Most of the times bloggers get traffic to their blog through guest posting, blog commenting, using social media, forum posting, directory submission and the list goes on.

What about tweaking your blog to help increase your blog traffic?

Have you ever thought about this? We always go out to pull in traffic to our blog. Have you ever thought about staying on your blog, tweaking it so that it helps to increase your blog traffic?

I have been tweaking my blog every now and then for the past two months to increase my blog traffic. Have I been successful in doing this? Yes I have. You may have not seen the changes but I have been working undercover, so to speak, in getting my blog traffic up.

In this post I will be giving you some tips on what I did and what you can do as well to tweak your blog to increase the traffic on your blog.

[box]Remove Unnecessary Widgets/Plugins[/box]

Plugins and widgets work in such a great way so that it enhances our blog to be unique, user friendly, presentable, etc. Without plugins or widgets that all blogs would look almost the same. With plugins or widgets then we can customize our blogs the way we want.

Too much plugins and widgets on your blog can be damaging! I had tons of cool plugins on my blog and I loved everyone of them because I think they make my blog look more unique. But one thing that I realized is that these plugins weren’t being used for any good purposes. I used them because I like their functionality and this hurt my blog.

When there are too many plugins and widgets on a blog then it slows it down. The more plugin then the slower your blog will load. This results in visitors browsing only one page, not subscribing, not making any sales, not leaving any comments and also not sharing my blog posts. So what I had to do was to tweak my blog and see which plugins and widgets were more important for my blog.

I removed the unnecessary plugins and my blog now loads much faster. Also my traffic and subscribers list grew a bit.

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Tips For Using Widgets

We all love to use widgets on our blog to make it look presentable to our blog visitors and readers. Not all widgets on our blog are fit to be displayed on every page.

For Example: The Recent Posts widget isn’t necessary to be displayed on the blog index page.

Why?

This is because the blog index/front page already has your recent posts. This widget will only cause your blog to load a bit slower and also search engine robots will realize that you have duplicate links loading on the index/front page and in your sidebar.

So how do you stop loading duplicate links?

Well I have found this cool plugin, very light weight so don’t worry it won’t cause your blog to load slow, it can be used for hiding and showing widgets on pages that you choose.

The name of this plugin is called Widget Context. Below is a screenshot of the plugin.

widget context wordpress plugin

As you can see in the image above you can select to show or hide that particular widget on the front page, single page, single post, search page, 404 page and so on.

This is a great plugin for you when tweaking your WordPress blog. Helps to increase traffic by helping to decrease your blog’s loading time.

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[box type=”yellow”]Remove Some Of Your ADs[/box]

Make money blogging is one of the main goals of bloggers because this is one of  the great methods of making a living online. Sometimes us as bloggers over do it by placing too much ads on our blog. We search for advertising networks and place all these banners on our blog thinking we might get rich over night.

Too much banners helps to kill our blog traffic and this results in no money. Without traffic to our blog then who shall we market to?

Only place a few ads on your blog, focus on marketing products that will help your blog readers, and also this will help to make your blog load faster. Most ad networks use either javascript or HTML code for loading images. Too much javascript and banners can slow down your blog loading time by more than 50 %. You will soon realize that your traffic will leave and no money making will take place.

Focus on writing more content for your blog and cut back on the ads. Doing this will help you to start the money making process.

[box type=”blue”]Check Your Blog Design And Logo[/box]

An eye catching blog theme and logo has always been one of my first things I notice whenever I visit a new blog. I always love to see a blog with a clean navigation menu, eye catching logo and also a neat blog theme.

If you want to keep traffic on your blog then you have to tweak your blog in such a way to great your new comers attention and also keeping your existing blog visitors entertained.

One of my favorite WordPress theme is Thesis and I have been using it on this blog the very first day that launched it. This WordPress theme can be customized the way that you want your blog to look with having little or almost no knowledge of HTML programming. There are also tons of skins that you can get for your Thesis Theme, both free and paid.

So be sure to check out the Thesis WordPress Theme today, I’m pretty sure that you will love it.

[box type=”green”]Open External Links In New Window/Tab[/box]

In order to increase your blog traffic then you need to keep your blog visitors on your blog and another way to do this is opening external links in a new window or tab.

External links are other websites or blogs. So this means they are not your links which makes them external.

If you send your blog visitors to other sites by opening that external link in the same window then chances are that they might not remember that they were browsing from your blog. So you have to be sure to open links in a new window/tab.

Opening external links in a new window/tab is very easy to do. Check out the example below.

