Does it seem like your traffic gauge is stuck? Are you trying everything to increase blog traffic, feeling like you’re spinning your wheels? You’ve tried everything to generate more traffic fast, and you just sit there at 200,000 page views per month while everyone else is growing?
The truth is that everyone gets stuck, and it seems like it’s every 200,000 page views too. I see people stuck at 200,000 all the time. Then, you get stuck at 400,000, then 600,000, then 800,000, but once you get over the 1 million mark, you start flying. You don’t get stuck anymore. You’re good!
The problem is getting to that point. It can be so tiring trying everything you can to get past that plateau.
To The Blogger Whose Traffic is Stuck at 200,000 Pageviews
The main thing you need to know is that you are NOT alone. More than anything, I’ve seen blogs who are stuck at 200,000. It seems like a pretty big problem.
What’s even bigger is that for most people, they don’t see the value in coaching. They are not really earning enough money from their blogs in order to get personalized coaching, and honestly, that’s what it’s going to take.
It’s going to take a fresh set of eyes from someone who’s been there and gone beyond the point that you’re at, and it has to be real, genuine eyeballs on your site, which means personalized, one-on-one coaching. You can’t get away with buying a book, reading everything you can online, or even buying a blogging course, not when you’re stuck. You have to invest in yourself and your future and get help.
The very first thing I like to tell people who are stuck is to be yourself. How to get to know your mission, your purpose for blogging, your why. You can’t get past that plateau without knowing why you’re blogging in the first place. Why you’re putting your heart and soul into this blog for seemingly chump change in return.
You first thing you need to learn to get through this plateau is how to be yourself. Listen, everyone copies everyone. It’s just how it is. But, and listen carefully, until you find YOUR OWN voice, you can’t make it past a certain point. The bloggers who are past a certain point have found their voice and that’s the number one thing that stops you from reaching your potential. Personally, I make it a point to try to never read other blog posts!
Why? Because it’s too tempting to see a good idea and want to use it myself. But, when I do, I’m just putting them on my blog. Like a guest post. Like a veil hiding ME.
The number one way to get more traffic is to be yourself. There’s no going around it. You can’t copy or get ideas from other bloggers. You’re going to the wrong source!!! You have to get blogging ideas from your audience!
What is it that THEY want? What issues and challenges are THEY facing? What do they tell you they want from you. Even if you are hearing crickets, it’s still very easy to get to know what your audience wants.
Do NOT do a survey.
This will not help. Ask the wrong question and BAM, you get totally different answers than the truth.
I still remember my first survey I sent out. I was around 6 months old blogging and I asked what my audience wanted from me…what they wanted more of. They told me and I posted on that topic several times. But, those posts were the most UNPOPULAREST posts in the history of unpopular. But why?!?! I was stumped. It’s what they said they wanted. The problem is that I was asking the wrong questions. I asked how long they’d been following me and one person put a year. You do the math. I was blogging for 6 months.
Surveys are not the best gauge of your audience.
So, if surveys aren’t the answer, what IS the answer?
LISTEN.
Not to me, to them. Listen to your readers. Every day they send you emails. Every now and then a friend of yours will ask you a question. Write them all down and after a little while, you will begin to see a pattern.
For my audience, they are asking me how I make money from home as a stay at home mom (SAHM). Now, I’m not going to abandon that I teach saving money because many readers love that information too, but making money from home is something I thought was pretty obvious. I guess it’s something I take for GRANTED because I’ve been making money online from home for 17 years now, but is something many people don’t understand and really want to know. I was quite shocked when I saw so many readers asking, begging me to tell them how they too can make money from home so that they can be home with their kids.
You know what, it makes me cry! I’m not ashamed to admit when I hear a woman wanting to stay home with her kids, it makes me cry. I’m so overjoyed because I believe that EVERY woman CAN. I don’t care what the situation. If they want to, they can. But yes, there is some knowledge that comes with it. I’m also so thankful that God has put me in a position to be able to share my knowledge with the world. I consider it a high honor.
Lots of women want to work, some have to work, and that’s okay! But MOST women don’t have to work outside the home; they just don’t know how to make it possible. When it really comes down to it, the elephant in the room is fear. Fear of leaving the stable income for something unstable. Fear of jumping into something they don’t know where it can lead them. Fear they will get made fun of by friends and family who won’t understand.
If you do want a blogging career and make that your income, the other thing you’ll want to do is analyze EVERYTHING. I’m talking about over-analyzing how many potty breaks you take in your day. If you really want to succeed, you HAVE TO know what works and what doesn’t. It’s not enough just knowing your most popular posts. It’s not enough just knowing the general subcategories that do well on your site.
You have to get in there and work it. You have to dissect everything. If a post is doing really well, it’s not just about plagiarizing the title again with a twist. It’s about seeing what words were used. What emotions were displayed in the article? WHY did it hit a nerve with your audience? What about the post made it so popular? Is it the layout? The topic? The way you said what you said? Try replicating certain parts of the post.
Use a heatmap to watch pages and see where people are clicking. My favorite heatmap is here. It’s a WordPress plugin and super simple to use. You can watch several pages at a time for free and see where people are clicking. One of the things I’m testing on my site right now is to find out where my readers are clicking. Are they clicking links toward the top of a post or the bottom the most? That’s something I want to know for the future writing of articles. Test out each theory or question that you have, one by one. Yes, it’s time consuming, but if you’re serious about blogging, this is what you have to do.
It takes a lot of trial and error, but over time, you will begin to see patterns. You’ll start to see what your audience responds to and what they don’t. What they like and what they don’t. Now, it is definitely a balance between writing for your audience and staying true to yourself. The longer you do this, the better you’ll get at it.
Following these three tips will really help boost blog traffic and fly past the 200,000 plateau. It’ll help you understand your blog more.
- Get personalized, one-on-one coaching (do your research and find a solid coach)
- Listen to your readers
- Over-analyze everything
One of the biggest complaints I get from other bloggers who are in your shoes is that they feel like they are in a catch 22 situation. They don’t make a whole lot of income to be able to afford help, the help that will take them to the next level. At the same time, if they don’t get help, they can’t GET TO the next level. My advice in this case is always the same…
Sometimes in blogging you have to take risks. Educated, wise, well-planned-out risks. Sometimes you have to invest in something before seeing the rewards of it. Although I don’t do personalized coaching anymore, at the time that I wrote this article, my last coaching client was making $2,000/month before she went through my coaching. She invested in herself and after 2 months, she was making 3 times that amount. $6,000/month, she says, as a direct result of my coaching.
You NEED personalized one-on-one coaching if you are serious about getting over this hurdle. Without it, you either will never get past the 200,000 mark or it will take you a LOT longer than is really necessary.
Above all else, listen to your readers and analyze like crazy. Your readers and traffic will tell you what they want. All you have to do is listen!
If you have any tips, experience or ideas on what to suggest to the blogger whose traffic is stuck at 200,000 pageviews, let us know in the comments!
Do you want to make blogging work for you? Do you want to make an income from blogging so great, that you can quit your job and never look back? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you.
