Whether you’re just starting an auto blog or you’ve been blogging for a while and decided to take your blog to the next level, growing your blog traffic and establishing your blog as an authority in your niche is at the top of your priority list.
There are many blogging best practices that apply regardless of your niche, and keeping your eye on the latest blogging trends is a must for every blogger. but when it comes to auto blogging, there are some strategies that are especially helpful for growing your blog, such as guest posting on authoritative blogs, implementing SEO best practices, building backlinks, publishing long-form and evergreen content, repurposing your content, and more. To learn more about what you can do to start growing your auto blog today, we reached out to a panel of auto bloggers and blogging experts and asked them to answer this question:
“What’s the number 1 thing bloggers can do to grow their auto blog?”
Meet Our Panel of Auto Bloggers & Blogging Experts:
Read on to learn what our experts had to say about the best things you can do to start growing your auto blog.
Will Perlmutter
Will is a passionate digital marketer and user researcher. Coming from the USA and having lived in Turkey, France, and now Austria, he brings experience and a positive, ambitious attitude as well as innovative perspectives to Usersnap. In his spare time, he enjoys playing music and dabbling in coffee science.
“The number one thing bloggers can do to grow their auto blog (or any blog) is to collect feedback on their blog. An example is our blog at Usersnap. We set up a feedback collector so that at some point during one’s reading of the blog, they can give us direct feedback and let us know if it is helpful or not. They can give us smiley face ratings, 0 to 5 stars, and thumbs up/thumbs down ratings on what they read. This way, we aren’t just taking into consideration the quantitative data regarding that blog’s performance (traffic, SEO, conversions, etc.). Rather, we are getting to the WHY of our readers, and if what we provide to them is truly valuable content.
By doing so, we are able to:
- See if our blog is truly 5 stars or needs more attention to make it better
- Understand if our readers aren’t satisfied because of the topics or the content itself
- Prioritize our content pipeline further to address their needs
- Continue to measure and see the progress of our blog over time (combining quantitative + qualitative metrics)
For us, feedback is the way to grow. What we’ve done with our blog has added an additional 40k visitors per month in the last year, because we’re placing importance on reader feedback in everything we do. When we know that a topic is resonating with our readership, we dig deeper. When we know the style is something people like, we continue it. Alternatively, when we see that we are trending in the wrong way, we make improvements. All of this feedback goes into our content pipeline.”
Sandra Matthews
Sandra Matthews is a Marketing Specialist at The Product Analyst.
“Publish original content. In choosing a niche for a blog, it should be something you are engaged in to make thinking of topics easier. The biggest mistake bloggers make is thinking that they should only publish content and that’s it; however, what they fail to acknowledge is that content should not only be interesting but informative for the long run, as well.
Know what readers’ problems are or what the usual questions are about your niche and address or answer those on your blog. Digital analytics focus on content that is original and has never been published anywhere before. Should your content be the first in the market, there’s a better chance that it will rank higher, giving your blog in a higher domain rating and authority.”
Mike Greenberg
A lifelong theology lover, Mike is the proud owner of MythologySource.com, which offers guides covering everything from Zeus to Athena.
“My #1 priority as a blog owner stems directly from one quote: ‘You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.’ – Archilochus, Greek Philosopher. For me, this ‘system’ is my content publishing calendar. Once set, I make sure we stick to it – no matter what.
In simple terms, this is publishing content consistently. Setting a publishing schedule is setting a standard which you cannot let yourself fall beneath. It’s like developing a healthy habit, but for your blog.
Of course, consistency for one blog can be different from another. It could be one article a week, one every weekday, or even three every day. The ‘standard’ should be set in line with the blog’s success. For example, with MythologySource we started with one article per week and have recently moved up to one every weekday. This growth should be in line with your experience and the amount of profit you can reinvest in your blog. Publishing consistently ensures steady growth for your blog. It has many advantages, but the real key is that you set a standard for yourself. As long as you stick to your system, you’ll see steady, reliable growth.”
Itamar Blauer
Itamar Blauer is an SEO expert based in London. He has a proven track record of increasing rankings with SEO that is UX-focused, data-backed, and creative.