<a href="https://webmaster-success.com" target="_blank">WebMaster-Success.com</a>

The highlighted section of the coding in red makes the external link opens up in a new window/tab, leaving your blog still open in the background. Robots recognize this as the user still being on your blog and will help to decrease your bounce rate.

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Open Links In New Window

What if you already have tons of links on your WordPress blog then it would be quite a challenge to go through all your blog post and make all the adjustments to open the links in a new window/tab.

Install this WordPress plugin called Outbound Links which will do this for you. This plugin will make all your external links open in a new window/tab without using the target=”_blank” on your links.

[button type=”arrow” color=”blue” link=”http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/outbound-links/”]Click HERE To Get The Outbound Links Plugin[/button]

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[box type=”red”]Use CommentLuv Premium Plugin[/box]

With the CommentLuv premium plugin installed on your blog then you are sure to increase your blog’s traffic. For one thing blog visitors and readers love this plugin, not because they have it on their blog but because the blog that they love to read has it installed on it. This is because when they leave comments on your blog, if the CommentLuv is installed, then they have the option to leave a link back to one of their latest blog post.

With the CommentLuv premium then you can boost your blog traffic. Just set it so that your blog visitors and readers select to share your blog post with others before they get to select more of one of their blog post to share or have their links attached with do-follow.

[button type=”embed” color=”red” link=”https://webmaster-success.com/commentluv”]Download The CommentLuv Plugin[/button]

[box type=”spacer”]CommentLuv Also Saves Space[/box]

As I mentioned earlier in this article that you should remove unnecessary plugins so that your blog will move faster, because website visitors loves when a site or webpage loads fast.

With the CommentLuv premium plugin you have 8 different types of plugin in one. This is so amazing!

Check out the other wonderful plugins that you get with CommentLuv Premium:

  • GASP

Helps to prevent spam.

  • KeywordLuv

Commentator can use keywords in name field.

  • Twitterlink Comments

Commentator gets to share their twitter profile.

  • CommentLuv (of course)

Promotion of latest blog post.

  • Trackback Validation

Prevent or allow trackbacks.

  • Do Follow

Enable or disable do-follow on your blog.

  • Top Commentators Widget

Show love for your top commentators.

  • No Self Ping

Stops your blog from pinging itself.

This is why I blogged about the plugin here: CommentLuv Premium – One Of The Best Thing That Happened To This Blog

[button type=”embed” color=”red” link=”https://webmaster-success.com/commentluv”]Download The CommentLuv Plugin[/button]

[box type=”blue”]Optimize Posts For Search Engine Traffic[/box]

One of the best types of traffic that you can get to your blog is targeted traffic. What makes this type of traffic the best? For one thing it is totally free, this type of traffic is interested in your content, they will always come back to your blog and they will help to make you money. Targeted traffic makes your blog successful because they enjoy reading your contents and these ones will not hesitate to share your articles with their friends, both online and offline.

How can you get these type of traffic for your blog?
Well what you need to do is make sure you enter the correct keywords that describes your blog post. Have a catchy headline and also remember to neatly insert the keyword in the headline as well. When writing your article, use the keyword in your sub-headings and also use that particular keyword through out your article. The description of your article is also an important section to fill out. This is recognized by search engine robots and you will be indexed more to the top of results if the description is good enough and also has the keyword.

Long-tailed keywords are the best and are often recognized by search engine users. So remember before you hit the publish button, make sure that your article is optimized for search engine pusposes.

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Group Discussion

What methods to you use to boost your blog traffic by tweaking your very own blog?

Please leave your comments below and thanks for reading.

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54 comments

  1. Nauman

    Reply

    Thanks after reading your post i have removed my recent post widget from my blog but now also my blog loading speed is slow please check my blog and say what to remove and i totally agree with Samuel

  2. Aditya Nath Jha

    Reply

    Very nice tips given by you. I want to ask which is better comment luv or disqus ?

    • Reply

      Hey Aditya,

      I would rather to go with CommentLuv. This wonderful plugin invites readers to comment on your blog post.

      Which one of them are you using?

      • Aditya Nath Jha

        Reply

        Earlier I was using Disqus. But it slowed down my site. So, right now I am just using Akismet. I would love to try comment luv if it’s fast!

          • Aditya Nath Jha

            Ok bro. I will use it soon. Just tell me one last thing. Is it free or not ?

          • There is a free version and a paid version. Currently I am using the paid version because you get a whole bunch of other stuff with the paid version.

          • Aditya Nath Jha

            Thank you brother, I will proceed with the free version first!

          • petersmithso

            I am just using Akismet. I would love to try comment luv if it’s fast!

