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3 Growth Hacking Strategies for Bloggers to Quadruple Their Blog Traffic without SEO

Posted By Guest Blogger 17th of August 2015 General 0 Comments

This is a guest contribution from Anil Agarwal.

Who else wants more blog traffic?

Hands down, everyone wants it.

Unfortunately getting traffic to a blog is not easy. Every single visitor counts.

One of the hardest things for most bloggers is boosting their blog traffic. If you have a fairly new blog, it’s definitely a daunting task.

The #1 reason most bloggers quit is because they don’t see any growth in their traffic.

If you’re one among them, this article is for you! We’ll discuss a few growth-hacking tips to grow your blog traffic without actually doing any SEO. Are you ready?

What is growth hacking all about?

Growth hacking is the trending keyword phrase these days. It was first introduced by startup marketer Sean Ellis to redefine the startup marketing role.

Growth hacking is a method of achieving incredible growth by using non-traditional strategies.

In simple terms, growth hacking means driving measurable results by focusing on what WORKS! It is similar to 80-20 rule, identifying the 20% of your activities that will result in 80% of the gain. When you apply growth hacking, you’ll get more results in less time by focusing on the things that matter.

So how can you use growth hacking techniques to increase your overall traffic?

1. Reverse engineer your content creation

The simplest way to increase your blog traffic is to create more content, right?

Wrong.

Posting articles daily is simply not going to help. You need to write content that attracts more links, shares and comments from others. How can you do that?

You simply need to reverse engineer your content creation strategy. Instead of writing posts without thinking twice, it’s better to create content that is proven to work.

This is also known as skyscraper technique, it was the term coined by Brian Dean from Backlinko. And it is one of the most effective ways to increase your overall blog traffic.

Skyscraper technique involves in three steps:

  1. Finding link-worthy content
  2. Making it even better than the competition
  3. Reaching to the right people to get more buzz

Let’s discuss these three steps now.

Step 1: Find top performing content in your niche

I know that finding profitable keywords isn’t easy. But you can use tools like Buzzsumo for finding share-worthy content in your industry. Whether you know it or not, Buzzsumo is one of the best tools out there to help you come up with amazing content ideas. You can discover a lot of high-performing blog posts, videos, Infographics, etc using Buzzsumo.

Head over to Buzzsumo and enter the keyword phrases you want.

For instance, my favorite blog topic is “SEO marketing” and here it how to use Buzzsumo to find content that gets more shares and links.

seo

Instantly after entering your keyword you’re not only provided with lots of articles, but it also shows you the total number of shares including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.

In the above scenario, we’re came up with excellent post ideas like “17 SEO Myths”, “15 SEO Best Practices” etc. All of these are great blog post ideas and you can definitely improve them by providing more data, creating Infographics, or doing expert roundups, etc.

On the left side, it also has some filters to help you find what type of content form you want (including articles, Infographics, videos etc).

Buzzsumo is not only free (although it has premium version) but it is amazing way to find high quality content in your industry.

Step 2: Make it even better (create timeless content around it)

Once you have a list of great content ideas that are proven to bring you results, you now need to make it even better.

One of the simplest ways to get more backlinks, shares and comments on your blog posts is to making your content a “one-stop source”. How can you do that?

If you’re posting textual format of contents on your blog, write detailed posts.

In one of his blog posts, Neil Patel discovered an “average content length for a web page that ranks in the top 10 results for any keyword on Google has at least 2,000 words.”

seo1

Similarly, if you’re creating videos or Infographics, make them better by creating an appealing design. In summary, add something extra to the high performing content in your niche and make it epic.

Step 3: Outreach to the right people to get more buzz

Once you have epic content on your blog, it’s now time to reaching out to the right people in your niche.

How can you find out the people who are interested in promoting your content?

You can again use Buzzsumo. Here’s how. When you enter a keyword on Buzzsumo, it shows you who linked to the top content including the social sharers.

seo2

Now, reach out to them. Connect them on twitter, find out their emails and start creating more buzz. You can also use tools like Majestic SEO, Open Site Explorer, ahrefs etc to find all of the links pointing to your competitor’s content. And when you reach out to them after creating a link worthy post, you’ll have more chances of getting links to your sites too by asking them without being pushy.

#2. Using content upgrades to boost your email list

Whether you agree it or not, email list is golden. Having a list of hungry email subscribers is an asset for every blogger.

Having an email list will not only increase your blog traffic but it will also boost your sales and trust with the readers. Email list is the second biggest traffic source for Neil Patel’s QuickSprout blog. And for most bloggers the same is true – email list is their top traffic source!

So why not invest your time wisely on building an email list instead of focusing on SEO? Instead of trying all the list building strategies under the sun, it’s better to go for one crazy idea that increases your list. Content upgrade is one such list building strategy that helps your boost your subscribers quickly.

