You can create a beautiful blog full of fascinating videos, photos and stories, and maybe four people a year will see it if you do not let people know about your blog. So how do you do this? Do you send an email to your friends? Do you post it on a social media site like Facebook or Twitter and hope that people perusing your page will check it out? There are several things to consider in how and where you advertise your blog.
What Kind of Blog Have You Created?
If it is for your business, you should work with Google algorithms to make your blog most likely to show up under certain keyword searches on Google's search engine. Thankfully, Google has changed the way it determines what is the most quality information available is rather than simply looking for content that is filled with the most keywords. This is a new development, so what you need to worry about is putting well-written, grammatically sound, and well-informed information and content on your blog. You no longer have to use the same tag word ten times in four hundred words to show up on the Google search engine's first page of a search.
If you have created a personal blog with a specific focus, you should look for blog circles or groups with similar interests. When you find a blog you really like, put a link to it on your blog. It could be something based on the same topic that you have chosen to focus on; for example, knitting and crocheting is a great blog topic if you have a passion for it. People will want to see your techniques and tips, as well as the finished product. You might find a blog where the blogger lists great deals on yarn or knitting supplies. That's a great blog for you to follow and it's also a good resource to share with your own followers. People like useful information that is accessed and read quickly, so keep that in mind as you create your blog content.
Keep posting content
If you want to have a stable and growing readership, you need to regularly and consistently post on your blog. Update at least once a week with something that is high quality. The importance of quality and consistency cannot be stressed enough. If you post sporadically, your audience will lose interest.
You could write a great blog post about something really funny and charming and it could get a bit of traffic from being shared on Facebook or in an email blast from just one reader. You have the opportunity to attract countless numbers of followers but only if you post again soon. If you are only going to post once a week, make that clear on your blog's "about" section. That way, readers will know when to expect more of what they love from you and during the days between, won't forget about you.
Trolling versus strolling
Connecting with other bloggers by posting comments on their blogs will always help introduce you to the blogosphere. There are some things you should not do when you are commenting on other blogs because they will probably not help you gain readers except in the form of trolls. One thing you should not do, speaking of trolls, is troll other blogs.
Trolling is when someone goes to an online conversation of some form in social media like on a Facebook fan page or a blog about a certain topic where a conversation is started. If you are going to say something, say something nice. Do not harass, name call, cyber bully, or insult the blogger or other people commenting. There is no need to pick fights on the internet and you will look like a jerk. Unless you want to create a blog that people love to hate, you will not help your readership by doing this. If you are reading a blog you find offensive, and you feel the need to share your sense of offense, that is your right. However, this is not the tactic to build strong connections and relationships with other bloggers.
Instead, go to blogs that feel the same way that you do about this offensive topic and post well thought-out and well-informed comments there. I would say this is strolling over trolling. Strolling along with a peaceful pace and in a manner where you may even disagree on a subject with someone, can really help your readership. The key is that you must remain polite and calm about it; if you do, you will have an interesting conversation rather than an online slugfest that you will likely not be proud of later.
Utilize every social media platform you can find
If you have a blog, you can create a Twitter page, a Facebook fan page and a LinkedIn page to let everyone connected to your personal pages and your blog profiles or fan pages know when you have updated. It is a great idea to connect with everyone you have ever known on Facebook and Twitter to expand the social circle with which you can share your blog.
When you post a short description of your blog update and a link to the blog, you are giving everyone else a chance to read it. More importantly, you are giving them a place and easy way to share it. You might have four hundred friends on, for example, Facebook. Maybe you have an average of thirty friends in common with you on Facebook. If ten of your friends share it with all of their friends, and ten of their friends read it, you may have just gained one hundred new readers from one blog update.