Not having a blog on your website nowadays is equivalent to not having a soul. This is the reason why every website, no matter what its area of activity, integrates a blog. While we hail this love for blogging, not every website is generating maximum benefits from it, even after writing a post every other day.

Search ‘how to increase blog traffic’ and most results will talk about points like write quality content and tweet your work (meh). FATbit is here to tell you how to generate traffic for your business blog WITHOUT WRITING NEW CONTENT.

We have been working with this innovative technique for quite some time. The secret lies in Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools (now Google Search Console).

Not getting what we talking about?

Let’s break it down for you.

Analytics & GWT – The secret to increase traffic to your business blog

Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools may be free in nature but they have extreme value when it comes to data mining and analysis. The duo can give insights about:

Website traffic

Search terms that trigger your website or blog on Google

Click through rate after visibility on Google

Traffic mediums

Referral sources

Traffic type – new vs. returning

Traffic demographics

Devices

Social media

These tools are usually employed by webmasters for website tracking, optimization and improvements but they can also be used for blog content planning and marketing.

It is hard to understand how we do it without an example.

Example for simplicity

Let’s assume you have a blog post with the title ‘How do I get more traffic to my blog’. This blog post – written few weeks – got some visitors, a couple of comments, and few social shares. Then you forgot about the post,and started planning the next one. But you missed something.

You didn’t use Analytics and GWT to study blog traffic for the post & analyzed search queries. Due to this, you missed the opportunity:

To discover keywords for which blog position can be improved on Google.

To make improvements by studying factors like Bounce Rate and Average Time on Page.

To see whether visitors browsed linked pages through page per sessions.

To discover additional traffic mediums that the post is not currently benefiting from.

To get the right balance between demographic and social traffic sources.

In other words, your blog post ‘How do I get more traffic to my blog’ never really reached its true potential.

You don’t need to write new posts because you already have many that deserve more traffic and can get it too. Analytics & Google Webmaster Tools are the tools that will help you do it.

How?

Here is how.

How to increase traffic from old blog posts with Analytics & GWT insights?

Just publishing your post and sharing your post link on Facebook is not enough. You need to do a lot more to milk the post. Let’s learn how to do it using Analytics and Google Search Console, starting with identification and optimization of non-performing posts:

Identification & optimization with Analytics

Every blog post will not bring large number of visitors. Posts that didn’t perform as per your expectations need to be identified and optimized to generate better results. The data that will help in post upgrade can be easily gathered from Analytics. We have simplified the task of mining Analytics by listing 8 most critical factors.

Because Analytics is vast and can sometimes be confusing, we have created a master path that will get you to most of the factors. Here it is!

Use the Advanced Search bar to filter the blog posts. Now we are ready to dig Analytics for data and findings. Choose a recent blog post to see how much traffic it got!

Page/post traffic

You think your last blog post deserves a spot in Hall of Fame. It’s good to be positive but you know what’s better? Knowing how much traffic your blog post got. Follow the master path and simply click on the post for which you want the insights.

Result will look like this:

Click to Enlarge

If Average Time is less than one minute (just for idea), it means people are not spending enough time reading your glorious post. If bounce rate is high, it means people are coming but leaving immediately. Got the idea?

NOTE: Second Dimension filter is critical to generate data for following points. Just add Secondary Dimension to the master path and you will be good to go.

Traffic mediums

Analytics can tell you whether your blog post is benefiting more from organic or referral traffic. This simple insight will help you in making strategic changes in your post planning & marketing plan. If organic is less, then, you need to work on keyword planning. If referral is scarce, then, marketing needs a rethink.

You will get something like below image by choosing Medium under Secondary Dimension.

Referral sources

Referral traffic can be generated from vast range of sources. Your job is to discover what sources your posts missed. Pick your best performing post and see which referral sources generated maximum benefit. Now check if your non performing posts benefited from them or not. If not, you got work to do!

Choose Full Referrer under Secondary Dimension after Master formula and you will get following result:

Traffic demographics

For businesses that cater to a particular geographical region (USA), traffic from other regions (Australia or India) is not relevant. Use Analytics to check traffic demographics and see where is all the traffic is coming from. If traffic is high but it is coming from the wrong countries, then, we have a problem.

How to find out – Under Secondary Dimension, click on Users, and then pick the Country tab. Result will be somewhat like this!

Traffic type – new vs. returning

New visitors are great but there is nothing like returning visitors. If your recent posts have very low number of new readers, then, there has to be some problem with the planning part. In case only your loyal few are reading your blog posts, then, you must focus on spreading your content through referral sources.

Choose ‘User Type’ under Second Dimension to generate the visitor data.

Devices

Mobiles and tablets witness more internet activity than desktops. But this shouldn’t be your reason to invest in a mobile website or create a mobile content strategy. Use Analytics to see how much traffic you get from mobile devices and make an informed decision.