What is a content upgrade?

A content upgrade is an extra bonus that is extremely relevant to your post topic.

For instance, if you’ve a popular blog post titled “10 ways to supercharge your SEO”, you could create something like “on-page SEO checklist” to use as a content upgrade to boost your email list.

A content upgrade looks something like this:

seo3

How using content upgrades can triple your email list?

Content upgrades are usually given away for free to the blog visitors in exchange of their emails.

Content upgrades are extremely specific. Hence, they convert really well. If you want to convert normal website visitors into subscribers, start using content upgrades.

Do they work? Yes, they do.

Brian Dean gives away a post-specific resource on one of his most popular posts.

Did you know that he got a whopping 785% increase in conversions (compared to the previous month).

seo4

That’s A LOT, right? That’s the reason why you need to start focusing on creating content upgrades for your top performing posts or pages.

So how to create content upgrades to increase your overall email list and traffic?

First off, find out five top-performing posts on your blog.

Create a list of posts that got more comments and shares. Also use Google Analytics to find out the top pages that are sending you more traffic from search engines.

Once you’ve the list of popular contents on your blog, you now need to create content upgrades. You can create a bonus, checklist, video or anything that adds more value to the current post.

And you can use tools like LeadPages, SumoMe etc to create content upgrades on your blog posts or pages to grab more email subscribers.

#3. Create an “after post” checklist to get more visibility

Did you know that you’ll get better results when you spend most of your time on promoting your content rather than creating it? Blog post promotion is to get more visibility on your blog posts.

If you’ve creating a great blog post, instead of sitting back and waiting for someone to find your content – it’s way better to create a content promoting routine.

After you publish a blog post, make sure to do the following:

Promoting on social media: Social media is the new SEO. If you want to boost your overall website traffic, be active on social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ etc. Almost every blogger on earth use these social media networks, so you’ll get more exposure for your blog posts if they have attention grabbing headlines.

Posting to forums: Find out the relevant forums in your niche and connect with the other bloggers. Share and comment on their links, and whenever you have posted something on your blog, make sure to submit your links. And ask for a feedback from other bloggers. This is the surefire way to get more visibility on your posts.

Submit to social bookmarking sites: Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious – all are social bookmarking sites that have huge readers. If your post does well on these sites, take it for granted that your overall search traffic will also increase overtime.

Leave comments on other blogs: Want to get more comments on your blog posts? Then, start leaving thoughtful comments on other blogs that are similar to your blog’s topic. Use their names while leaving comments and ask intelligent questions to spread your name across the blogosphere.

Here’s a great blog post checklist written by Pat Flynn, although it was written a couple of years ago – but it’s still worth following.

Spend 2/3 time on promoting “others” stuff and spend the remaining 1/3rd time on promoting your stuff. Why?

Everyone wants more shares, likes, tweets and comments. But most people don’t spend much time on promoting others. What happens if you spend most of your time on promoting others stuff instead of yours? Bang!!

You’ll get more attention from the bloggers. You’re also helping the community by promoting quality stuff on your networks like Facebook and twitter. Eventually, you’ll get more visibility, followers and shares on your own posts too.

So where do you go next?

Then see the results and watch your website traffic grow. Increasing traffic to a blog or website is not a rocket science. By following what works, you can dramatically boost traffic to your blog posts.

Check out the growth hack techniques mentioned above, pick anyone of them and start implementing.

The best part about using growth hacking to your content marketing strategy is this: you’ll get results really fast. They don’t take months to see the results. You’ll see the rewards within days or weeks.

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and apply growth hacking techniques to improve your blog traffic.

Do you have any more strategies that will increase website traffic without doing any SEO? Let me know if you’ve any more insightful growth hacking tips in the comments.

Anil Agarwal is the guy behind Bloggers Passion blog where he is helping readers in building their first professional blog and at the same time, helping them build high quality traffic to their blogs.

About Guest Blogger
This post was written by a guest contributor. Please see their details in the post above.
Comments
  1. This is a very awesome post Anil,
    Indeed, the phrase Growth Hacking has really been flying all over the internet recently and its good. It only shows that its a great word and method.

    I agree with all the growth hacking tips you mentioned here too because they’ve already proven to work for so many people.

    The skyscraper technique is really a very awesome and effective way of creating engaging contents that your audience will crave for and I’m already set to try it ASAP.

    Another of your tip that I’m also trying to start implementing is using Content Upgrades. This is also working and I was looking for a good tool that will help me with that before I now saw a new plugin called: Content Upgrade Pro, that’s what I might eventually go for because its a one time payment. I hate those tools that offers a monthly billing like Lead pages and Sumome. Even though I know they’re good but, I’ll rather pay once at least, for now.

