Blogging: How I Got Over 200K Views In One Month
What I did to increase my blog traffic
Are you asking yourself “how do I get views on my blog”? You're in the right place. In this post I'll be going into detail about how to increase traffic to your blog and sharing exactly what I did to increase my blog traffic to over 200K in one month.
Yes, you read that right. I'm not talking overall page-views. This is over 200,000 page-views in a 31 day period.
Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full disclosure about all the legal stuff here.
I'm not posting this to brag. Those of you that know me, already know that I have a passion for blogging and like to share the information and tips I learn along the way with others. I want us all to succeed.
I've been blogging for a long time now. I started this particular blog back in June 2012 and it has evolved multiple times over the years.
I didn't start taking it seriously until 2018 and it's only really in the past couple of years that I've been working on being a 'professional blogger'. By this I mean working towards making blogging my actual job.
It hasn't been easy and there have been lots of ups and downs along the way but I'm getting closer and closer to achieving that big goal and, trust me, if I can do it you can too!
Blog Goals
At the start of the year I set myself some goals that I wanted to achieve in 2024 and one of those goals was to get over 100K views to my blog in one calendar month.
I always try to dream big when it comes to the goals I set myself and sometimes they can feel a little out of reach to begin with. That is until I start getting closer and closer to achieving them until one day I do.
In August I reached 104,150 for the month and then hit 122,769 in September. It was time for a new goal.
I decided to dream big again and set my new goal as 200K.
Here's a break down of the traffic I got each month so far this year so you can see the growth:
January - 74,839 (this was a new PB)
February - 55,551
March - 76,465 (this was another new PB)
April - 42,149
May - 28,042
June - 53,309
July - 85,148 (this was yet another new PB)
August - 104,150 (I not only hit the big goal but went over it)
September - 122,769 (this was another new PB)
October - 262,198 (over twice as much as my last PB!)
As you can see it's been a bit of a journey. There's been some ups and downs along the way. This was mainly due to health issues. If you follow my monthly wraps you'll know I've had several problems that meant lots of hospital time and meds and not as much time as I would have liked working on my blog.
Even with those not so great months I learnt a lot though, which is part of the reason I managed to not only bring my traffic back up but also improve it as much as I did.
So, how did I manage to keep setting new personal bests for traffic and reach my big goal of over 200K in a month? In this post I'll break down everything I did and share some tips I've learnt along the way.
What the low traffic months taught me
Before jumping into the breakdown of what I did to reach my 200K views goal I wanted to share with you what I learnt from the not so great months.
I got ill and my traffic suffered. I wasn't well enough to write posts or promote them and at the end of the month it showed.
Lesson number 1 - Schedule blog posts in advance.
You never know what life has in store so plan ahead. I now make sure I schedule as many posts as possible in advance. I'm talking at least a month in advance. I currently have some posts already set up and scheduled for posting in December.
Even if you can't set up all the posts for publishing, try to do at least a few posts per week so that if you can't post for whatever reason at most you'll just miss a day or two between posts.
I've made a point of trying to organise my content calendar as far in advance as possible too. This way I always know what I'll be posting when. I can brainstorm and fill out my content calendar for the month ahead in one afternoon.
Lesson number 2 - Schedule social media posts in advance.
Whilst most of my activity on social media is live I now make sure I schedule at least a few promotional posts in advance for each day. Again, I try to schedule a month in advance.
I make sure I'm sharing both new and older content from my blog.
It doesn't take long to schedule posts and it means that whatever life decides to throw at me I'll still have a consistent posting and promotion to pull traffic to my site.
Lesson number 3 - The lows make the highs even better.
When you see your stats drop it can feel awful. You might even feel like giving up. Know that it's just a minor set back though.
Back at the end of May I had the lowest traffic I'd had in a long time. It didn't feel good. Stepping back, taking a break or giving up would have meant the end of my big dream to turn this blog into a full time income though.
When you hit a low, work twice as hard to hit a high. Use that moment of failure to push yourself to reach higher. Learn, improve, repeat.
May me would never have thought that August me was going to smash my goal of 100K views but I didn't give up and kept working towards the goal. Then October happened 🤯
How to get 200k views on a blog?
So, how exactly did I get over 262,198 views to my blog in one month?
This is everything I did to build traffic to my blog.
1. Consistency and frequency
I scheduled posts in advance to maintain consistent posting.
My goal is to post Monday to Saturday every week. Whilst I did skip a few days I was able to stay mainly on track with this posting schedule, largely due to the fact that I scheduled the majority of my posts for the month in advance.
