Hey, hey friends. Welcome back to the show. I am so excited to share this brand new, I guess series we'll call it because I'm going to do more of these as I see them come out. But I was editing one of my clients podcast the other day. And it was this particular episode that sparked this idea with Bree pair. So Bree is the host of Thrive blogger podcast, where she shares how bloggers and content creators can monetize the content that they're creating. And in this episode, she's talking about how she's sharing three ways that you can improve your blog traffic, so traffic to your website. And for one, I thought, this is a really good episode for my audience to hear because she gives some really valid points that I think all of podcasters in general could take away and like run with. But as a podcaster. The strategy behind this episode was so good that I was like, Okay, I've got to share, I've got to share my insight on this. So the way this is going to work is I'm going to play her episode, but then in between certain sections, I'm going to come in and I'm going to tell you what she did and how she did it well so that you can replicate it for your own podcast, and I did get permission from her before sharing this episode. So I want to throw that out there. But this is just such a solid, valuable piece of content on so many levels, so I cannot wait to dive in and highlight all of the things that Bri did right in this episode. Hey, y'all, welcome to the clocking in Podcast, the podcast for podcasters entrepreneurs and professionals making their way in the working world while building their own personal brand in the podcasting industry. I'm your host Haylee Gaffin owner of Gaffin creative a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs. If you're a podcaster, or even just dreaming about launching your own podcast someday, this show was built to help you merge your love of conversation, education and business, you can find resources shownotes and more for the clocking in podcast at Gap and creative.com. Today's episode is brought to you by MIC CHECK society, a community that was built for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great, scale your podcasts, improve your processes and connect with your listeners through our educational trainings, our private members only community and our monthly calls. If you're ready to join us, you can head over to Mic check society.com and enroll today. And you can get $10 off per month with the code podcast. Now let's clock in and get to work. Okay, before we kick off this episode, I wanted to highlight how Bri starts her episode, she actually brings in her own sponsor and says This episode is brought to you by one of her programs. And I am a big fan of this because it is at the beginning of all of her episodes. It highlights a program that she wants people to know that she offers and it just kind of creates that brand awareness for her listeners who may not be in the program yet or maybe they're not ready but when they become ready, they will get started in that program. So Okay, well let's kick off this episode.
This podcast is brought to you by the profitable blogger society, a mentorship program that gives bloggers direction for increasing their income and growing their brand to thrive together dot blog slash Pb S to learn more and enroll today. Welcome to the Thrive podcast I'm prepare your host and blogging coach here to help you take your brand to the next level. At thrive, we're dedicated to bringing bloggers and influencers tactics, strategies, and behind the scenes info from the best in the business. We know that you have a big vision for your brand and life and we're here to support you with blogging and social media tutorials, workshops a community and of course this podcast just head to thrive together dot blog for all the latest tools. If you're ready to grow your brand and looking for education and encouragement then you've come to the right place. Now let's get ready to thrive. Hey blogging babes. This episode is for all of our blogging gals. If you guys do not have a blog set up yet, what are you waiting for my friend head to thrive together top blog slash start because we have created a nine step guide to help you get your blog up and running. We walk you through every single step, making it super easy. So there are no excuses for you not to have a blog. As we know when social media goes down. We tend to panic a little you know Instagram and Facebook just went down on us this month this month right just few days ago. Not long ago, and it caused a little bit of panic. So make sure you have a blog because you need a place where people can go and find you. If social media is going down. So thrive together dot blog slash start is going to have that guide for you.