“The best way to grow an auto blog is to correctly assess the intent of blog visitors. Are they looking for advice on their new car purchase, or are they simply fascinated by the newest auto technologies? Once the intent is understood, it makes it easier to hone in on a content strategy that matches the audience’s intent clearly. Doing so will often lead to more engagement and repeat sessions from users, which can provide a boost in terms of search engines’ understanding that the auto blog is frequently visited and being engaged with.”
John Bedford
John Bedford spent 10 years as the SEO and content lead for a major global publisher. In 2019 he founded Viva Flavor, a site dedicated to helping home cooks develop their love of food and drink.
“Content depth beats breadth. Whatever niche you’re in, I recommend focusing on depth over breadth when it comes to planning your content strategy. That means going as deep as you can on each sub-niche of the auto market before branching out into the next. Look for every opportunity to link between these articles, and consider building a hub page that acts as an archive for your posts in each sub-category. This really hammers home your authority on any given aspect of the industry, which gives both your readers and search engines confidence in your credentials on the topic.”
Chelsea Hunt-Rivera
Chelsea Rivera is the Co-Founder and Head of Content at Honest Paws, a site that offers premium CBD products for pets. She has 6 years of experience in content writing, social media management, and helping blogs grow their traffic.
“The number one thing bloggers can do to grow their auto blog is to find out where their audience is spending their time online. Contrary to popular belief, being present on all social media platforms is not an effective strategy at all. You can’t expect an increase in your traffic if you put your content in front of people who don’t care about it. So, find out where your audience is and be valuable to them on that platform. Think about what kind of sites they visit, what forums they’re lurking in, or even what kind of videos they’re watching. That way, you can build more targeted strategies and you’re sure that you’re getting the attention of the right people.”
James Jason
James Jason is the Digital Marketing Manager and Financial Analyst at Mitrade, a CFD brokerage firm.
“The number one thing a blogger can do to promote their auto blog is to create viral auto content. This is the content that will capture the attention of a large section of the audience, provide them with unique info, and prompt them to share it with others. That said, here are a few tips to create viral content:
- First, use a catchy headline that promises something that is out of the ordinary. However, don’t over-promise and only say what you can deliver.
- Second, in the body, give your readers some info that they have not come across before, or something they know presented in a twisted manner.
- Finally, throw the challenge of sharing the content if the readers found it worthy.”
Mark Hayes
Mark Hayes is the Head of Marketing at Kintell.
“The number one thing bloggers can do to grow their auto blog is to include topical news updates. Readers often want to know what’s going on in the world as well as reading niche editorial pieces. If you’re able to satisfy both, your readers won’t go elsewhere to pick up more content. This keeps your website fresh, and full of new content. Readers will keep coming back to learn more each day, and they’ll form a habit of visiting your website.”
Dan Rawley
Dan is the SEO Specialist for startups at Twinkl Hive, an accelerator hub that aims to fast-track the growth of new businesses. He previously worked at an SEO agency and also served as SEO Team Leader at Twinkl.
“My tip for bloggers wanting to grow their auto blog’s traffic would be to capitalize on free tools that tell you what your audience is searching for. Tools such as Google Trends will highlight the searches that are trending right now in each industry – this allows you to create blogs to take advantage of hot topics while they’re still trending, and therefore constitute a great way of drawing in traffic to your blog.
This method often also allows you to get a run on less tech-savvy competitors, as the market for content on new trends is less saturated. That means it’s easier to rank on the first page of search results, and you may also be able to appear in Google News. If you’ve just missed a trend, don’t worry – you can also use historical trends to predict when demand for certain topics that come up each year will peak again, allowing you to schedule blog content and plan content campaigns in advance.”
Louis Watton
Louis Watton has been working in the SEO and digital marketing sphere for nearly three years. He is currently the digital marketing executive for a transport marketplace called Shiply.
“Any blog trying to get off the ground can greatly benefit from the likes, interactions, and clicks that can be gained on social media and should be sharing all their content on their social media pages. The auto industry, however, takes this a step further, as cars are highly visual objects, meaning that lots of content discovery and browsing happen through image-heavy social media channels.
For example, people wanting to find classic car pages would likely look through the popular hashtag #classiccars, so using this hashtag in your posts is a chance for you to get your content in front of the right audience. By incorporating strong social media channels into your plan, linking to them on your site, and sharing content, you can easily maximize the amount of traffic and buzz around your auto blog, and it’s something everyone trying to get a blog off the ground should be doing.”
