Whether you’ve been blogging for months or years, it’s likely that at one time or another you’ve wondered why you’re not getting traffic from Google explains Peter Decaprio.
Or maybe, just maybe, you already know why you’re not getting traffic but are too afraid of looking foolish by admitting it to your blog readers so you keep quiet and continue wondering if the problem will ever get fixed.
1. You’re not using the Right Keywords
Imagine you worked in customer service but nobody ever called up to ask for your help. Instead, every day hundreds of people walked past your desk without even looking in your direction, opting to go straight to the front desk instead. Or sometimes they would come over and ask a question only they knew the answer to so you didn’t have any idea how to help them. It’d be frustrating right? So what do you think those people did when they realized this problem? Well, if they were smart it’s likely that they went somewhere else where somebody was waiting with open arms ready to give them lots of love and attention.
How:
Put yourself in your readers’ shoes and think about what kind of blog posts they might want to read. Do this for each part of your website including the homepage. Once you have a list of possible words or phrases then do some research using Google Keyword Planner (see next section for more details) to see how many people are searching for that particular term every month.
2. You’re Not Using Google Keyword Planner
Even if you know which words to use keywords for, wasting time digging around the web looking for blog post ideas is a big no-no. Peter Decaprio states a much better way is to let Google do that work for you with its aptly named Keyword Planner tool. It’s a completely free and easy way of finding out how many people are searching for a particular term on a monthly basis based on data from previous searches in the last twelve months or so. There’s really no reason not to make use of this tool as it will save you heaps of time and help you plan your posts more effectively.
How:
Head over to Google Keyword Planner and type in a few of your most popular keywords into the ‘Get ideas’ field. It will then give you a list of related terms which you can use or just check out how many people are searching for them each month before moving on to the next step.
3. You’re Not Using Google Analytics
If you want to know which of your content is the most popular then you need to make use of Google Analytics. This free service shows detailed reports about visitors on your blog including where they come from, how long they stay, and what pages, in particular, are the most interesting to them. It will also tell you how well your blog posts performed in comparison to others so that you can see which topics are worth writing more about in the future.
How:
All you have to do is install the analytics code on your website (it’s usually added automatically when WordPress or Blogger are installed) then head over to Acquisition > All > Referrals. Now click on ‘google / organic’ and you’ll be able to see which of your posts is getting the most traffic directly from Google.
4. You Don’t Check Your Analytics Regularly
It can be easy to forget about checking on your blog’s analytics now and again if you have other things going on but try not to leave it too long otherwise you might miss out on some useful information. Google Analytics is the best tool to use for this because it’s completely free, easy to install, and provides useful information even if your website doesn’t get much traffic. As such, you should make it a regular habit to check on the performance of your blog and see if there’s anything that needs improving.
How:
Just login to Google Analytics and find Acquisition > All > Referrals then click on ‘Google / organic’. You’ll be able to see which posts are getting the most views directly from search engines and whether they’re worth continuing with in the future.
5. You Don’t Optimize Your Posts Properly
Optimization is a general term that refers to making your posts more search engine friendly in order to increase their visibility on Google and other important sites. In the past, you could just include a few keywords within your post and still appear high in results whenever people searched for related information but nowadays it’s not quite so simple says Peter Decaprio. Google has gone out of its way to ensure that its users get helpful results by listing pages that are most likely going to be useful to them rather than simply providing a list of the most popular content regardless of quality.
How:
One good way to optimize blog posts for both human readers and internet bots is by using headers at regular intervals throughout the text. For example, blog posts normally start with a large title and end with a brief summary of what’s on offer so you should include those elements at the top and bottom of your blog post as well.
Conclusion:
Now, you should have a few good ideas about how you can improve the performance of your blog posts on Google and bring in more organic traffic says Peter Decaprio. All that’s left to do now is put this information into practice by writing more high-quality content, making regular checks on analytics, and optimizing each blog post so that it appears high in search results when people use related keywords.