  3. Mairaj Pirzada

    Reply

    Hey Bro,

    Thanks a lot for one that really touches my heart! It’s really a massive post, congo that you got me really happy with your blog.

    It’s a good thing to reduce load time of your blog. Because there are millions of readers who are really hasty!

    • Reply

      Hey Mairaj. You are right man. People are in a rush these days and if your blog takes long to load then they will find another blog to read from.

      Thanks again for the comment.

  4. Paul Anderson

    Reply

    I’m guilty about placing too much ads on my blog. I haven’t thought that maybe, the audience will find the ads annoying that they wouldn’t come back to my blog and the result is decrease in traffic. Thanks for reminding me.

  5. Ben Cogan

    Reply

    Very interesting article, learned something new about the CommentLuv plugin that I did not known, that you I will sure continue reading your blog from today.

    best regards,

    Ben

  6. Reply

    These are the best tips so far. Too many plugins I think can lower the loading time as mentioned by you and some of the other commentators. Also some basic SEO is required so such alt tags, h1 etc.

    • Reply

      Yes SEO is a must. h1, h2 and h3 tags in sub-headings with keywords is the best way to go for getting search engine traffic.

  7. John deep

    Reply

    Commentluv is a wonderful plug-in. I used to have it activated on my blog last year but then I disabled it due to the comment spam that it was attracting. However, I’m thinking of enabling it again as it provides a real incentive to people for commenting. 🙂

    • Reply

      Yep it’s one of the must have plugins on every blog. The plugin was updated and it now has more spam protection. I haven’t gotten much spams since then.

  8. Amrik Virdi

    Reply

    I never forget and keep it in my mind that visitors are viewing my blog, because they expect to find information of some sort. They are not there to only watch ads and buy products. I always be very careful when choosing how much of them to put. Most blogs I have gone through use no more than two or three ads. The best possible positions for the adverts are the sidebar (preferably on top over the rest of the widgets) and over your blog posts. That way they can be easily seen, but at the same time users don’t get distracted.

    • Reply

      You are right Amrik.

      Too much ads on a blog can make that blog look like a billboard and this would only go to show that the blog owner only wants to make money and doesn’t care much for writing content to suite the visitors needs.

      Thanks for your comment.

  9. Reply

    He-eh.. it’s hard when you think that all of your plug-ins are “must” and cool.. everytime I tried to cut down my plugins, there are just some that I couldn’t live without

    • Reply

      I know what you mean. But look at your plugin list, see which ones you hardly use or the ones that your readers hardly use and remove them. This will help your blog to perform faster.

        • Reply

          Well see the ones that you don’t use and get rid of them. I’m sure that your blog would perform better if you got rid of some of the extra load. 🙂

  10. tipstrick

    Reply

    great technique, i will train it and add it on my daily blog activities. your techniques sounds good and i am very happy that it comes from a professional. thanks again for sharing your experience.

    • Reply

      Thanks for your comment. You called me a professional, thanks, but I don’t think I have reached that level as yet. Working my way to that level though 🙂

    • Reply

      Well if you follow my tips and apply them to your blog then you will have success. Best of luck to you now 🙂

  11. Amy

    Reply

    It is necessay to give some time to your blogs daily. The tips you share are really very important to follow. Unnecessary plugins and widgets increase blog’s loading time which is not a good thing. Blog contents should be relevant and have a eye catching Title.

    • Reply

      If we desire our blogs to be one of the best then we have to spend time making it better each day. If we don’t work on our blog then we won’t get visitors or make money.

      Thanks for the comment, Amy.

  12. Maja

    Reply

    Too many installation of plugins on a blog decease the load time of a blog that can hurt the site in sense of SEO.
    If a site has greater load time it also loses visitors.

    • Reply

      Yes that’s correct. It decreases the loading time of our blog and our SEO will be wasted. Thanks for that point as well.

  13. Michael Beverly

    Reply

    It sounds like a lot of work just to increase the traffic to your site a little bit. But I agree with you, it needs to be done for long term benefits. You’re making it very clear here what you did and how you did it. Thanks for the tips.

    • Reply

      Its not a lot of work to tweak your blog. Just do a little everyday and this will make your blog even better for a few years.

      Everyday I make a bit of changes to my blog, even though not visible to my blog visitors but they can see the difference in performance 😀

      Thanks for the comment Michael.

  14. Ehsan

    Reply

    Hello Kharim, Awesome post bro. I have never thought of opening links in new window makes our visitors stay long to our blog. I will surely use Widget Context plugin on my blog. Thanks for sharing the great tips bro. That is something which should be read by everyone.

    • Reply

      Thanks for the comment Eshan. These 2 plugins are great and they have helped to boost my blog’s performance with my visitors.