All right, I'm interrupting really quickly because I want to highlight, not only did she introduce that program at the beginning, like I mentioned, but she also started thinking about her list building. And she thought, Oh, I'm talking to bloggers, if someone is brand new to the podcast, to blogging, I want to make sure that they have a resource that they can go download and get started right away on their blog. So she offered her free startup guide for building a blog. And I just I think that's so valuable, because she is building her list. From the beginning, she is making sure that people have the resources they need. But she's also considering building her email list. Okay, let's go back to the show. And
today, we're talking about three ways to increase your blog traffic. Because once you make a blog, and you have it up and running, what's the point? If nobody is reading your blog post, right? So three different ways we're going to cover today on how to increase your blog traffic. You've probably heard of all three of these ways, but I'm going to dive into them. And just kind of do a refresh for you share a couple of my favorite tools to use. And, yeah, hopefully, you'll learn something fun and new today. So the first one is SEO pop up. We've had multiple podcast episodes, talking about SEO. So we're going to link a couple of those in the show notes for you guys to go back and listen to if you want to just like take this conversation and dive even deeper into it. You're welcome to do that.
Okay, did you hear that she just shared other episodes. So she is driving people back to other episodes that they may not have heard of before, but she's referencing them. The other thing that she's doing on the back end is she is actually building internal linking within her website for SEO benefits as well, where this episode has SEO mentioned in it. And now she's going to link to other episodes, so it's benefiting her audience, but it's also benefiting herself and her SEO strategy.
We also have an SEO class that you guys can take Seo 101. It's $49 super affordable. And we partnered with Danielle gagnant, who is our resident SEO expert, and she created video tutorials that really dive into that and even show you like how to use Google Analytics, because that stuff is so confusing. Oh my goodness. So we'll link all of that including that class in the show notes. And
she's added again, she literally just told you how valuable SEO is. And if you you know you're getting the base in this episode, which we're about to get to, but you're getting the base information you need. But in order to implement it, she actually has a full class that teaches you how to, and it's a paid class. So she's monetizing by promoting her paid class, whereas everything she's done so far has really been about serving for free. So like that freebie promoting old episodes they can go listen to but now there's an opportunity for them to pay to get even more information. So consider that next time you're like, Okay, I don't want to give too much away. You don't have to give it all away, you can just give the bare minimum or just like a base training and then dive deeper in your paid offerings. Okay, let's go back to the show.
The biggest thing with SEO is you want to make sure that you're choosing the right keywords. So you can't just pull keywords out of your beautiful brain and decide I want to rank for this. You have to do some research and make sure that it's something that you can actually rank for. What do I mean by ranking for? I mean, that when somebody goes into Google or any other search tool that they're using, and they type in a certain keyword or a thing that they are wanting to know more information about have a question about, we want your blog posts to pop up at the top. Alright, the way that we do that is by having keywords plugged into your blog post. And then when Google is searching around really quick on the internet to determine what blog post or what website, they're going to send that person for the result. We want yours to pop up at the top. So in order for us to figure out what keywords can I use in order to get my blog post to show up, we need to use some type of keyword research tool. There's a ton out there. There's some that are free and there's some that are hundreds of dollars a month. So we have found two that we recommend that we think fit every budget. The first one is the more expensive one. It's rank our cue And let me tell you what this tool is a power house, not only is the tool itself a powerhouse, but the creators behind it are also so invested in their users that they're like, you know, what if your niche is not here for some reason, and you're not coming up with the keywords that you can rank for, let us know. And we're going to dive in, and we're going to create new ones for you. Like, that's amazing. So they are so dedicated to making sure that you when you are using their tool are getting the results that you need. So that's rank IQ, we'll link that in the show notes or just head to thrive together dot blog slash rank IQ. And you can use it that way. We love this tool so much that we're also going to create a YouTube video tutorial for that. And I'm gonna do my best to have that tutorial up and running before this podcast goes live. So make sure you check all the show notes for a link to that. But that's the number one tool that we're recommending that is still affordable, it is $49 a month. And that is compared to some of the other ones out there where you can literally spend 100 200 300 like so much. This one is like a super powerhouse tool that we think gives you the one of the best bang for your buck. The other one that is even more affordable, is key search. I still think queue search is a really, really cool tool. I like to use it when I am searching for something really quickly. It's pretty user friendly and easy to find different things that you can rank for. And we have a tutorial about key search on our YouTube channel already for you guys. So you can go and check that one out as well. And when you use the code thrive at checkout, you do get an extra special discount over there when you try key search. So those are the two that I recommend key search is less than $20 a month Rinka Q is about 49. And I mean, as you can expect, like the more you pay, the more you're gonna get with these tools. So it really just depends on like, what is your budget and what works for you based on which one you choose to go with.
