25 Expert Bloggers Explain How to Increase Blog Traffic to Get into High Paying Ad Networks

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Most bloggers dream of being able to one day increase blog traffic and switch out Google Adsense for a shiny, brand new Ad company like Mediavine or Adthrive. Basically, bloggers get to see a WAY BETTER paycheck at the end of the month when they make this switch.

The problem is that these Ad companies have a steep requirement in terms of how many sessions and pageviews a blog must have in order to be accepted. Since the first major milestone for most new bloggers is to get accepted into Mediavine, we’ll focus on just Mediavine for this post.

To get into Mediavine, a blogger must have at least 25 000 sessions (approximately 30 000 pageviews) within the last 30 days. Sometimes, these numbers can seem scary to achieve. What helps is knowing there are many others who also started at zero and worked their way up to those same numbers. Luckily, many of them shared their expert tips on how to increase blog traffic and offered advice to help new bloggers achieve their Mediavine Goals.

This post may contain some affiliate links. You can read our full disclosure for more info.

Table of Contents

How to Increase Blog Traffic?

I’m sure you would’ve heard that more page views = more money. And you want to get in on that Page Views and Money action that all the other bloggers talk about. But page views can be HARD to get, especially when you’re a new blogger! This is why they say that Blogging is not a Get Rich Quick Business. It takes time and effort to get there.

Until we get there, we can take advantage of Pinterest. As many of the expert bloggers would attest to below, Pinterest is a game changer! Pinterest means that you COULD achieve these high blog traffic numbers within your FIRST FEW MONTHS whilst working your SEO magic in the background!

It is no longer necessary to wait to be found by Google (after 6 months) when your new blog could soak up all of that Pinterest traffic goodness.

Of course you need to know HOW to use Pinterest properly to be able to accomplish Pinterest success so I highly recommend Carly’s (from Mommy on Purpose) Pinteresting Strategies Course to get started.

To please both Pinterest and Google, and rack up those high page view numbers, here’s what is recommended for new bloggers:

-Create A LOT of new Content (that will solve your audience’s problem)

Here’s the thing. You cannot just write for you! You need to remember that you’re writing for your audience and what your audience wants is their problem solved. Your post has to help them with that by offering tips and advice, or a product (which means money in your pocket) that can help.

-Do proper Keyword Research

To rank high in search engines, you need to do proper keyword research. Keywords are simply the words that people are typing out when searching for something. For example, if Anna is looking for blog traffic tips, she might type ‘how to increase blog traffic‘ or ‘blog traffic tips‘ or ‘boost blog traffic‘ into the search engine.

To get YOUR Blog Traffic Tips post to show up in the results for Anna’s search, you would have had to do proper keyword research to understand that ‘how to increase blog traffic‘ or ‘boost blog traffic‘ are highly searched terms in Pinterest/Google (and then optimized your posts with these keywords).

The tools I suggest for keyword research are Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest, the Google Chrome extension Keywords Everywhere and KWfinder. These are all free tools that I’ve used and highly recommend. If you have any others to add, please share them with us in the comments below!

-Search Engine Optimize posts for both Google and Pinterest

Once you’ve done your keyword research, you can now use it to implement your SEO strategies so that your post can be ranked in Pinterest Search (and later on, Google, as you establish yourself as a blogger). I’m not going to go into the details of SEO as it’s a lot for new bloggers to learn so my suggestion would be to invest in a good SEO course.

-Create beautiful, vertical pins for Pinterest

This is understood. If you want to win at Pinterest, you must create beautiful, clickworthy pins!

-Have keyworded pin descriptions and keyworded niche-specific Personal boards

With Pinterest’s recent update, there’s now a greater emphasis on keyworded niche-specific personal boards. Also, ensure that your pin descriptions are filled with all different variations of the keywords you are trying to rank for.

-Join keyworded niche-specific Group Boards with a large number of followers

Of course a new blogger will still need to rely on group boards to be able to showcase pins to a larger audience. Just ensure that these boards are keyworded and niche-specific.

-Keep feeding Pinterest new content Daily

Pinterest needs content creators (that’s you!), and Pinterest constantly wants new posts and information to show to its audience. If you can’t add a new post, just add a new pin for an old post, or a fresh pin with a new description.