Alex Manos
Alex Manos is a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur and owner of Beverly Hills Car Club, one of the largest classic car dealerships in North America, and a renowned European classic cars expert.
“Mention car experts and influencers in your posts, connect with them to let them know you featured their quote, and build long-term relationships. Do not ask them to share your content. Otherwise, they will understand that your intentions aren’t genuine.
If they consider your content worth sharing, they will feature it on their social networks or blogs. But you will increase the chances for your content to be shared if you say cool stuff about the influencer in your post. Comment on their blogs and social media posts with your constructive opinion on the topics. Be honest and don’t try to be nice just for the sake of it. One important point: mention influencers only if it adds value to your posts and helps your readers.”
Kristin Marquet Chester
Kristin Marquet Chester is the Owner, Creative Director, and Editor-In-Chief of Marquet Media, LLC.
“The number one thing bloggers can do to grow their auto blog is syndicate their content on larger websites. That will help them reach more audiences without spending a lot of time creating new content. For example, an entrepreneur blogger can apply to syndicate content on Business2Community.com. There are many other websites that syndicate blog content in different verticals.”
Tom Crowe
Tom Crowe is a UK-based SEO Consultant and owner of multiple blogs. He works with companies and bloggers to help them boost traffic from organic search, with a focus on better utilizing their blog content.
“The number one thing bloggers can do to grow their auto blog is to begin focusing on producing large amounts of content that answers very specific questions. There are huge amounts of untapped opportunities in writing very well-structured answers to very niche questions related to your industry that can help to bring in engaged visitors.
What’s great about this approach is that there is an unlimited amount of topics to write about, and questions can be collated into groups to speed up the production of answers. For example, FAQ pages dedicated to a specific feature of a specific model of car, formatted appropriately, can help blogs achieve the featured snippet, outrank forums such as Quora and Reddit, and boost a website’s authority on a subject matter.
This ultimately has a snowball effect across the whole website. In addition to gaining immediate traffic, it also helps to grow links and passes authority through the other core pages of the website, so it can be a very impactful strategy.”
Brian Robben
Brian Robben is the CEO of the international digital marketing agency Robben Media.
“While content is king, it’s the other side of the coin that’s far more effective and difficult to accomplish. That’s generating backlinks. The number one focus for auto bloggers is to grow their backlinks. The way you do this is by writing guest posts, direct messaging the press to help on their stories, writing the best content on the internet for each individual blog post, and emailing other auto bloggers who have resource pages and asking if they’d be kind enough to add you. What I appreciate about backlinks is they’re authentic. You can’t buy them or hire someone. It takes consistent weekly effort.”
Sa El
Sa El is the Co-Founder of Simply Insurance and a licensed insurance agent with over 11 years of experience in the industry. He is also an official member of the Forbes Finance Council, an entrepreneur, insurance educator, and freelance writer.
“My number one thing an auto blogger can do to grow their blog is to get more certifications and do some internal linking. A huge factor that most people don’t talk about is trust. But when it comes to a blog, your reputation is extremely important. The more certifications you have in the product or service you offer, the better you look to Google and visitors or customers. And most of us probably have over 100 pages in our blogs that don’t have an internal link. However, internal links are just as valuable as external links and have been proven to give increases in rankings.”
Marin Perez
Marin has created and run global content marketing programs for some of the largest companies on Earth. He has a toddler, so he’s also perpetually tired.
“There are two major things to focus on to grow your auto blog: create great content for a target audience and focus on getting it to the people you care about. Back in the day, you could create an all-encompassing auto blog and there was a chance it could take off. Those days are basically over. You have to keep your target audience in mind and then make awesome stuff that suits them.
For example, if you’re trying to create a blog about all things Tesla, you’re going to have a hard time breaking through with all the competition. But if you narrow it down and, say, focus on Tesla Model 3 owners or upcoming CyberTruck prospects, you have a better chance of breaking through.
Once you have that target audience, map great content to it. You’ll have to spend more time and money than you might imagine to get great content. We all live in an information overload world, and your audience doesn’t have to settle for mediocre stuff. If you build it, they won’t just come. You have to put just as much time into the distribution of your content as you do on the creation of it. This can include using your social media channels, commenting on other posts or forums, optimizing for SEO, syndicating, and more.”