Same old rule, just go for Device Category option under Secondary dimension.

Social media

While Facebook is relevant for some businesses, others benefit more from more professional channels like LinkedIn. It’s important to know which ones are important for you. It’s time to forget the Master formula. Follow this path to discover the list of social channels working for you:

Social → Network Referrals

Here is how the result will look like!

Click to Enlarge

Well done!

You have mastered Google Analytics for your blog. Now let’s see what Google Webmaster Tools or we should say Google Search Console is capable of.

Hire experts to optimize your website and blog for more traffic

Get in touch

Planning with GWT

We know the title says generate blog traffic without writing a post but at some point, you will run out of old posts to optimize and will have to publish new ones. And if you have been blogging for your business for quite some time, then, there is a fair chance that you will be finding it hard to discover new and interesting topics.

Google Webmaster Tools can also help you discover new topics on the basis of search phrases and terms that are already generating traffic. Amongst other things, Google Webmaster Tools aka Google Search Console shares insights about:

Search queries that trigger your website or blog on Google

Click through rate after visibility on Google

Mining Google Search Console for these two attributes will bring you across search phrases that can be gold mine for post planning. Here is the simplest possible path:

Search Analytics → Pages (radio button) → Select Page → CTR (check box)

The above path is for Click Through Rate. For info about search queries, click on the Queries radio button and select all the four buttons (Clicks, Impressions, CTR, and Position).

The end result for CTR will look like this:

Now you know how to get your blog read without spending hours in post planning and writing using GWT and Analytics. But there is more to blog planning and traffic generation than these two tools.

As a bonus, here are some points that will help you in creating better blog posts in 2015 & later years.

Top post planning & traffic generation tips for business blogs in 2015

Generating traffic from search engines, social media, and other traffic channels requires more than just blog posts. Here are some tips and techniques that you need to practice for generating more traffic to your business blog in 2015:

Blog setup and optimization

You would be amazed to know how many website owners struggle with blog ranking and traffic because their blog is not ready for search bots. Bad ON-page work, faulty link structure, and other issues limit blog performance. So, before asking ‘how to increase visitors to your blog’, you should think about setting it up correctly and making it search engine friendly. If you fail in this task, no amount of tips to increase blog traffic will work for you.

Research before writing

You have this great idea about a blog post that you think will make your readers eat from your hand. The idea is indeed great but sadly it has been done, many many times. Yes, there is little that has not been written about on internet. This is why you need to research before unleashing yourself on the keyboard.

Simple Google search will tell you how much coverage your ‘unique’ idea already has. Auto and Related suggestions will give more insights about keywords and related topics as well.

Think about keywords

Google has been telling webmasters to stop obsessing about keywords for many years now but you still need to think about them if you want search engine traffic for your blog. However, the definition of keywords and their usage has changed a lot in the last couple of years. So, don’t forget to diversify and think about search psychology of your audience.

Visual is better

Blogs are no longer just about words. You need to make an impact with your images as well. Use illustrations, graphics, gifs, photos and anything that will add to the visual factor. Don’t forget to optimize your images to get blog visitors from image search results.

Also Read: What Makes Visual Content So Critical in a Digital Marketing Campaign?

Create additional traffic sources

As we said, just a publishing a blog post is not enough. You need to create additional traffic channels to introduce your post to new audience. You can create:

Presentation on SlideShare.com

Publish small version of the post of micro blogging sites

Scour discussion communities for questions that your post answers

Republish your post on other blogs

Participate in question and answer platforms like Quora

Generate guest posts

Industry experts writing for your blog will not only increase its authority but also introduce their followers to your product or service. Publishing blogs written by others sounds easy but creating a network of contributors is hard work as well.To connect with influential bloggers, you need to conduct in-depth research. Use tools like BuzzSumo to discover content and writers relevant to your industry.

For instance, if you own a bakery shop in NYC and want to connect with food bloggers, then, run searches like cupcakes New York, new bakery New York. Find relevant posts and connect with writers through commenting or social media. Once you have created a connection, suggest the idea of guest blogging.

Linking considerations

There is no point in not linking to your other posts in a natural way. Doing this will introduce visitors to your other interesting posts, and improve the average visit duration as well. Don’t shy away from sharing links to third party sites as well.

Other handy points

In case you are not presently using below mentioned points, then, please do to increase visits to your business blog:

Use multiple social media channels to spread your content.

Publish frequently to keep your readers engaged.

Stick with your industry topics. Don’t go for general news and updates unless it’s important to your audience.

Blogging was once regarded as activity better left off to creative flock. Who could have predicted that it will become something that will occupy, if not dominate, the minds of business owners? However, keeping the science part of blogging in mind is important because there are millions of blogs out there, and you clearly need more than just tips for business blogging to score above them.

Just start digging into Google Search Console and Analytics, and you will have your moment of clarity. If you don’t have the time, then, it would be best to delegate the work to a professional.