First up I just want to say that I by no means think I’m in a position to be dishing out top advice on blogging! I don’t consider myself to be a blogging expert and I still feel like I’m only learning the ropes myself, however I have built a good following and am regularly emailed by people looking for tips and advice on setting up or building their own blogs.
So I’ve decided to do a few posts on tips I’ve come across and pieces of advice I’ve been given which have worked for me. The first topic I decided to look at was one which I get asked about most regularly – how to get more people reading your blog.
I feel absolutely blessed that since January of this year alone, I’ve had over 80,000 hits to All The Buzz. This to me is completely mad – I remember being excited the day I saw 10 people had checked out my first post! Getting to this kind of viewing has been something I’ve gradually built up over the past year and a half. There was no magic, quick fixes for it, but there are definitely a few things along the way that have helped.
WRITE WELL & BE CONSISTENT
Make sure that your posts are relevant and interesting. Try to make them a little different to what’s already out there – give yourself a bit of a unique selling point and make your readers want to return. Once you start blogging, try and be consistent with your posts. If you go for 3 or 4 weeks without posting, people will get bored of checking back. I’m not saying you have to be on a strict schedule but aim to post regularly, and if you say you’ll have a post up at a certain time – have it up on time! Don’t disappoint people who might be waiting to read it.
REPLY TO COMMENTS
People that have taken the time to not only read your blog post but write a comment in response to it, deserve some recognition and thanks. It shows that you care about your readers and helps to build a rapport with them. I used to be terrible for not replying until days, sometimes weeks after. But I soon learnt that I gained the respect of my readers by interacting with them. I try to think of my blog as a community, not just a website.
WRITE COMMENTS ON OTHER BLOGS
As a blogger you most likely enjoying reading other people’s blogs, whether that be for inspiration or just because it’s a post on a topic you’re interested in. If you do venture to other blogs and have a read, leave a comment while your there. Again it’s about building connections with others and the chances are, they will then head over and check your blog out too to find out more about you. Now just to note that I don’t mean just spam their comments with things like “great post, would love if you check out my blog over at…..” – there’s nothing worse than fishing for hits. But if you leave a comment that shows you were genuinely interested in their post or agreed/disagreed with what they said, you’ll start building great blogging relationships which in turn will boost your own views.
BE SOCIAL
Social media is where the majority of my hits come from. Although Facebook’s new algorithms have caused a bit of an uproar, I still get a lot of my views from here. Twitter also brings in a huge percentage of my views. A short intro to your post plus a link and you’re good to go! If you don’t have a Facebook and Twitter account set up I highly recommend getting one pronto! Instagram/Pinterest/Tumblr are other examples of social media which can help attract views too. Use as many as you have time for, but don’t kill yourself over it! One or two social media platforms will do the job if you’re sparse on time.
GET CHATTING
Linking in with the social media aspect as well as building relationships – use your Twitter and Facebook to its full potential. Don’t just post links up and expect the masses to come running to you. Get involved with your followers – chat with them, like their pictures, take the time to interact – you have to work for it! Blogger chats on twitter are a fantastic way of building relationships and at the end of these chats, links are shared to try and attract more readers to your site. There are various “blog hours” on Twitter throughout the week, stay tuned for a post with more details on them.
BE CONTROVERSIAL
Nothing encourages engagement and interaction like being controversial. Don’t be afraid to share your opinions on a hot topic. One of my most popular posts was me sharing my opinion on the ‘Slane Girl’ controversy a while back. Be prepared though – a controversial posts can mean controversial comments. Be prepared to back your views up and deal with negative comments.
SEO
You don’t have to be an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) expert to attract traffic to your blog; a little knowledge of it goes a long way. Blogging platforms such as WordPress have SEO pluginsthat do the majority of the work for you and are a very easy way to build your confidence with it. Do a bit of research and work on improving your SEO (if you would be interested in a post on SEO tips let me know in the comments below).
EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION
This essentially does what it says on the tin – it gives a way for your readers to subscribe to you which means that they will be notified by email anytime you publish a new post. Not only does this give your readers ease of access to your new posts, it also helps to build a loyal readership.
PRETTY AS A PICTURE
Images are great for a few reasons. Firstly they make your blog look more appealing and help draw readers to your posts. Secondly, they help people find you in search engines (again linking back to the all important SEO). So remember to take your time, choose pretty, relevent images, and label them well.
AND REMEMBER
Blogging has taken off massively in the past couple of years and there are literally millions of blogs out there, so it takes time to build up your site and get noticed. Don’t expect miracles overnight, appreciate the readers you do have (no matter how few) and keep at it. If you’re passionate about something it will show, and that will be what attracts the most readers.
So that’s my simple tips to attract more readers to your blog. Like I said, I’m no expert but these are things that have definitely worked for me. If you have any other tips or advice I’d love to hear them in the comments below, or if there are any other blogging subjects you would like to see covered then feel free to drop me a line!
