We here it time and time again, no one’s reading my blog. Everyone only cares about Instagram. Well, newsflash, you don’t own Instagram, but you do own your blog! And the one thing you can be doing to ensure you are not dependent on another social media app, is to turn those Instagram followers into blog readers. Definitely easier said than done. But with today’s tips, we can at least ensure we’re getting more of your followers onto your blog and staying there for a little while.
By focusing on your blog and improving pageviews and readership, along with growing your newsletter, you can start to earn more Google rankings, affiliate revenue and depend less on Instagram. Wouldn’t that be great to be able to say “if Instagram goes away tomorrow, my business will still survive”? Here are things you can do today to ensure you work towards that goal.
How To Increase Blog Traffic And Turn Your Instagram Followers Into Blog Readers
1. Link In Bio + A Call To Action
Every Instagram account has the option to put a link to their website within their account bio. Utilize this option to include a link to your website and ensure it works correctly. Only use a link that goes directly to your site, or a landing page that you’ve created on your own site, that includes latest posts, or shoppable Instagrams. And be sure there’s some sort of call to action to click this link. Maybe it’s the freebie you’re offering when people sign up for your newsletter, and that sign up form is on that IG landing page.
There are third party apps that create these pages for you, but we highly recommend always linking directly to your site and creating your own unique landing page. You can check out co-founder An Indigo Day and her interactive landing page here. This is a great example of capturing your followers to get them the information they need easily while getting them directly to your blog. It’s an instant pageview that you’d be giving away if you were using a third party app for a feature like Linktree.
2. Utilize Your Stories
Regardless if you have the ability to swipe up or not, your Story followers can be learning more about new posts being published, or updates on old favorites. If you do not have the swipe up option, we recommend always educating your followers to visit your link in bio to learn more about your latest posts each and every time.
*Swipe up features are for those who have 10k followers or more.
3. Create An Incentive
Whether through your stories or Instagram post captions, creating an exciting incentive to visit your blog will encourage more #linkinbio clicks. A few thought starters are…
- Sharing a personal story (let’s be honest, who isn’t nosey!?)
- Exciting updates or news
- Showing just one step in a tutorial
- Sharing a few ingredients to a recipe
- Notifying readers of a sale or back in stock alert
- Ask for tips or advice and to leave a comment in your latest blog post
You can also check your Instagram analytics and see which posts resulted in the most profile clicks. This can give you some insight into what helps to motivate your audience to head to that #linkinbio.
4. Make Sure You’ve Created Exceptional Content
If you’re driving followers to read your blog, give them something GOOD to read. This goes down to the age old rule of quality of quantity. If you aren’t creating quality content, take a step back and refocus so that you can publish exciting and beautiful content for readers to enjoy. It’s always best to create less content that’s quality, than to push out 5 posts a week that won’t keep readers engaged.
5. Have A Great Mobile Friendly Site
No matter how great your content is, if followers can’t get to your site and find what they’re looking for easily, they most definitely won’t be sticking around long. We recommend working with pre-made blog templates and web designers, who can create mobile friendly sites that are easy to navigate.