Joey Randazzo
Joey Randazzo is the Founder and CEO of Portland SEO Growth by Becoming Media.
“The #1 thing you can do to grow your blog is to create interesting content around non-competitive topics that your target audience is craving and ensure it adds value to the reader and is optimized to rank really well on Google. That’s it. But, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Let’s break it down.
1. How do you create blog posts around interesting topics that your audience is craving? You do keyword research. There are free tools like Ubersuggest that allow you to see how many people are searching for topics each month. For example, let’s say you have an auto blog that talks specifically about muscle cars, and you think your audience might be really interested in learning about some of the rarest muscle cars. So, you go to Ubersuggest and type in ‘rarest muscle cars.’ You discover that ~720 people per month (or 8,500+ people per year) are searching for this keyword in Google. That’s a lot of people searching for just one hyper-focused keyword! Clearly, people are interested.
2. How do you create blog posts around topics that aren’t overly competitive? Again, tools like Ubersuggest can help you out with this. Let’s use the keyword ‘rarest muscle cars’ again. It has an SD (SEO Difficulty score) of 15. Let’s compare that to a keyword that we know is going to be way more competitive – ‘muscle cars.’ Obviously, just the keyword of ‘muscle cars’ is going to be VERY competitive. Ubersuggest has the SD as 57. That’s really high, and it’s really hard to rank on Google for a keyword like this. Going back to ‘rarest muscle cars’ one more time – an SD of 15 is rankable for the average auto blog.
3. How do you ensure your blog posts adds value to the reader? To grow your auto blog, you need to create interesting content. It’s not enough to just have your content rank in Google. You want it to be so interesting and engaging that your audience shares it with their friends on social media. Write novel content. Film interesting videos to go along with your blogs. Interview auto experts and add a quote (or maybe the entire recording of the interview) to the blog content. These strategies will keep your audience hanging onto every word.
4. How do you ensure that your blog posts are optimized to rank really well on Google? Answering this question effectively would take a bit of time. For the sake of time, here’s the short version: make sure that the following are well-thought-out and aligned with the topic you’re writing about:
- URL structure
- Title tag
- Meta description
- Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
- The copy itself is sprinkled with related and secondary keywords (no keyword stuffing!)
For example, if you’re writing that blog post on ‘rarest muscle cars,’ you might have the following:
- URL structure: website.com/blog/rarest-muscle-cars
- Title tag: Top 7 Rarest American Muscle Cars – [Website Name]
- Meta description: Click here to learn about the 7 rarest muscle cars in the United States, why they’re so rare, and how much they cost.
- Header tags: The main H1 (basically the title of the article) might be 7 Rarest Muscle Cars You Likely Never Heard Of Before
Tonya Davis
Tonya Davis is the marketing manager at Utah SEO Companies. She has almost a decade of experience in the digital marketing industry with a focus on SEO and PPC advertising. She currently lives in Salt Lake City, UT.
“The best tip I can recommend is to create 10x content. This means the content needs to be ten times better than anything else out there. You need to create content that’s more up-to-date, better researched, longer, more engaging, and it should utilize more images and videos.
This is a time consuming process, but if you are serious about wanting to grow your auto blog, it’s the best strategy to do so. You should look at who’s already showing up on the first page of Google and how their articles differ from lower-ranking ones. What sets them apart? What value are they offering readers and how can you top it? By creating 10x content, you are going to have something that will earn you traffic, and more importantly, links.”
Alex Capozzolo
Alex is an out-of-state House Flipper. He lives in Santa Cruz, CA and flips houses 3,000 miles away in Philadelphia, PA. He co-founded Brotherly Love Real Estate with his childhood best friend. He runs the company’s entire SEO and online strategies.
“Repurpose content. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. If you are writing a blog that has good content and value, think of creative ways to repurpose that same content and squeeze more juice from it. For example, if you write a long-form 2,000-word blog, there are probably enough information nuggets in there to summarize the post in a 5-minute YouTube video.
What if you are missing out on audiences that don’t prefer to read or watch a video? You can repurpose content into an infographic that you can share on Pinterest and Instagram. By pushing out content on multiple platforms, you can reach a wider audience and ultimately drive more traffic to your blog.”