-Pin Regularly (to relevant boards)

Pinterest wants you to pin consistently. This means you need to pin throughout the day, every day. If your schedule doesn’t allow this, invest in a pinning tool like Tailwind (get one month of Tailwind free using this link). If not, make time for consistent, manual pinning.

-A million other behind the scenes blogging tasks

Things like getting subscribers, creating freebies, converting traffic, networking, working on making our sites pretty + 89420174310 other blogging tasks constantly keep us on our toes. It’s hard to keep up, especially when we want to DO.ALL.THE.THINGS! So have an organized schedule and blogging plan.

What’s next?

So you’re doing all of the above and still not getting the blog traffic numbers that you want. I picked the brain of 25 expert bloggers and they explained what was the game changer and what took them up to 25 000 sessions. Maybe you can apply some of these tips to your blogging strategy!

So here’s the question that was asked:

The first major goal of most new bloggers is to hit 25k sessions within the 30 days time frame to qualify for Mediavine. Drawing from your own experience, what was the driving factor that helped YOU achieve those 25k sessions? Do you have any additional tips that would be helpful?

Genius Tips on How to Increase Blog Traffic from 25 Expert Bloggers

1. Using Pinterest Correctly

Pinterest played the largest role in helping me to qualify for Mediavine. Not just using Pinterest, but using it correctly, and to the fullest extent. High quality pins, super interesting titles, and an article that lives up to the pin. – McKayla | Motivation for Mom

2. Understanding the Ins and Outs of Pinterest

Understanding Pinterest and getting a few virals. By understanding titles, meta descriptions and Pinterest alt text, I was able to rank fairly quickly with only 100 followers. These 4 articles have been driving my traffic for months now, and are slowly taking other articles up with them, as readers poke around my site and see what else I am able to offer them. – Christine | Mouse Travel Matters

3. Mastering SEO

Most people seem to be getting there with pinterest, but I got my first 100,000+/month pageviews from SEO. SEO traffic is a slower build, but the quality of that traffic is much higher (converts better, leads to higher RPM) and it’s more consistent, sustainable and passive. I’m now well over 300,000 pv/month. – Debbie | The Flooring Girl
(Debbie explain how she doubled her blog’s traffic here.)

4. Write Popular Content

Write popular content that others have written, use Pinterest. Rinse and Repeat. – Paul Scrivens (aka Scrivs) | Billionaire Blog Club + 18 other blogs (I’ve lost count)

5. Take advantage of traffic from Seasonal Content

This time of year? I’d honestly hit the seasonal content hard on Pinterest! Think of a way to relate your content to something going on either with Fall/Thanksgiving/Christmas/winter/any other November/December celebration and you’ll get there pretty fast. – Lena Gott | What Mommy Does

6. Popular, Evergreen Posts

What helped me was broadening out the topics I was covering. I started covering more popular, evergreen aspects of motherhood and got a ton of page views once I started doing that. – Christina | Raising Biracial Babies

7. Viral Posts

I had a few posts go viral on Pinterest and that basically got me to Mediavine. – Dela | Brown Skin Mama

8. Pinterest Success

Finally understanding Pinterest. – Crystal | Mommy is a Wino

9. Figuring out Pinterest

Figuring out Pinterest! Once I finally starting doing things right, and creating several pins per post, my numbers started to climb! – Jen | Minnesota Momma

10. Tailwind

The thing that got me there was Tailwind. I had a pretty decent understanding of Pinterest but I couldn’t devote enough time to be consistent. Tailwind made it possible for me! – Taylor | Not Quite An Adult

11. Pinterest and Unique Content

Understanding pinterest and creating unique content that stood out in an already popular niche. – June | This Simple Balance

12. Content and Tips from an Ebook

One was Carly’s Pinterest book, and the other was content, content, content. I blogged three times a week without fail those first few months. By month four I had mediavine ads on my blog! – Amanda | Simple Life of a Frugal Wife

13. Video and Collaboration

Video! I had some killer content with a photo tutorial that saves people a lot of time, but repackaging it into a video, even just a cell phone live video on Facebook, really helped it get the traction (and traffic!) it deserved. I combined that with a very strategically timed collaboration with another bigger blogger in my niche. – Katie | Salty Pearl Crochet

14. Instagram and Pinterest

I focused on some of the streams I was already winning in – I started my instagram page prior to my blog so leveraged the following there – Once I established my regular readers I moved into hard core Pinterest phase. – Nicola | The Pinner Grammar

