold lately. I have been trying to generate traffic using Quora which is at the moment slow but getting there.