If you want to grow your blog then it helps to have a clear plan of action. All too often people begin their blogging career with a lot of momentum and enthusiasm, which quickly peters out when they don’t get the response they’re looking for. Here are some great tips to help create a blog that has room to develop and attract a wider readership.
Consider evergreen issues
Whatever field you’re focusing on with your blog, the chances are that there are some evergreen topics you can create content for. It might seem like you’re covering old ground by working on something that you and your community are already familiar with, but reaching out to people who are approaching a topic for the first time is a great way of growing your readership beyond your initial fans. Evergreen issues keep on giving to your blog, by creating a reason for new people to visit even after a long time has passed, and can hopefully encourage them to look at your other work.
Know your community
Some people start a blog with an idea for how to attract readers, but never really engage with the community they’re addressing. Devote time to developing relationships with other bloggers, posting on relevant communities, and generally giving your time to the people that are going to make your blog a success. By covering these two bases of the established community members and people who are new to a subject area, you maximise your chances of getting a good following.
Quality is key
Sometimes people start their blogging careers with a lot of fevered writing, offloading ideas they may have had for years, but then quickly find that they run out of material. In terms of retaining readers, it’s much better to scale up your content and the frequency of your posts over time than to have to scale down, or even worse attempt to keep up with an impossible workload and see the quality of your work suffer as a result. Build a sensible timetable for your blog, and try to have a good plan of what you want to cover, while being ready to adapt to new hot topics whenever possible.
Don’t get caught without email verification
As a final point of good housekeeping – don’t let inauthentic email addresses bog down your subscriber list and lead to you getting penalised. Get real time email verification to make sure the addresses that readers give you actually exist. That way as your blog grows, you’ll know that you’re actually reaching out to your readership.
These are just a few ideas to help you along the way, but they cover the most important points of growing and succeeding as a blogger. Mainly it’s a case of focusing on something you love, and having some fun with it.