Okay, now let's talk about the two things she did in that section of the conversation. So one, she shared about two tools that she really loves, and that she recommends. But she also included her own affiliate links. So when she said each of the URLs, those are actually pretty links that redirect to her own affiliate links. So she's using that in order to share the tool. But also she's taking advantage of affiliate programs from tools she loves. So I will recommend, don't use tools that you don't love. If you are recommending tools just because of an affiliate link, you're not going to make your audience happy. Now with these two tools, I know that Bree actually uses them, she pays for them. So keep that in mind as you are creating this type of content. But that's the first thing she's monetizing through those affiliate links. The second thing she did was she promoted her YouTube channel. I know that part of Bri strategy for this year is to grow on YouTube. As she's sharing about resources. She's also highlighting that she does have that YouTube channel that people can go search and look up. And she's making sure that it integrates into the content she already has, like, Oh, you want to learn how to use this tool actually have a whole tutorial on how you as a blogger can use it. So really, really great strategy here. So far, we've already got six different strategies that she's used. And I can't wait to go through even more with you. So let's go back.
The other thing with SEO is probably the biggest thing is you got to have patience. And that is really hard. It's hard. I am not good at having patience. I want something to work quickly, which is why social media works so well in our society, because we want things to happen instantaneously. Right? So whenever you are posting a real, you're getting a boost of adrenaline and you go back and you check to see how the real performed right you're getting those like a good vibes and those good feelings like headed your way like oh, cool, like instant gratification with SEO is not instant gratification, but it does pay off in the long run. So as long as you stay consistent with publishing blog posts that have awesome keywords, it is going to pay off long term. So I want you to think of your blog as like the long term plan and the long term strategy for your brand. And social media is the short term social media is like the little First, the little bursts of push the little bursts of engagement, the little sparks okay, but those sparks are just pushing the big tank that is your blog and that is what is going to sustain throughout your brand's life. This episode is brought to you buy a member for Have you ever thought about having a membership for your brand? Whether your passion is cooking, DIY, home decor, fashion travel, family blogging, you name it, you can monetize your content with member full member full allows you to create a new source of income by turning your content into a membership business. With member full you can focus on creating content that you're passionate about, and that your audience wants to see and make money while doing it. You can create multiple membership tiers, and limit access to certain blogs or videos and other content to better connect with your most devoted followers. There'll be your secret insiders getting all the extra content you don't share with others. Member full has everything you need to get your membership program up and running quickly, which I love. They've got content gating in house newsletters, private podcasts, and so much more that you can do. They also have seamlessly integrate with your existing WordPress website. Or you can use member full to build a home for your members within minutes. Plus, their team is amazing. And they're ready to help you simplify your memberships and grow your revenue. Because they're passionate about your success. We love that you guys go get started for free at member fool.com/thrive That's member full M emberful.com/thrive.
Alright, you heard that that was an ad, she actually had a sponsor for today's episode. So she put it in the middle of the episode, and she monetize that way. That is just another way that you can monetize your podcast.