Kevin Miller
Kevin Miller is the founder and CEO of The Word Counter. He is a growth marketer with an extensive background in SEO, paid acquisition, and email marketing. Kevin studied at Georgetown University, worked at Google for several years, is a Forbes contributor, and has been a head of growth and marketing at several top-tier startups in Silicon Valley.
“In order to grow your auto blog, you must implement a good SEO strategy that relies on high-quality content plus in-depth keyword research. If you do the leg work and use keyword research tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs, you can identify hidden opportunities and then capitalize on those opportunities by creating high-quality, keyword-informed content.
We frequently use original research and data in our content. The data is fact-based and usually displayed in visual charts that tell a story. This makes it easy to convey the findings, and it is differentiated from normal text. The uniqueness is the key; it must add distinct value.
The key to great content, regardless of whether the goal is marketing or entertainment, is to understand your narrative. How should the consumption of your content marketing make your targets feel? What actions should the assets inspire? Knowing, ideally with data, how different groups of people react to your brand, learn your value proposition, and are motivated to take action is the best lesson I’ve learned. Since my company’s inception, I’ve formed a fantastic team of employees that help me create content as well as market it effectively. We have scaled quickly and seen tremendous growth.”
Sturgeon Christie
Sturgeon Christie is the CEO of Second Skin Audio, which helps people make their vehicles feel more comfortable with its American made soundproofing and insulation materials.
“The best way people can grow their auto blog is by regularly featuring the vehicles of auto enthusiasts who are incredibly passionate about their cars. Posting photos and videos of the cars and vehicles that people tag you in or message you is a great way to get more visitors to your blog, as the people you feature will be sharing the link to your blog post with all their friends. The more people who share your blog posts to various social media platforms, the more traffic to your blog you will get!
Second Skin Audio is a small business in the auto industry, and it regularly posts photos and videos of customers’ vehicles on social media and in blog posts on its website. Second Skin Audio has been doing so for years because it has been so helpful for building the brand and driving customer loyalty.
Posting photos of followers’ cars and trucks can also help you gain respect from fellow auto enthusiasts, which can influence them to visit your blog more. Whenever you feature a car enthusiast’s vehicle, you’re helping build reader loyalty, and that’s important when you want people to keep coming back to your auto blog.”
David Adler
David Adler is the Founder and CEO of The Travel Secret. David is a seasoned entrepreneur who has had extensive experience in travel, e-commerce, telecom, hospitality, and international business.
“Be specific to win over time. The first thing you should consider when you’re trying to grow your blog, no matter what industry you’re in, is whether there are timely and niche topics related to your industry that you haven’t touched on, because these are going to be less competitive topics and will give you a better chance to get noticed within your field. The trick is to cover specific topics within your field consistently rather than writing about the same general auto-related topics most bloggers have already covered.
If you can cover new topics in your field consistently over time, you can establish yourself as an authority in your industry and earn more readers. So if your blog is all about cars, then perhaps you should comment on the move toward electric vehicles or get even more specific with something like ‘The Fastest Electric Vehicles Out in 2020,’ because it’s a hot topic but still specific enough to where there shouldn’t be too much competition.”
Yaniv Masjedi
Yaniv Masjedi is the CMO of Nextiva, a large telecommunications enterprise with over 1,000 employees.
“The best way bloggers can grow their auto blog is to partner with influential celebrities and influencers in the auto industry to write a guest post or get featured in their blog. Stars in the auto world will attract enthusiasts while building credibility, so featuring someone that the target audience respects and loves is an effortless approach to get noticed.
Auto blogs can feature famous car collectors or executives from car manufacturers to talk about various topics. I recommend aligning experts with their field of expertise. For example, produce content about restoring vintage cars if you want to quote a vintage restoration expert. Doing so helps guarantee the credibility of your content to visitors.”
Jerry Han
Jerry Han is the Chief Marketing Executive at PrizeRebel.
“Auto bloggers should create an opt-in page to capture their visitors’ email addresses and contact information. One of the most crucial aspects of growing a blog quickly is to inform existing followers whenever new content is available. Thus, an email update is a solution to promote your latest blog without spending a fortune on advertisements.