    Thanks for sharing Anil.

    • So true Theodore. More and more marketers are now realizing the importance of growth hacking to grow their online businesses.

      I’ve been lately trying content upgrades, and they work like a charm if you want to build a laser focused subscribers..

  2. Todd Lohenry says: 08/17/2015 at 2:07 am

    I think these are all excellent ideas provided you’re posting on a platform that is at least open to seo if not already optimized…

  3. I feel like the outreach is the most important (and often overlooked) part of promoting your content. It can make a huge difference in how your blog grows – even with spectacular content.

    • Hi Eric,

      Yea, I’ve been reaching out to other bloggers via emails for a long time whenever I post something great on my blog. And I’m getting great results. If you’re blogging for a while, you already know the fact that promotion is the king :)

  4. Hi Anil,

    I LOVE the Pat Flynn advice! I write this on my blog and in my eBooks constantly; like beating a dead horse but it’s the easiest way to grow your blog. Promote others aggressively. Give freely, receive easily. I promote folks freely on Triberr and through other social sites, and I never lack for blog traffic. Bloggers love free givers. Bloggers love folks who give up their streams. If you really want to make a serious impact online promote other folks aggressively to generate some awesome karmic brownie points ;)

    Thanks for sharing!

    Ryan

    • Hi Ryan,

      Glad to see your comment on my first guest post on ProBlogger.

      Pat Flynn’s strategies work like a charm. He always shares what has worked for him. Giving away unlimited stuff to your audience is the right way to grow your blog in the long run.

      Thanks for stopping by!

  5. Great stuff! Thanks for sharing.

    There’s a lot to take in here, so I’m going to start with number 1, Reverse Engineering Content Creation, and come back to see where to go from there.

    I’ve tried to get ideas from other bloggers in the past but your process here really breaks it down into a process that can be replicated. I must also check out Buzzsumo.

    Thanks again!

    • Hi Keiran,

      That works!

      I’ve been using Brian’s Skyscraper technique for several months now, and I’m seeing amazing results in terms of more shares, links and sales :)

      Buzzsumo is a magical tool that helps you find unlimited PROVEN blog post ideas to go viral. Let me know if you have any more questions.

  6. Being an SEO Analyst i may not completely satisfy with this kind of posts as it reduces my work.To be frank its really an amazing strategy which help many business people to get more positive results with out SEO.

    • Haha.. that’s a good one Jackie.

      I personally believe you will get the “true” success when the competition is really high. And I also believe that most people are lazy. People always search for ways to outsource their work. So I hope it won’t affect your biz.

  7. Hi

    I use BuzzSumo but Ahrefs have the same features on the medium package. Buzzsumo gives great ideas and topics for my blog.

    • So true Joby.

      I’ve been using Buzzsumo, even when you use free trial, you get a lot of ideas for your blog posts.

      Thanks for stopping by.

  8. I honestly absolutely loved this article. I love the Skyscraper technique, however I never thought of using Buzzsumo. Thanks so much.

  9. Great article, and an important topic too. I know many bloggers who have struggled with getting more traffic to their blog, and that’s why a lot of them quit. And I’m glad you covered the fact that just blindly creating content is not the solution to get more traffic. It’s more strategic than that.

  10. Thank you for sharing information about Buzzsumo – I hadn’t heard about this before – yeah, I know, my head must have been under a shell or perhaps I am running my physical shop – but this will assist me in finding new ideas to help boost my posts. After just finished reading Darren’s 31 day blog challenge, I’m full of ideas to get my blog better up and running. –

    • Hi Leah,

      Glad you found the article useful. Buzzsumo is a great tool when it comes to finding the high performing posts in your industry.

      Also make sure to focus on the number of backlinks that each popular article gets in your niche so that you can find out which topics to cover if you are aiming to build more links.

  11. Quite interesting. Never thought of this before. May possibly reread this post completely in the future and try what’s recommended.

  12. A very good and informative post. Well everyone is running to SEO but everybody should know about how to grow blogs without SEO. Well I have also written on many good topics related with blogging and I think that with only original and quality content along with effort a blogger can get good result. Social media is also a good way of driving traffice.

    Thanks Darren.

    • HI Hassan,

      SEO is really hard especially if someone’s new to it. And most people fail to build profitable blogs because they lack of SEO skills. That’s why we should emphasize more on getting exposure without SEO.

  13. This post is excellent But SEO is important for search engines if seo will not doing then how do we visible in search engines.

  14. Anil,

    I really appreciate this step by step. Very informative. I will begin implementing these ideas as soon as possible. So much I didn’t know but now do.

    Great thanks!