Your blog can also bring recurring revenue once you hit a certain amount of pageviews, which is probably why you're listening to this is because you want to get onto like a media vine or Rapportive and see 1000 2000 $3,000 coming in consistently without you having to do anything at all. Because once you have all of those blog posts that have the keywords plugged in for you, and are constantly driving traffic to you, you don't have to do as much lift to keep getting money coming in, which is what we love, right. So the other thing that I want to encourage you to do, because I think a lot of us create blog posts that take a lot of time. And what I want you to do is to get really strategic, okay, if you're like I have the ability to release one blog post a week, amazing. What I'm guessing, though, is that that blog post is taking you quite a bit of time, you're probably shooting content for it, you're doing a lot of research, maybe you're making a recipe, what I want you to do is to think strategically, what type of blog posts can I create, that are going to take me an hour, that don't require me to shoot any more photos or videos that don't require me to make a full recipe, what is a low lift blog post, but is going to give me good keywords that I can rank for. So for example, maybe you're a food blogger, I want you to go and find blog posts that you can rank for where maybe you are teaching a method or sharing a hack. So it's not something that you have to have all these different pictures. Or maybe it's one where you have photos from creating different recipes were like, oh, yeah, I did this method here, or I use this tool here. Let me go and grab some of those images for this blog post. So you're not having to create any new content. Or maybe you're sharing a bunch of resources, whatever it is, it's like searching for what are those keywords that I can search for it that I can create blog posts quickly. That is how you're going to get more blog posts on your site faster, is by not just always creating those longer form pieces of content that take a lot of time. What are some low lift pieces of content that you can create because you know so much about it, you have some photos, you can probably already pool, but have really good keywords that you can rank for. Maybe you're a fashion blogger, find blog posts, you can rank for where you can teach how to style a certain piece of clothing. Again, searching with rank IQ or key search or another tool like that to see what are keywords that I can rank for. Let me make a list of those. So then that way I can supplement my blog posts as I'm going build up my library of content and get my page boosted even faster. So that's SEO. The second way to Increase blog traffic is Pinterest. Pinterest is not dead. I feel like there was definitely a LoL. And I know we've talked about that on the podcast before there was definitely a LoL there for a little bit. But I'm telling you Pinterest still drives so much traffic for so many bloggers, you have to do the research on Pinterest keywords. Okay, make sure you do that. You don't again, same type of thing as SEO, you don't want to just like oh, I want to just talk about this. Make sure you go and figure out what kind of titles do I need? What do I need to talk about my descriptions, make sure you optimize your Pinterest boards, all of those things. We have a class that I did with our girl Natalie Bardot. She is the Pinterest queen. And you guys can watch that replay of that class for free thrive to dot blog slash Pinterest workshop or again, we will link that for you in the description below. That is a really good place to start if you're needing to increase your Pinterest strategy. Okay,
now she just shared a free class where one she's gathering more email addresses but to that free class, and I'm sure she won't mind me saying this actually leads to even more affiliate income for her. So Natalie Bardo taught a free class, and then is selling something at the very, very end. Like that's how most free classes and webinars work. And then because it came from Brees audience, bam, she has affiliate income. So just another way that you can monetize your podcast by repurposing other affiliate programs and affiliate partnerships that you have done in the past.
