Generating traffic for your WordPress magazine blog can be difficult. This is because it’s common for magazine blogs to only publish content on trending topics and current events, and they’re required to rely on the popularity of both.

It’s important to remember that you don’t need to ignore traffic strategies other blogs use just because you operate a WordPress magazine blog. In this post, we’re going to cover five different methods you can use to generate more traffic for your magazine blog.

First, let’s go over why this is an essential topic to learn about.

Why is Traffic Important for Your WordPress Magazine Blog?

Generate Traffic to Magazine Blog

WordPress magazine blogs typically don’t sell products and services of their own. They’re media publications that operate on advertising revenue and affiliate marketing. This makes generating traffic especially important.

Without traffic, you have no one viewing or clicking on your ads let alone your affiliate links. You’ll also have a hard time establishing yourself as an authoritative voice in your niche.

This can lead to lost opportunities when it comes to ranking on Google, forming relationships with companies who buy ads and getting important figures to agree to interviews.

That’s why we’re covering five different methods you can use to generate traffic for your magazine blog. Most feature guidelines on how to approach content, but we’ll also go over a few tips on how to reign in the traffic your site already receives.

Here are the methods we’ll be covering:

  1. Create Click-Worthy Content
  2. Target Long-Tail Keywords with Valuable Content
  3. Create Valuable, Evergreen List Posts
  4. Guest Blog with Intent
  5. Build a Recurring Audience

Let’s kick things off with Method #1.

Traffic Method #1: Create Click-Worthy Content

Ensure the majority of the content you create is click worthy and shareable. Start with the headline. A trick used by many bloggers and marketers is to reveal just enough of a headline to get the reader interested but insert the full reveal in the article itself.

Just remember to reveal just enough about your topic in the headline to get the reader interested and save the juicy bits for the article itself.

SEOpressor

If you’re having trouble, use a title generator to come up with catchy titles for your topic.

Coming Up with Click-Worthy Content Ideas

The type of content you create also plays a huge role in how click worthy it is. Most posts that generate a consistent amount of traffic for your site won’t go viral overnight.

While you’re more likely to focus on trending topics as a magazine blog, be sure to set aside room in your content marketing strategy for evergreen content along with content you know your audience cares about.

Traffic Method #2: Target Long-Tail Keywords with Valuable Content

With over 20 years of blogging in the books, most one to two-word keywords are far too competitive to target effectively. Plus, most searchers prefer to use longer keywords these days. These are commonly known as “long-tail keywords” and have at least three words.

Use your favorite keyword research tool to find non-competitive, long-tail keywords with search volumes of at least 500. Create a master list of keywords, ensuring you can build a blog post around each one.

When you create content for keywords, ensure it’s exceptionally well written and strongly relates to the searcher’s intent. The content should be valuable enough to solve whatever problem the reader was having when they searched for the term.

LSIkeywords

Use synonyms and latent semantic indexing keywords to make your posts more SEO friendly and ensure you’re covering topics that highly relate to your target keyword.

When you put all of this together, you’re naturally going to wind up writing longer posts. While study after study claims attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter, research from multiple sources actually proves longer content that’s over 2,000 words is more SEO friendly and content over 3,000 words receives more traffic and is more likely to be shared.

Traffic Method #3: Create Valuable, Evergreen List Posts

This is another type of content magazine blogs tend to only create for trending topics. One look at BuzzFeed’s homepage can tell you that much.

BuzzFeed Homepage

While creating these types of posts for trending topics can generate a lot of buzz in a short amount of time, that buzz often dies out just as quickly as it grows.

Most magazine blogs produce more and more fresh content to combat this, which only leads to burnout and the need to hire more and more writers. Instead, you should use the title generators and long-tail keywords we discussed in the previous methods to discover evergreen topics you can create list posts for.

Use the tips we discussed in the previous method when you write your posts. Your number one goal is to create valuable content your readers want to share. Don’t be afraid to cover the topic in depth, and don’t be afraid to go overboard when explaining each list item.

It helps to read other posts on the subject to see how your competitors covered the topic. Since your post will need to outshine theirs in order to compete, performing this extra step will let you know how much work you have ahead of you.

Traffic Method #4: Guest Blog with Intent

Guest blogging is one of those tried-and-true forms of traffic generation rivaled only by SEO and advertising. Unfortunately, this means every blogger in your niche will be trying to get a post published on the same influential blogs you’ll be pitching to.

You need to change the way you approach guest blogging and go above and beyond what everyone else is doing because of this. Begin this strategy well before you send your first pitch.

Top Blogs - Google Search

Make a list of the top blogs in your niche. The length of your list will depend on the popularity of your niche in general. It’s best to make a master list longer than 100 blogs, but don’t fret if you can barely make it past 20. It just means you have less competition in your niche. Don’t be afraid to include podcasts in your list as well.

Arrange the list based on the influence each blog has in terms of traffic and social following. Be sure to put your dream blogs at the top so you can prioritize them.

Before you can begin this strategy, make sure you’re regularly publishing authoritative content and building your own influence outside of guest blogging.

Implementing Your Guest Blogging Strategy

Start by forming relationships with members of the top blogs on your list. Follow their editors and bloggers, and reply to their posts with insightful comments regularly.

You can also post to the same public forums they post to. Also, make sure you share their content and insert links and quotes from it in your own posts.

All the while, learn about their audiences and the type of content they create. You’ll need this information to form pitches worthy of getting a few yesses.

When you’re ready to pitch, make sure you have something truly compelling to share with their audience. Don’t just lead them to your homepage or a simple landing page with an email opt-in form.

Offer them an amazing freebie that acts as an extension of what your guest post is about, even if you have a product to promote. Your goal should be to get more traffic to your site and more subscribers on your email list.

Traffic Method #5: Build a Recurring Audience

Relying on outside traffic is exhausting, both on your time and the company wallet. Instead, work on growing your email list and social media following so you can build a recurring audience that tunes into everything you publish.

Insert email opt-in forms in various areas on your site but especially in multiple locations on your blog posts. This includes using a sticky header form, an inline form, a click-to-reveal pop-up form and more. Be sure to offer compelling lead magnets for each to increase your chances of getting more subscribers.

MH Magazine - Social Header

A simple way to increase your social media following is to place social share buttons on every blog post you publish. Plus, with the MH Magazine theme, you can ensure links to your social media pages always display in the header of your site.

As you grow your email list and social following, you’ll have an active audience eager to consume any content you release.

Final Thoughts

Generating traffic for a WordPress magazine blog is a long and arduous process. It may require every traffic method mentioned above alongside taking the time to put out content on trending topics in your niche.

When you finally get around to implementing these methods and publishing valuable, click-worthy content, make sure your site design is optimized for speed, user experience and advertising.

MH Magazine Homepage

We’ve built MH Magazine in a way that’ll complement your renewed content marketing strategy quite well. It comes with places for you to insert advertisements, a well-laid out homepage you can use to organize topics for your readers to consume in an efficient fashion and much more.

Click the link below for more information, and be sure to share your own traffic generating tips in the comments below.

View MH Magazine