Search engines like Google are always looking for fresh content. If you are posting consistently then your site will be crawled and indexed frequently too.
By having a posting routine you also have more chance of building a loyal following of readers that regularly come back to your blog.
"Maintaining a consistent blog posting schedule is important for improving your blog’s SEO and attracting more visitors." - from How Often Should You Write Blog Posts? [Blogging Frequency Best Practices] by Outranking
"Think of your business blog as a tripod that’s held up with the ‘legs’ of content, consistency, and frequency. Without all three pieces, your blog won’t be able to stand by itself. Publishing good content isn’t enough. You need a frequent blogging schedule and a consistent strategy, too." - from The Importance of Consistent and Frequent Blogging by Heads Up Results.
Obviously the more you post the more content you have to draw in traffic with. It's important that you put out quality content though so pick a frequency that works for you. Six days a week is a lot and just not doable for some. That's fine. Find what works for you.
2. Don't forget past content
I updated older posts. My secret weapon for increasing page views. I didn't do anything major in terms of updating but this is the thing that has, without doubt, had the biggest impact on my traffic.
For the most part it involved little tweaks; updating the disclaimer message on the post, updating the graphics to fit my current branding and maybe adding an internal link to a newer post. I also checked to make sure the posts had a meta description and tags. In some cases I added a header if it was missing.
The Google core update from August 2024 takes into consideration any improvements a site may have made which is why updating older posts can have such a big impact on traffic.
In my post ways to upgrade old blog posts you can find more ideas about things you can improve to help increase blog traffic to content you already have on site.
I am definitely going to be spending more time working on updating my older posts and improving their SEO.
When I started out I knew nothing about SEO and it shows. I cringe at some of them now.
As I've had this blog for a long time, it's going to take me a long time to update everything and bring all the posts up to my current standards. It will definitely be worth it though.
Older posts that had dropped to less than 10 views a month are now getting at least 50-100 views again now. That makes a huge difference at the end of the month.
Do the maths:
10 posts each getting 10 views a month is 100 views.
100 posts each getting 100 views a month is 10,000 views.
Obviously this is just an example but you get the idea.
The more posts you have regularly bringing in traffic to your blog the better.
3. Schedule promotional posts
By scheduling at least a few promotional posts for each day of the month in advance it means you can dedicate more time to the actual content on you site, and avoid wasting too much time scrolling on social media instead of actually working on your blog. I speak from experience!
What I scheduled in advance:
A. I scheduled promotional posts to my Twitter (still can't bring myself to call it X) profile.
This is the site I'm most active on and so I only scheduled one or two tweets per day. This is because I usually drop in several times a day on the site to chat with others, share posts, join discussions etc...
B. I scheduled promotional posts to my Facebook page. Whilst this isn't a big source of traffic, it is quick and easy to schedule and does bring in some views.
My usage of Facebook is currently very limited. I usually just set up a post a day for each day of the month.
I am curious to see if I was to do more with my Facebook page what kind of impact it would have on traffic to my blog. I'd also like to experiment with Facebook groups more in the future to see the results of those.
C. I scheduled promotional posts to my Pinterest boards. I created multiple pins for each new blog post and created new pins for older blog posts too.
I definitely want to work on my Pinterest strategies and learn more about the platform as a means to promote my blog posts. I already know that the potential is huge.
One area in particular that I'd like to learn more about, and be more active in using, is the Pinterest group boards.
Whilst we're on the subject of social media, as a side note, I shared a post to my LinkedIn profile most days too. That wasn't scheduled. It was just me posting the link for my latest post there directly.
Final thoughts about how I got over 200K views in one month
The last thing I wanted to mention is that none of the things I did this month cost me any money. They were all free and just involved investing time and effort into my blog.
In just an hour or two a day I managed to more than double my blog traffic from last month. This was an amazing milestone for me and I'm very grateful to everyone that comes to my little corner of the internet.
I hope this post has given you some ideas of what you can do to increase traffic to your own blog.
Let's chat
Building blog traffic doesn't happen overnight but with the right strategies, and some patience, you'll be hitting your goals in no time.
What strategies are you using to increase traffic to your own content?
If you're just beginning your blogging journey or want to take your blog to a new level, check out The Ultimate Guide for Book Bloggers. It's packed with tips and loads of information for book bloggers of all levels.
Curious about the stats of other book bloggers? Check out the Book Blogging in 2024 Survey.
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