      Thanks for the comment.

  15. Rahul kuntala

    Reply

    Hi Kharim 🙂

    I wrote the same point(open external links in new tabs) on my blog. In fact, I stress that point! I even wonder sometimes why few top listed blogs like problogger, copyblogger don’t follow this. May be they’ve been using it from day 1 and not to annoy their readers suddenly, that’s why they’re still following(or else even they could have done – opening ext. links in new tabs!). BTW it’s my own opinion.

    Coming to CL premium, I’m eagerly waiting to have that on my blog(it really has soo many cool features) and it improves comments along with the traffic! BTW great post Kharim.

    • Reply

      Well with those probloggers they have established themselves on the web and people will always remember their blog and go back to it.

      With us who are upcoming bloggers have to open links in new windows/tabs so as to make our blog better.

      CommentLuv is great and I have been using it on my blog for years and the premium version since it was launched. I think you should get it on your blog soon.

      Thanks as well for the comment.

  16. Reply

    Hi Kharim!
    What an awesome post my friend! I plan to download the Widget Context plugin asap! Thanks for the advice.
    Best of luck to you with your new layout and design. But to be honest, you content is outstanding so you are bound to succeed no matter what 🙂

    • Reply

      The Widget Context plugin has helped my blog in a great way. I think you should also install the Outbound Links plugin to make external links open in another window/tab to help lower your bounce rate.

      Thanks for stopping by Ileane, I really appreciate it.

  17. Reply

    Simplicity makes better look of blog so concentrate to include only effective objects into blog. Always try to post one blog in a week so regular users come to visit your blog. Content is most important part of blog so make it unique and interesting. Your advance tips about removing unnecessary things are really good to make blog simple and increase website loading speed. Thanks for your tips to increase traffic.

    • Reply

      I post about 3 to 4 times per week, this will keep my blog visitors active and also coming back to my blog for more information. Plugins as I mentioned in the blog can slow down your blog so remove the ones that you don’t really use.

      Thanks for your comment.

  18. Reply

    I too got sucked in by the many neat plugins I came across only to find that it messed up my site entirely! Then I had to determine what caused the “freak out” and since then I have tried to pay more attention to those that I choose, but could probably still stand to lose a few more….:)

    • Reply

      Hey Melissa. I want to thank you first of all for your comment.

      I love plugins on my blog especially the ones that enhances my blog to make it look unique. But over doing it may cause our blog to load slowly and also some of them causes error. It’s best to use the ones that are necessary.

      Thanks again and hope to see you commenting some more.

  19. Jolie

    Reply

    Excellent tips. Commentluv is definitely a great way to increase traffic to a blog. Also, I also set my links to open in a new window. It angers readers to be taken out of the blog if they don’t want to be taken out. A new window is the key.

    • Reply

      Yes that’s right, Jolie. Opening links in a new window makes our traffic even better if the visitors doesn’t like the link that they have clicked on. Also helps to lower our bounce rate.

      Thanks for the comment.

  20. Pete

    Reply

    I find that simply adding commentluv has increased my traffic significantly. Many people feel that it makes people come to their site just to comment, but if you have a couple of filters on your site to make people wait a certain amount of time before they can comment, you find that the spam is reduced, and you start to get real comments.

    • Reply

      CommentLuv is one of the best plugins and it has worked for tons of bloggers that use it on their blogs.

      Thanks for the comment Pete.

  21. Reply

    I seriously believe that one professional logo gives a blog a different view point also makes it look great, design wise. It not only gives a good look but also make a brand go successful.

    I’m so thankful to god that he gave me that skill to create professional design logos.

    • Reply

      Yes that is true, Ifran. Especially is the logo is eye-catching and sticks inside the visitors head.

      Thanks for your input pal 😀

  22. Ifham khan

    Reply

    Nice article Kharim.

    yes plugins makes our blog more effective but at the same time they slower down the blog, I love the plugin Widget Context you shared in this article. Actually I too want to disable some of the widget in some areas and that nice to see Widget Context. Thanks for sharing it.

  23. Samuel

    Reply

    Wow, what a treasure chest of information! If your site is so slow, then the traffic or visitors will not be pleased with the loading time.
    I like the fact that you covered the open in a new tab option. If you are linking to another page on your site, then don’t open in a new tab. If the page is out of your domain, then do so. That is how I go about.

    Too many widgets and plugins is a huge point. Too many bloggers have to many.

    Nice article Kharim 🙂

    • Reply

      Hey Samuel,

      If you are linking to another page on your blog then you don’t have to open the link in a new window/tab.

      Thanks for your input.

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