  15. Points are true but I am not agree with 3 points indeed I’d say write content to help your audience. The Author is a India based blogger. For the reason I am a presenting a case here. Oftentimes I am approached by marketers for PPC advertising on my blog. Every marketer says one thing in common, give me more US traffic. Obviously more US traffic means higher ROI, however, marketer miss on one thing, if my blog is about India based audience, why should I write a content piece relevant to US audience. Money is important. But diverting your attention from the main course of action to earn few quick bucks won’t led you to anywhere. I am not against those rules but definitely against the rat race. Create content to help your audience and they will ask for more, even they will pay for it. People want to pay for painless services.

    • Hi Mishra,

      Point 3 is all about the promotion. If you want to build a blog that makes money, you should spend max time on increasing your exposure.

  16. great post Anil,

    I never heard about growth hacking but the way you described it i found it very useful…

    And m gonna use Buzzsumo for the topic research

    Thanks for sharing this…

  17. Great article. Pat Flynn rocks. Never heard of the Skyscraper technique or Buzzmo but I’m onto if. Thanks for info!

  18. Rihsam,

    Just checked out your scholarship scheme blog. That scholarship blog is going to need “lots and lots of content,” before you start to experience good SEO from uniquely created content. You have a long way to go, bro!

  19. It’s really an amazing and awesome article Anil. Definitely I will try to follow all your suggestions to boost up my blog traffic, after all traffic is the soul of any blog.

    Thanks,
    Muhammad Imran

  20. Thanks for this post – will definitely try out these techniques.

    In the last two months, my site’s audience acquisition has changed – and rather strangely. The average hits are the same, but the social input has dropped, and the organic search traffic is the highest input into my site. This is great news – but strange, as I’ve been away for 10 weeks and the site has been running on scheduled posts and social media, so there’s nothing overly new I’ve done.

    • I think you should focus on limiting your social sharing buttons. Make sure to spend more time on sharing others stuff on social media and tag others when you’re giving a shout out.

      Hope it helps.

  21. Hey Anil,

    Amazing post! I’m going to look into social bookmarking and forums for content promotion.

    Best,

    Sean

  22. Thanks for sharing this Buzzsumo tips. Never heard about it before. I enjoy getting organic hits on my blog. And with this so easy to follow tips it will certainly help accomplish it even more.

    • Hi Arroyo,

      SEO traffic is vital but you should be also focusing other sources that are equally effective viz skyscraper technique, email outreach etc. Thanks for stopping by!

  23. I LOVE the Pat Flynn advice! I write this on my blog and in my eBooks constantly; like beating a dead horse but it’s the easiest way to grow your blog. Promote others aggressively. Give freely, receive easily. I promote folks freely on Triberr and through other social sites, and I never lack for blog traffic. Bloggers love free givers. Bloggers love folks who give up their streams. If you really want to make a serious impact online promote other folks aggressively to generate some awesome karmic brownie points ;)

    Thanks for sharing!

  24. Yes, you are right. I prefer social media, email list and sometime paid traffic instead of SEO for greater conversion.

  25. This is great news,I found it very useful for me.I start to experience good SEO.If you really want to make a serious impact online promote.I will try to follow all your suggestions to boost up my blog traffic.

  26. These are some really great tips – I have bookmarked buzzsumo and will plan to use that going forward to help come up with topics and piggy-back on successful previous posts.

    I often fall into the trap of focusing 80% of my time on creating new content without doing the background work of:
    1) selecting the right topic
    2) putting effort into it to get >2,000 words
    3) converting time to spend 80% towards marketing and outreach vs. content creation
    4) focusing more on extended content to grow the email list

    Thanks again for these great tips Anil!!!

  27. Ref Web says: 08/21/2015 at 7:30 am

    Nice article 997, I fell the same way about Dotnet as this guy explained on TED http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiySEAMaIZs

  28. Seems like a clif notes version of Brian Deans post. But still extermely helpful. You hit all the primary points right on the head and made it easy to take action, without overwhelming us.

  29. Much obliged for sharing this Buzzsumo tips. Never caught wind of it. I appreciate getting natural hits on my online journal. Furthermore, with this so natural to take after tips it will unquestionably help perform it significantly more.

  30. This is an amazing post, full of useful tips and insightful guidance for bloggers like me.

    I’m fairly new to blogging and there is so much to learn!

    I haven’t tried BuzzSumo but I will certainly be checking it out. And using the skyscraper technique.

    Thanks so much.

    Laura Beth

  31. This is a great help for me since I am having a hard time optimizing our website using old SEO technique I know. I am so newbie to blogging especially in creating an eye catcher content. It seems like I need to explore more about this growth hacking techniques. I hope it gives me great result.

    Marketing is a big world indeed.

    Thanks.

  32. Great post! A good spin on the traditional way people get traffic through keyword research and SEO. Also a better strategy for getting the most return on your time investment. Thanks for the ideas.

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