Perhaps the most significant challenges that most bloggers face is attracting and retaining loyal readers. With time and effort, you will gain the exposure required to build a following.
Below are six tips that will help you get your blog in front of greater numbers of people and generate reader interest.
1. Maintain an active presence on Twitter and Facebook
In recent years, both Twitter and Facebook are the social networking sites that have great potential in building traffic to your blog. In order to derive the most benefit from each site, you will need to maintain an active presence so you can build a following. One you do, every time you publish a new post to your blog you can share the link with your friends or followers. Hopefully, the post will go viral so that these people will then share the posting within their own networks. In this way, your blog can reach hundreds and possibly thousands of readers.
2. Submit Your Blog to Additional Social Media Sties
While social news sites may not be as popular as they were several years ago, they still retain a loyal readership that you want to reach. In addition to such popular sites as Diggs and Reddit, niche social media sites can also be a great strategy for gaining exposure to a specific target audience. For example, Networked Blogs presents blogs in a variety of niche areas from cooking to life coaching.
3. Build a Strong Network
A critical strategy in building a reading audience for your blog is to establish a strong network of contacts. Nearly all successful bloggers are connected with others in their industry and in complementary industries. In terms of reaching a wider reading audience, having an established networking can help in several ways. First, all people in your network maintain their own circle of influence and may share your blog with this group through tweets or status updates with a link to your blog. Aside from the viral nature of social networking, you may also have the opportunity to post guest posts to other blog, along with other options for marketing and promotion (e.g. discussion groups).
4. Prepare Eye-Catching Headlines for Each Post
Headlines are critical if you want to attract a large number of readers to your blog. Compelling headlines will get the attention of potential readers andl make a dramatic impact on the degree of exposure your blog postings obtain. Composing compelling headlines may take some practice. One great source is How to write Magnetic Headlines from Copyblogger. Two quick suggestions are that you should keep the headline relatively short and write it before the post as this will help focus the content.
5. Insert Keywords in Headline and Body of Posts
Page titles are one of the more significant factors in determining search engine ranking so it is best to insert relevant keywords in your blog headlines. This strategy will help you blog achieve top ranking and improve the degree of exposure your blog receives. In most cases, the headline will also serve as the page title, but you can also utilize a plugin such as All-in-one SEO on the WordPress platform to help with page headlines. The first step is to perform some basic keyword research within your niche so you choose the most relevant words and phrases.
6. Link to Prior Posts
One easy strategy for increasing exposure for your blog postings is to link to posts within your archives. If you have been blogging for a period of time, you likely have a good store of prior posts built up from which to choose. These old posts aren’t likely to get much traffic unless they are revitalized by linking them to current posts, where appropriate. By reviving these posts you establish a win-win scenario: increased exposure for old posts while providing readers with relevant information. For example, if you are now writing a post on the topic of bootstrap home business financing, you can link to a prior post in which you discuss best business credit card offers.
Make it routine to peruse old postings so you can identify opportunities to link to current articles. Just be sure not to overdo it and include only one link or two links per 500-word post. Readers will appreciate the added information. Plus, it’ll usually lower your bounce rate as it’ll give readers a place to go other than the back button.
