I want more traffic!
That is probably one of the more common goals (or wants) that we have for our blogs. But we often fall short of achieving this goal because we don’t have a solid strategy for getting there. Some strategies are short-lived and should be given minimal effort on your part.
Here are 12 creative ways to generate more traffic to your Christian blog.
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Generate More Traffic to Your Christian Blog
The main goal for any Christian blogger is to get traffic to your site so people will read your content. As a new Christian blogger, however, it can take some time to actually see that traffic start trickling in.
While this does take some time, there are some things you can do to help boost your blog traffic from a variety of other platforms such as your email list, social media, and Pinterest.
1. Write Content Optimized for SEO
By far, the best long-term strategy for getting more traffic to your blog is by writing SEO-optimized content. That is content that satisfies a search query (someone was literally searching Google for it).
Once you know who your audience is, you can drive more traffic to your site by optimizing your blog posts for SEO. This means that you are writing about things they are actually searching Google (and other search engines) for. If they aren’t searching for it, they will not find you!
The great thing about SEO is that it is long-lasting and it builds upon itself. In other words, with good SEO, your organic traffic will multiply from month to month and keep on growing. It is almost a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing.
2. Write MORE Content
If you are trying to increase traffic to your blog, write more content!
Seriously! Of course, make sure the content is optimized for SEO, but the more content you put out there, it makes sense that more people will visit your site.
I’m not saying you need to publish every single day – but, at a minimum, you should be publishing once per week. If you have the ability to write and publish more often, then please do!
Another way to get more content without putting too much stress on yourself is to seek guest posts. Just make sure that you give them guidelines on how to write SEO-optimized content. You should also give them specific content to write about so it stays in line with your overall SEO.
3. Update Older Content for Better SEO
If you’ve been blogging for over a year, you probably have a lot of older content that can be rejuvenated to send your more traffic.
Writing new content isn’t the only way to increase traffic to your blog. Chances are that when you first started blogging, you didn’t know or understand all the SEO stuff. That means you have a great opportunity to cash in on the content you’ve already written.
By updating older posts to be more optimized for SEO, you will begin seeing an increase in organic traffic from them!
Keep in mind that not every post is salvageable for SEO and that is totally fine. Just focus on the posts that you can easily tweak for SEO and work on them.
4. Add Free Printable Images to Your Posts
One strategy that is often overlooked by most Christian bloggers is the power of adding printable images to certain types of content.
People don’t just search Google for things to read. They also search for images! And usually, these images are things they might want to print out.
As you are writing content for things such as:
- 10 Bible Verses About XYZ (include a printable list)
- 10 Ways to Pray for XZY (include a printable list)
- How to a Prayer Journal (include a free printable prayer journal template)
Always upload these directly into the post and then provide a link for them to download it from your cloud drive. Having the image physically displaying in the post increases the chance of it coming up in image search results (which will send more traffic to that post).
5. Collaborate with Other Bloggers in Your Niche
While you are still waiting for SEO to take effect on your own site, you can increase traffic to your blog by partnering up with other bloggers in your niche. This can take a variety of forms:
- asking them to link to a really great resource page on your site
- asking them to link to a freebie landing page on your site
- collaborating to do a FB live event
- guest posting for them (which usually enables you to include a link back to your site
And if you have a downloadable E-book that includes links to some of your actual blog content (see next section), let other bloggers share it with their audience! Even if you created it specifically as a freebie on your site to get subscribers, enabling other bloggers to share it will generate traffic to you (which might lead to more subscribers).
6. Create a Free E-Course or E-Book
Creating free E-books, courses, or other types of printables can consistently drive traffic to your Christian blog.
If you have taken any of my blogging tips courses, you will find many links to blog content that expands on the topics in a particular lesson. Instead of me having to re-write the tips, I simply send them over to read what I’ve already published on the subject. I also do this for my checklists and some other printables that I offer. (I do this for all of my free and paid courses/products).
Chances are, you may already have the content on your site that you could put into a mini Devotional. If not, come up with an idea for a Devotional or other book and write the chapters as blog posts. In the E-book, you can simply provide an intro and then link to the post.
Pinterest isn’t just for your blog posts! Most bloggers miss out on a huge traffic opportunity because they only create and share pins for actual blog posts.
If you have resource pages that are open (not password-protected for your subscribers), make sure you create plenty of pinnable images for them and flood Pinterest regularly with them!
For blog posts that are more like “list-posts” (Bible verses about, Prayers to Pray Over…etc), we already mentioned that you should have an actual printable listing them uploaded into the post for the reader to download (without subscribing). But you can also pin these printable images directly to Pinterest.
I usually pin the regular blog post image directly from the post but will manually upload the printable later on to a different board.
8. Create Pinterest Idea Pins
A new thing that Pinterest is pushing right now is Idea Pins. Now, these are basically video pins that are NOT clickable to a URL but adding them does seem to boost your overall profile performance and your regular pins will start getting more impressions and clicks.
9. Maximize Traffic from Your Email List
One of the main reasons we have an email list is to send links to content to our subscribers. Of course, this would most often be the newest blog post. But, you should also create a permanent section in your email that has links to other relevant content/resources.
I have a section for Bible Study Resources in every single email that links to several resource pages on my site and every single week, those links get clicked (in addition to the weekly blog post link)!
10. Create a Youtube Channel
Video is very popular right now. Create videos for some of your blog posts, then upload those to Youtube and embed that video into the post.
This can be anything from actual tutorials (how to do something), to a discussion about the topic of the post (Bible study).
Make sure that you include a link to your blog in the description for the video and mention for them to visit your site in the video!
11. Instagram Bio Landing Page
While Instagram isn’t a platform that will generate a huge amount of blog traffic, you can set your profile up to get SOME.
Create a custom landing page on your blog (page, not post), and use that link in your Instagram profile. Ensure what you say, really makes them want to hop over and check it out!
Below is what mine looks like. Even though I’m not very active on Instagram, I still get a handful of clicks to this link every week. The more active you are, the more traffic you may get.
The important thing to remember is that you are sending them to resources that relate to your ministry and will actually help them!
12. Generate Blog Traffic from Paid Your Paid Products
If you sell your own products, whether directly or via a marketplace such as Etsy, encourage your customers to join your email list where you announce new products and offer discounts and sales. This will boost your blog traffic because now they will receive those weekly emails with links to content on your site.
There you have it! These are some simple ways to boost traffic to your Christian blog.
Of course, SEO should be your primary focus, but utilizing the rest of them will definitely help boost your traffic while you are waiting for SEO to take effect!
Be sure to visit our Christan Blogging Tips Library for even more helpful tips!
