As part of my “Grow Your Blog” series, I’ve been interviewing a few of my favorite bloggers, who have successfully grown their blogs, and shared some great tips from them, but today’s post isn’t an interview from another blogger. Today, I’m sharing something that I’ve recently started doing on my blog, that I’m seeing great results from it. Now, I’m not claiming to be a blogging “pro”, by any stretch of the imagination, but the tip I’m sharing today has worked so well, I felt it was worth telling others about – especially those who are either beginner bloggers, or bloggers who are frustrated with the lack of visitors to their blog, and traffic to their blog posts.
For awhile, I was social media-ing (probably not a real word) myself to death. I was constantly sharing my past blog posts on Facebook, and pinning my old blog posts on Pinterest, in the hopes that people who didn’t see those posts when I first shared them on my blog, would come visit them. While that does work, it’s exhausting! I was spending more time pushing old content, than I was creating new projects and content, and it was zapping the joy I get from blogging.
Then it was quite by accident that I discovered a way to increase the number of visitors to my old blog posts.
In the process of making changes to my blog, I accidentally deleted all the “categories” for my posts. If you don’t know what a category is, at the bottom of this post, you’ll see the words, “filed under, (categories) and “tagged with” (tags) . Your blog is like a filing cabinet, categories are like the drawers in the cabinet, and tags are like file folders in the drawers. Truthfully, I hardly ever used tags, I mainly just assigned every blog post to a category – and I had just deleted ALL my category “drawers”…DUMB. On the bright side, it led to my discovery.
Little by little, I’ve been adding the categories back to my old blog posts, focusing most on the ones that often get lots of traffic from Pinterest. In doing so, I figured I should start adding tags as well, so I started adding tags that related more specifically to what each post was about.
I’ll ask you though…how often do you click on those “category” and “tag” links? Yeah…that’s what I thought.
Our visitors don’t often think to click on those tags, to see a past post they may have missed, or never seen at all, if they are a new visitor.
We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, which is why Pinterest is as wildly popular as it is. Then it occurred to me, what if I linked those specific tags to a visual image – would that image entice visitors to view my old blog posts? I decided to test my theory. This image from my guest room, is pinned constantly on Pinterest. I decided the theme for my grouped image would be “creative shelves, cabinets, and cupboards”.
I thought back to my past blog posts, to find images with a similar “theme” – then I grouped those images together using Picmonkey) and designed a header image for them. Once that was done, I went into those specific blog posts, added the new image to the bottom of the posts, and added a new tag to all of them. The tag I chose was specific to the grouped image I created. For example, all the blog posts that pertain to this image, have a tag called, “cabinets and shelves“. I also linked the image itself to the tag. Go ahead…click on the image (but come back when you are done!)
Clicking on that linked image took you to a list of all my posts that contain the projects shown in the image! How cool is that?!!
Now, which are you more likely to click on – the word “tag” at the very bottom of the post, or the image above?
That’s what I thought!
After doing that, I watched my blog traffic in real time on Google Analytics, (meaning I can see exactly how many visitors are on my blog every minute, and I can see what blog posts and pages they are viewing) and I started seeing those old posts that were linked to the highly pinned image getting new traffic! YIPPEEE!!! It works!
Once you are done adding your new image and tags to your old blog posts, make sure to test the tags, to make sure it brings up every blog post shown in the image, so you don’t have any disappointed readers.
Obviously, it does take some time to decide on a theme, created the grouped image, and add the image and tags to those old posts, but once done, it’s there for every visitor to that post to click on, and won’t disappear as quickly as old blog posts I shared on Facebook do. So, I recommend starting with your most pinned images first, and linking that content with some of your related blog posts.
If your blog isn’t connected to Google Analytics, you can learn how to do it on WordPress here, and here if you are on Blogger. Be warned, Google Analytics is a bit addictive. I love watching in real time what posts are being viewed by visitors, and there is a ton of useful information that can help you understand your blog’s visitors, traffic patterns, traffic sources, etc.
Well, I hope that all made sense, and you see an increase in your blog visitor traffic by trying it!
See this nifty image? Yes…it will take you to all the posts in this series HERE, in case you missed them!
More “Blogging with the Pros” posts are coming soon!
Angie, I just learned something new. You see, I always thought those tags were for Google. I never realized that they search within your own website. Thanks for sharing such great information.
Angie
This is post brilliant and just so helpful. Thank you for going to so much detail.
I have pinned it as well 🙂
<3
Pia
http://www.pinterest.com/purplepaperhous/blogging-hints-and-tips/
Glad to help, Pia – I hope you see as much good results as I am seeing from it! 🙂
I love this idea but how do you tag your photos, do you have a plugin? I am on a wordpress self hosted site. I am following your series with great interest and I have just started an experiment on growing and monetizing my blog so all the ideas I can get are helpful.
Pamela, you don’t tag the photos, you tag the blog post those photos are in. You can do this on Blogger or WordPress. On WP, look on the side of your post, and add the category and tags you want this post to have. Hope that helps!
How did you get the photo to link to the posts?
Leslie, once you have added a tag to one of your posts and saved the post, click on that tag and save the URL. Then link that URL to your image. Does that make sense? For instance, when I click on the tag in my current post, here’s the URL that comes up – https://knickoftime.net/tag/12-days-of-christmas
Thanks, Angie. Lots of helpful hints here!
Thanks for the helpful information. I need all the help I can get. Seems like I spend more time on social media then anything else. I’m thinking of switching to another hosting service and doing some changes that will hopefully help bring more traffic. Pinning this idea for later.
This is a great idea Angie. It took me a little while to figure out how to add the tag to the collage photo, but I got it now. Thanks for sharing. 🙂 Julie
Start watching your Google Analytics, Julie…I’ll bet you start seeing some of those old posts getting viewed now!
Thanks for the great info., Angie! It’s been so fun to see your blog grow and bloom, since I’ve been reading the last 6 months! Kudos!
Absolutely one of the best blogging tips I’ve ever read!
Thanks a lot for sharing Angie. This is pure blogging Gold! Off late I have been forgetting about tags. Also never really remember to add tags to pics. So this is great.
Great idea, Angie, thanks so much.
Brilliant! I am going to try this in January. Thank you so much!!
I get it and I just made one!!! Thank you so much for this Angie… soooo helpful! xo
My pleasure, Susan! Happy increased traffic!
I love this idea,but please explain.I did something wrong and I am not sure what.I went back to a handful of posts and added a tag with same name.I gave it 4 ways to update and distress furniture.I made a big nice pinterest pinning photo and added it on each of those posts.But when I click on that image it does not bring me to a page full of all of those posts.What did I do wrong?
Anne, it sounds like you didn’t link the tag to your Pinterest pinning photo with the same tag link as the posts in the image.
This is a great idea, Angie! My mind is not wrapping itself around linking tags and posts, etc. Is this concept about the same as making a nice clickable image and have it go to a hidden “page” on a blogger blog? I also enjoyed the “mistakes” blog post…so many good ideas in one place! Thanks for sharing all of this with us.
Old but GOLD this post.
Linking an image to tags!
Many hugs Angie, what a great tip.
Angie, I just love this post. I need to work on this so I’m pinning it for reference. Thanks for hosting!
Hugs,
Pili
I meant thanks for sharing!! This link up parties are driving me crazy…