Please note: this is a contributed post
Building a dedicated readership is the first step to success when you’re trying to start a blog. Getting people to visit your blog in the first place is hard enough, getting them to keep coming back is even more difficult. But, if you don’t get people visiting your site on a regular basis, your traffic will stay at a low-level and you won’t get enough readers to start monetizing your site. If you’re having difficulty building traffic to your blog, try some of these simple tips to turn first time readers into dedicated fans.
Image From Flickr Courtesy Joe the Goat Farmer
Write An Email Newsletter
People think that email newsletters are a bit outdated when you can interact with people more directly over social media. It’s true that social media networking is one of your best tools when trying to find readers for your blog, but email newsletters are actually a lot more effective than you’d think. What you’re doing, when you send people an email newsletter, is giving them a taste of what they’ll find on the blog.
There are various free, or low-cost, email solutions available such as Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. Make sure you do a professional job and get a digital magazine publishing service to help you design and create your newsletter. Include a round-up of your activities over the last month, with links to some of your best articles. People that read your blog once, and didn’t come back, might decide to give it another chance now that you’ve given them a sample of what’s available.
Write Product Reviews
Consumers put a lot of trust in product reviews and most people will read a few reviews of the item they’re interested in before deciding to make a purchase. That’s why writing product reviews is a great way to draw people to your blog and get them to stay. If people are searching for a specific product review, they may just land on your site even if they’ve never heard of it before.
Product reviews are a great way to get repeat readers. If you recommend a product that they buy, and it’s good, they’ll have trust in you and they’ll come back to read more of your reviews. By presenting yourself as a trusted authority on a given subject, you make your blog the go-to place for information which keeps readers coming back. Niche blogs, such as one dedicated to standup paddle boarding or triathlons, will have a smaller but very dedicated audience of readers.
Guest Posts
The world of blogging is a great community, and the bloggers that have done it for years are usually willing to help out people like you who are just getting started. Guest posting is a great way for two bloggers to give one another a boost. Submitting a guest post or well-researched article to a well-known blog, or popular site such as Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global website, will expose your articles to a whole host of new readers. If they like your guest post, they might visit your site and start reading your blog too.
It works both ways so, don’t just look for guest posting opportunities, you should also actively accept guest blogs on your site. If you invite other bloggers to guest post on your site, you should end up getting more readers. This method works well as the fans/followers from the guest bloggers site will visit your blog to read the post and may end up being long-time followers.
Finding those dedicated readers that will check your blog every couple of days can be hard, but once you’ve built that readership, you can start turning the site into a full-time business.
