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7 Devastating Reasons No One is Reading Your Blog
*This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my affiliate disclosure here.
I've had a number of blogs over the years. Like, 5 of them. Crazy! You didn't think this was my first rodeo did you??
Oh no, I've been blogging for nearly 12 years now! Just saying that kind of makes me feel old, and I'm not even 30 yet…
One of the things that was hardest for me to grasp in my early years of blogging was the traffic equation.
Why was no one reading my blog??
It was really frustrating putting in so much time and effort on writing, editing, finding images, running social media, and more, only to check my analytics and see that less than 20 people visited my blog that day.
The truth is, it took me YEARS to figure out how to get reliable traffic to a blog. So much trial and error went in, I'm surprised my hair didn't turn gray in the process.
And in light of the fact that I really want to help you avoid that pit I was in, I figured this was the perfect post to write on a sunny Monday like today!
Ready to get the traffic flowing? Here are a few likely reasons no one is reading your blog.
1. Your Blog Topics Are Too Scattered
You want to write about home decor, and gardening, and fashion. And maybe a little about the depression you faced as a teenager. And occasionally about food.
This is the type of thing I hear from new bloggers all the time.
Reality check coming up…
This is simply too many wildly different topics to write about on a single blog.
At least if you want to make money from your blog, that is. If you're only in it for the love of writing, then by all means go for it!
There are a number of reasons why blogging about this many different topics isn't going to work well for a profitable blog.
The first one? Most readers will only be interested in one or two of your topics.
The girls who love reading about home decor and fashion won't give a crap about gardening or depression. The green thumbs who love gardening and homesteading won't be into fashion. (Or some variation like that.)
This is a great way to quickly LOSE readers. When they know that only 25% of the content you put out might be of interest to them, they might as well find someone else's blog who meets their needs entirely.
Another reason having so many blog topics is bad for business?
Any products you create or try to sell via an affiliate partnership will only be applicable to a fraction of your audience. That's not a good thing.
Not to mention, you're going to have hoardes of email subscribers unsubscribing when you launch a product about home decor and ⅔ of them were interested in the other topics you write about.
See what I'm getting at here? You're facing an uphill battle right from the get go.
The last reason writing an encyclopedia online is a bad idea is because the search engines will have no idea what kind of blog to categorize you as.
And when they can't do that, you don't get traffic from them. Ouch.
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2. You Aren't Solving A Specific Problem
This is by far the most common reason for low blog traffic.
New bloggers often make the mistake of focusing heavily on what THEY want to write about, not how they can help others with a specific problem.
This is the big distinction between bloggers who make a full-time income from their blogs and those who don't. Successful bloggers help one specific audience with one specific problem, and they do it really well.
Hobby bloggers write about whatever suits their fancy in the moment.
#3. Your Headlines Aren't Exciting or Enticing
This one is an easy fix, but it's so common!
A great headline that pulls your reader in and makes them want to click on your post is the difference between getting lots of traffic, and getting next to none.
You can have the most amazing content ever, but if you're title or headline is lame, no one will ever click through to read the good stuff.
Here are a few ways to make your headlines a bit more tantalizing:
- Use power words in your headlines
- Highlight the benefit readers will get from clicking through
- Tap into a pain point
Of course, you don't need to fit all of these tips into every headline. Just pick one or two for each headline that seem both interesting and honest.
Here are some example headlines for each of the tips above:
- 3 Rock Solid Ways to Keep Slugs Away This Spring
- Never See Another Slug in Your Garden Again With This Easy Hack
- Why Your Tomatoes Are Killed By Slugs Every Single Year
#4. Your Site Is Slow
New bloggers often skip over this one because it seems complicated, and sometimes it is! But a slowly loading site is a really, really bad thing for your traffic numbers and for your engagement.
People simply don't have more than a quick second of attention span online anymore. The days of dial-up are gone and people want things to load fast, fast, fast.
I always check my site speed on websites such as Pingdom Site Speed Test or GTMetrix. If your site comes back with a low ranking, it's time to get to work!
Here are a few things you can do to keep your blog from becoming slow in the first place:
- Compress and resize all of your images before uploading them
- Ensure that you have a CDN in place (This comes included with your Siteground hosting plan)
- Use a plug-in such as Autoptimize to cache your files
#5. Your Font Is Small and Hard to Read
One of my biggest pet peeves is going to a blog I really want to read, only to find out that the text is TINY or the blogger thought it would be a good idea to use fancy font that is super hard to read.
Don't do this.
I'm not exactly sure why tiny text has become en vogue lately, but it is a bad idea for your traffic and engagement.
Sure, you can always use the ctrl+ keys to increase the font you see on your screen. But most people don't know that, and very few will go through the hassle.
It is much better to choose a standard, easy-to-read font than one that is trendy but tiresome to read paragraph after paragraph.
#6. You Aren't Using Pinterest for Traffic
Please start using Pinterest for traffic. Please. It's going to rock your world!
I can't tell you how many emails I get from people who are looking for help getting traffic, but they aren't on Pinterest yet.
Pinterest is a gold mine of free, quick traffic for new bloggers!
See the blue section? That's the traffic I get from Pinterest.
If you are struggling to get traffic, and you aren't already using Pinterest, or you are on Pinterest but aren't sure how to make it work for you, it's time to get super serious about Pinterest!
Facebook and Instagram are no longer good ways to get free traffic to your blog. Sad, I know.
Facebook has reduced their reach so much in recent years that you now really need to pay to play using Facebook ads if you want to get traffic from them.
And Instagram? Instagram has such a low rate of followers who actually turn into traffic. Instagram users simply don't leave the platform very much.
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#7. You're Rehashing the Same Super Basic Content That Everyone Else Is Putting Out
The last reason you aren't getting traffic? Frankly, it might be because your content sucks.
We've all visited those blogs where you click on a post and find nothing but 200 words of drivel that helps no one.
If this is the kind of content you are writing, then you've found your problem.
Successful bloggers write in depth, helpful, and reasonably unique posts that readers can't wait to read more of.
If you aren't doing this as well, you really don't have a hope or a prayer of being successful. You need to focus on quality over quantity!
My Secret Weapon for Creating Incredible Blog Posts
Get my clickable blog post checklist instantly in your email when you sign up for my Bloggers Hotlist series below. This is the EXACT checklist I've used to create amazing content that grows my blog on autopilot. It's time to get organized!
Conclusion
Let's recap! Here's what to do if your traffic is crazy low and you aren't sure how to increase it:
- Focus your blog on one specific topic.
- Use your blog to help your audience solve a specific problem.
- Improve your site speed.
- Make your headlines exciting and clickable.
- Use an easy-to-read font in a standard size.
- Create a Pinterest profile and start creating pins to get traffic.
- Write really high quality stuff on your blog.
If you aren't sure which things you should be working on next in your blogging business, make sure to grab my Profitable Blogging Blueprint below! It will walk you step by step through every action you need to take, in correct order, to make money from your blog.
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