15. A Winning Combination

I joined Mediavine after four months of blogging due to these tips:

1 A commitment to learning
2 Create new high quality, epic content constantly
3 Understand that if others can do it, so can you
4 Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
5 Understand the fear doesn’t ever go away – Frances | Inspiring Life Dreams

16. Pinterest and Content that Worked Well

Mine was obviously Pinterest like most. But I would say the biggest mover was honing in on the content that worked well and making more of it. Two of my posts did well enough to get me in after writing many that didn’t go off nearly as well. – Rachel | This Crafty Home

17. Consistency and Keywords

Stay motivated until you reach your goal. In the beginning, it looks like a forever task. But definitely doable. Here are some quick tips:
>>Maintain consistency. Post twice a week. Create at least 3 pins per post.
>>If your pins aren’t taking off, don’t give up. Keyword them well. Create multiple pin designs until you either feel contented/exhausted.
Just keep in mind:
It might be a lot of work to start off. But the end is amazing and you’ll forget the struggle eventually. – Swati | Hear Me Folks

18. Understanding ROI

For me it was being about to understand my ROI and focusing on one goal at a time. I think a lot of us struggle with spreading ourselves too thin. I made a goal of mediavine, which meant I needed to focus on traffic. Pinterest is where I get the majority of my traffic, so I put all of my efforts into creating a lot of quality content and utilising Pinterest. Now that I have mediavine I am working towards my email list. – Audrey | Mommy Enlightened

19. Content Creation and Promotion

Content and pinning… content and pinning. – Jenny | See Mama Go

20. Make A LOT of Pins

Write about things that are getting a lot of repins on Pinterest. Make multiple pins (I did 6 per post) for every post. Make attractive pins that grab the attention of people scrolling through Pinterest. – Marybeth | Lifestyle for Real Life

21. A Viral Post

I literally got into MediaVine because of ONE post — an expert roundup. it was a ton of work, but worth it. I emailed other bloggers in my niche and got responses from 27 of them, many of whom sent photos. I went from 13,290 sessions in June to 31,345 sessions in July! Over 12,000 of my July page views were for this one post. Two things that made it so popular: 1) The question was a good one with just a hint of controversial-ness; and 2) Because I was sent so many photos, I was able to make a gazillion pins. – Jen | Three Kids, Three Cats and a Husband

22. Mastering Pin Design

When we finally figured out how to make pretty, clickable pins, we had one go viral. We replicated that pin style for other posts, and saw huge growth from Pinterest as a result. – Jaymi (and Christine) | The Salty Mamas

23. Pinterest is Important

There were two things that contributed to my qualifying for Mediavine, learning the importance of Pinterest and having two viral pins. – Diana | Sew Very Crafty

24. A Viral Post

I had a pattern go viral and was able to skip Mediavine and go to AdThrive. Pinterest isn’t a huge traffic generator for me – I wish it was. I focus on SEO. – Donna | 3am Grace Designs

25. Content and Pinning

I wrote popular content and pinned about 50 times a day. – Waheeda | Habits Buzz

So there you go guys! The experts have spoken and provided us with some smart tips on how to increase blog traffic!

Sometimes when our goals seem unreachable, we just need a simple reminder that others have travelled the road before us and if they’re willing to share their advice, we can use this to our advantage!

Additional Resources:

Pinteresting Strategies – Formerly an ebook, Carly from Mommy on Purpose has now updated this blogging resource to a user friendly course. In this e-course, Carly explains exactly how she went from 0 – 250K pageviews on her brand new blog by using Pinterest. This enabled her to make a full time income from her blog within her first 9 months of blogging!

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers – This course is also by Carly specifically for bloggers who want to start making money from their blog through affiliate marketing.

Tailwind – The answers clearly show that Pinterest played an important part in most of the above bloggers’ success. If you’re unable to commit to pinning on Pinterest consistently, Tailwind is the way to go! Grab a free month of Tailwind here!

How to Start a Money Making Blog – Do you still not have a blog? Are you ready to get started on one? Check out my step-by-step tutorial on how to get started and set up to start collecting your first few dollars.

Now, over to you!

Are you trying to increase your blog traffic? Do you have a Mediavine goal? Which of these blog traffic tips are you going to start implementing first?

Are you a seasoned blogger who already has high blog traffic? If so, is there any other blog traffic tip you’d like to add to this list? Share with us in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to share and pin for later!

Until next time,

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