As a high level overview, researcher Pinterest keywords, pin four pins for every blog post, okay, I want you to pin one every eight days. That way, they're stacked and you're not like seeing them one after the other after the other on top of each other same day of the week, that type of thing. So pin one every eight days, do a variety of those four pins. So do like a longer one, do a regular size, do a video, do one with a little graphic, do different types. And then go back to old blog posts and re pins those. What you want to do here is pick ones that are three months ahead of where you are now. So let's say it's March, and you're wanting to go and create four new pins for an old blog post, I want you to go to June of last year, and pin new ones for those blog posts. So that way, they've got three months to circulate on Pinterest. So by the time June rolls around, they're actually starting to show up in people's feeds and in the algorithm, okay, so you want to be three months ahead of where you are. Now, obviously, when you're posting in real time, it's not really possible to do that all the time. And so by utilizing your old content, and just jumping three months ahead and pinning those and re sharing those, that's what's going to help you with your strategy. And with getting those posts recirculated back on Pinterest, you don't want to go and pin the same pins that you did last time don't repin anything. Trust doesn't. I think that used to be a thing I know it used to be a thing years and years ago. It's not anymore. They want fresh pins. So that means a new pin design, maybe a different image or a different angle of the image, crop it, add some graphics, something that freshens it up, okay, you don't want to just repin the same pins over and over again, it's not going to give you the results. So that is a high level of Pinterest. Again, if you want to dive deeper, make sure you go watch that free masterclass. Okay, third way to Increase blog traffic, it's social media. But here's the thing, it's not just going to be me posting a whole bunch of reels or me posting a whole bunch of posts. What you have to do is really dive into what is my audience doing on these different platforms? How are they engaging? And where are they clicking? Where are they clicking links? What platforms are they clicking links on? That can drive traffic to my website, it might not be your favorite social media platform. So if Instagram is your favorite social media platform, but you're never seeing anybody, click over to your website. First of all, make sure you're giving them opportunities to click over to your website. But if you are and it's not driving any traffic, then maybe Instagram is not the place for you to grow your pageviews sure it does very well on its platform on its own. So maybe you're getting views you're getting follows and that has a whole bunch of benefits on its own right. But what we're talking about specifically in this episode is increasing our pay to traffic. So what you want to just do is to look at your target audience. Look at which platforms, are they going to unclick and engage past that social media post? So is that Instagram? Is it a Facebook page or facebook group is at LinkedIn? Again, it's all about finding your target audience, what is my niche? And what platform? Can I reach them on? So many people are seeing huge success over on LinkedIn. So if your audience is on LinkedIn, and your topics make sense to be over there, get over on LinkedIn, because people are clicking links over on LinkedIn. Same thing for paid Facebook pages and Facebook groups, a lot of people will click the links over there. Sometimes it works for Instagram for certain people in certain niches. So it's all about your audience, you have to do the research, you have to know your audience and know where are they going to click and engage. You can't just be like, well, I liked this platform. So I'm going to do this or I really hate that platform. So I'm not going to do that. If you really hate Facebook, but it's going to drive 2000 5000 10,000 More pageviews to your blog, a month, maybe we should kind of move past that hate and realize, you know what, I need to put my CEO hat on, be strategic and go get those pageviews to get that money. Okay, so really dive into what how is my target audience interacting with these different platforms? And where am I leaving pageviews on the table with the social media platforms. So those are my three ways that I have for you guys to increase your blog traffic, SEO, Pinterest, and social media. They all come with those little nuances that you have to figure out for yourself, and figure out what really works with your target audience. But I promise you it is worth the work. And it is worth figuring out how to make these strategies work for you. Because when you do and you can get a couple $1,000 headed your way each month. That is huge, right? That can be a game changer for so many of us. So it is worth figuring out. And we are going to be posting a tutorial, like I said, for rank IQ on our YouTube channel, we already have one over there for key search. So make sure you go follow us over there. Over on YouTube. If you just search thrive together blog, you will find us or click the link in the description below. And it'll take you over to our channel. We also post our podcast over there on our YouTube channel. So if you like to have something on a screen, while you are out and about in the house, in your office, somebody to feel like you're co working with head over to our YouTube channel and listen to our podcast in video form. You can also see all the crazy faces I make and the mistakes that I make that I try to remember to cut out but it's more real life over there. We also have a whole bunch of tutorials for you guys and more coming soon. So it's definitely a place that you want to head if you are wanting to grow, which is why you're listening. Right? Okay, cool. All right, you guys. That's it for today. And we'll see you back here on Tuesday for another Thrive and five episode. See you then. Thanks so much for listening. You can find all of the notes from today's podcast at thrive together dot blog slash podcast. Make sure you connect with us over on Instagram at thrive together blog and join our Facebook community to get supported by like minded bloggers and influencers. Just search Thrive blogger community on Facebook. And if you're loving this podcast, be sure to share it with a friend. Hit that subscribe button and leave us review so even more bloggers can get the support they need to grow. Until next time, keep thriving.
