How I increased traffic on my blog (Part I)

I woke up this morning and decided to attend the 7 o’clock service at my local Anglican church. There the Vicar explained the essence of Boxing Day – a tradition celebrated on December 26th whereby excess gifts (including food) are ‘boxed’ and sent to people in need. In a similar vein I published this post as a gift to readers who would like to see a significant rise in the number of visitors to their blogs/websites.

I have come across various tips from numerous sites on the Internet, including WordPress. However, I will only highlight tips that have worked for me on my blog, The Crazy Nigerian.

 

1. Write about a popular ‘niche’ topic

Last week I was pleasantly shocked to discover that my blog had received 352 views – the highest number of views ever on this blog in one day. There was widespread talk and forwarded text messages about vacancies at a giant Telecom company in Nigeria – Airtel. However there was also controversy about the authenticity of a particular website being used for submitting job applications. What did I do? I wrote about it. 

 

The results not only showed that there is a high level of job seekers but also that the topic is of significant interest to a niche of people. Writing about a popular topic and writing about a popular ‘niche’ topic are two different things. Popular topics are published by a greater proportion of writers and so your post/article is less likely to appear in a top 10 search on Google. When writing a popular ‘niche’ topic on the other hand consider the following:

  • Using a catchy title for your article/pos (consisting of keywords likely to be used in search engines)
  • Including relevant links in your articles/content that would give the reader further information
  • Writing about the topic while it is still generating public interest
  • Prior research in order to provide a relatively holistic view on the topic