With continuous contact and communication with your email list, there will come a time when your brand name imprints in their minds. When that happens, you can easily ask them to share your blog with their network or get them involved in a promotional campaign, making your blog grow faster.”
Colin Palfrey
Colin Palfrey is the CMO at Majesty Coffee.
“When you create a blog, think about what you want to do with it. Do you want to gain a general audience of automotive aficionados and use the blog to sell affiliate links, or are you operating more of a B2B business? Your answer to what you want to do with the blog will help you determine a path for growth.
Solve your target audience’s problems with content. The engine to growing your blog is delivering the right content to the right people at the right moment. You need to do market research to understand what your target audience wants to see in your content. People read blogs because they want an answer to a question, so learn what those questions are.
Post consistently. I can’t stress this enough. Posting consistently is what will set your blog apart from the rest in the field. Most people give up on posting consistent content because it’s hard work and the results aren’t immediate. The key to your growth is to deliver great content on a regular basis.”
Sonya Schwartz
Sonya Schwartz is the founder of Her Norm.
“Being the owner of a blog, the most important thing I have learned is to never stop writing evergreen content. When I say evergreen it means that it can last years and can still be accumulating traffic. In short, it means you have to write content that is relevant to the test of times. However, here are some simple tips you can use to be famous or rise from stardom once you start your blogging career:
1. Create great content – You may attract traffic if your content is great, and that doesn’t mean only what you like to write about. Yes, you have your own niche, but you should relate your niche to what is going on and is more relevant now across the web.
2. Superb headlines – Headlines are more important than your actual content or blog. Headlines should also match your content. But think of a ‘Masterpiece Headline’ all the time.
3. Keywords should also be your strategy – Optimizing search engines should be your thing to kick off or jump-start your traffic. Use your words wisely and let it be your best marketing strategy.
4. Find your audience – So, you know your niche and the relevant issues that need your expertise, and you created a headline with the help of keywords. Find your audience, as they are the key to traffic and your success.”
George Pitchkhadze
George Pitchkhadze is the CMO at Thrive Cuisine.
“Drive2 gets a tremendous amount of international traffic, which is rare for a company based in Russia – and here’s how they do it.
1. Why outstanding visual content matters in the auto niche: Most car enthusiasts and consumers love visual content. If you can generate and publish it, especially at scale, many of them will link to your website, driving traffic your way and improving your SERP rankings with Google, Bing, et al. This is exactly what Drive2 does. They promote user-generated content (UGC) submissions, which gives them oodles and oodles of UGC images, videos, etc. As a result, they have over 73k backlinks – albeit from 844 referring domains – and a tremendous, staggering 1.8 million monthly visitors. That’s more than The Economist gets, for reference.
2. How much of an advantage does visual content confer? Drive2’s parent website – drive.ru – only has 35k backlinks (less than half of Drive2) and 300k monthly visitors. As far as active usage goes, it’s about 15% as popular as the subsidiary website, which does use images to drive lots of traffic. In other words, fresh, visual content made one blog within the same company 6x more popular than the other. That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about here.”
Tory Gray
Tory Gray is the founder of The Gray Dot Company, a digital marketing consulting agency.
“The number one thing auto bloggers can do to grow their blog is to curate and develop offsite content. Many new bloggers fail to see the importance of maximizing offsite branding and instead focus on their internal blog posts. In a competitive space like auto, it’s essential to use third-party websites to expand your brand.
Offsite content is not always within your control, but many users consider it to be more trustworthy than new and emerging sites. I recommend auto bloggers focus on sites that have a high level of discoverability in Google. Utilizing sites like Medium can help you expand your reach and attract readers. You can also optimize your social media accounts, business listings, and guest posts on influencer sites to gain valuable traffic and expand your reach.”
The auto niche is highly visual, with many readers looking for photos of their favorite classic cars, visual tutorials on how to fix common issues, custom paint jobs and after-market upgrades, and more. Why not capitalize on the visual interest by making it easy for your blog visitors to share your best images with their social media networks? Our image share buttons take just minutes to install, and are attached to the image itself (rather than the entire page), so your readers can share a single image with their social media networks with a single click, complete with a backlink to the page it’s from so you’re credited for your work. Best of all, they’re totally free to use!