Okay, friends, so she wrapped up that episode by sharing about her YouTube channel again, which I think is so important, especially because she has not always put her podcast episodes on YouTube. So she's still marketing that side of her podcast. And like she said they are not the same version of the audio based episode because she's just uploading her very real and raw self. So I really wanted to highlight how she did that and recap all of the things she did in this episode that stood out to me as far as strategy goes for podcasting. So the very first thing she did was she introduced her program at the top of the episode for brand awareness and also to push signups. The second thing she did was she she promoted a freebie for list building. So that free blog startup guide. That's what she promoted to her audience that are brand new to blogging and if her listeners are not brand new, there's something for them later on to the third thing she did was she be promoted old episodes, which increases her downloads for new listeners as well. The fourth thing she did was she promoted a paid class, something that she can earn immediate money from. And immediate revenue is also passive. It is a class that she has had on her website for a while. But it's something that she can continue to promote over and over. It's an evergreen style content. Now, the fifth thing she did was she utilized affiliate links, and the two that she used were rank IQ and keysearch. The sixth thing that she did was she promoted her YouTube channel, she highlighted that there were tutorials over on the YouTube channel for the exact tool that she was talking about. Now, the seventh thing she did was she included an actual sponsor for the episode. So she monetized her podcast with a sponsor, while also promoting her own stuff. So you can do both. You can use affiliates, you can monetize through sponsorships, you can sell your programs, you can sell your products, everything, you can do it all in one episode. Now the eighth thing she did was she offered a free class replay. So it's a masterclass that she did. And that masterclass, gets her email addresses like for signups but also leads to affiliate income for her so she can get that affiliate income. Now, the last thing she did was she re promoted her YouTube channel. But this time, she included the fact that she actually puts her podcast episodes in video format, that are real and raw, over on her YouTube channel. So you can connect with her anytime you can watch her record, you can watch her do all the things. So I just wanted to highlight all of those things that she did. Because as I was editing and working on it, I was like, wow, she just I mean, she put a lot of thought into every single thing that she did in this episode. And anywhere that she could work something in, she took advantage of it. And that is how you should be considering your podcasts like, no will every single listener take action, absolutely not. But the ones that need the things and the resources that she mentioned, they will take action. And this content lives for a very long time. So some the content and the strategy she put in today can pay off for her. For years, people will still be listening to this episode in a year in two years, because as you get new listeners, they will go back and listen to old episodes. And the other thing to consider too is that's also where her strategy of promoting those old episodes is so valuable. Because say today was someone's first or fifth episode and they hadn't listened to those old SEO episodes. They may not know she has them. But when she's doing that, that gives them a direct line of where they should go next in their listening experience with her. Or if someone has listened to those, they can go back and listen to them as well. And this is something you should always kind of look into when you are tracking your data and analytics and see. Okay, I mentioned these two episodes during that episode, when that episode went live. How many people went back and listen during that, you know, first 30 days to those two episodes. And then you can see how many people are taking action, specifically in regards to more episodes on your podcast. All right, friends, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast episode review. If you did, make sure you head over to breeze podcast, give her a little love over there, leave her review, subscribe. And if this is an episode that you enjoyed, let me know. Let me know if you liked this style if you learned more from it, and I will keep an eye out for more episodes like this and we'll highlight them here on the podcast. Alright friends, I will see you all next week. Thank you so much for listening to clocking in with Haylee Gaffin. For resources mentioned in today's episode head to Gaffin creative.com. If you're a podcaster looking for a community that will help you improve your podcast, make sure you check out my check society, our community for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great enroll today at Mic check society.com and use code podcast for $10 off per month. If you love this episode, I'd be honored if you'd leave me a review in the Apple podcast app. Until next time, I'm your host Haylee Gaffin clocking out
