How to Increase Readers for your Blog
With millions of bloggers in existence, it is difficult to stand out from the rest. Luckily, with some intelligent methods and the use of some WordPress survey plugins, you can increase your readership.
Be Smart About Your Content
Creating quality content is, obviously, essential to attract readers. However, being able to market your content is just as important as the content itself. Once you are sure that your content has top-notch quality, here are a few strategies you can do to market them:
- Evergreen Content: When you say the content is “evergreen,” that means the content is not sensitive to time and is relevant even months or years after it is published. With such content, people will always be constantly searching for it, which means you will have a steady flow of new readers visiting your blog all the time. An example of an evergreen post is a “Greatest Actors of All Time” list, whereas a “Greatest Actors of 2008” list is irrelevant nowadays.
- Attention Grabbing Headlines: In a world where media is consumed quickly, there are a lot of people that only read the headlines of shared blog posts. Because of this, an attractive headline is essential to encourage people to click on the link to read your blog. It would be a shame to have your well-crafted blog ignored just because of a lackluster headline. If you feel that this is what your headlines are like, then experiment to find what catches the attention of readers.
- Newsletters: Invite your faithful readers to sign up for a newsletter. With a database of emails of interested people, you can send them weekly or monthly emails of your best content at that time. This will ensure that they are well updated and satisfied by having a supply of great quality blog posts to read on a regular basis. Doing this will build your reputation as a consistent and reliable blogger.
Use SEO
Search engines are the number one source of information nowadays and the optimization of it, or SEO (Search Engine Optimization), has become one the most sought out methods of marketing on the web. Basically, SEO is the practice of smartly using keywords, external links, and keyword-related content on a website to make sure that it ranks higher on an SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Being able to use SEO correctly will guarantee success for your blog or any other type of website. However, with millions of other bloggers and website owners also using SEO, how can you make sure your blog isn’t buried by the completion? The answer is long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are phrases with three or more keywords. Having such keywords for your posts is important and can lessen your competition because they are less broad. For example, if one searches for “gourmet restaurants by the beach,” fewer pages will appear on the SERP rather than when one searches for “gourmet restaurants.” Also, users in general look for something in particular when using a search engine and will use long-tail keywords to do so. Thus, if a user searches for “gourmet restaurants by the beach,” and you have a blog that talks about and contains those keywords, then that person will be able to find your blog faster. With the right long-tail keywords, you become more accessible to potential readers.
To be able to find the most efficient long-tail keywords for you to use, simply use a search engine.
Type in the broad term of the topic you wish to write about without hitting the “enter” key. The search engine will use its auto-complete function and suggest subtopics for you based on what you typed down. For example, if you type “gourmet restaurants,” what will come out on the auto-complete function is “gourmet restaurants in the Philippines” or “gourmet restaurants Silang Cavite”. These are potential long-tail keywords. Take note of these.
Then hit the “enter” key with the broad topic to start a search, which will lead you to the SERP. Going to the bottom of the SERP will bring up the related searches of your term, which will also be long-tail keywords. Take note of this as well.
Input these suggestions on a keyword planner website and you will be able to see which one is the most searched by users on the web. Once you find the perfect long-tail keyword, you can create a blog about it. Doing this means that you are creating the supply to a big demand on the web.
Remember to also ensure that you place the keywords in the first paragraph of your blog as well. This is an SEO technique to rank the blog higher in the SERP of the keywords.
Hunt Down Your Audience’s Nest
Trying to promote yourself on all available platforms might be good, but it can be quite inefficient. It is actually more efficient to know which social network your content will fit in. Why would you promote your nerdy blog in a fashion website? Instead, try to promote it on a forum or website that is related to it. Now this can very broad as well since there are millions of nerdy websites out there. However, it is important for you to know the particular sites where you have to promote to. You can do this by using analytics plugins.
By using analytics plugins, you can find out which websites are your “referrers.” These are websites (which aren’t search engines) that contain links to your website. When people click on this, they increase the traffic on your website. This is called “referral traffic.” By being able to find out which referrers give you the most referral traffic, you also find out where you can focus most of your marketing and promotion. This is efficient because you will be able to market to people who are already interested in your topic. Just make sure you have a good headline to draw them in.
Speed and Mobility
As said earlier, the world moves fast and so should your blog. If your blog doesn’t load fast enough, then it will drive away readers because they don’t get the quick information they are looking for. They will exit your website and find another place where they can get it faster. Use a speed insights tool in order for you to find out how fast your blog takes to load. These plugins also provide you feedback on how you can improve your loading speed.
People also want information on the go and, therefore, on their mobile phones, which they can take anywhere with them. Studies show that the modern user spends at least three hours a day using a mobile device. In these three hours, they are consuming information. If you optimize your blog for mobile viewing, then you attract people to view it during these times.
Scratch Each Other’s Back
Everyone is looking to gain more traction for their blog. Instead of competing, you could help each other out. This could be done through an SEO technique called Guest Posting. This is the act of creating content for another blog or website.
Guest posting is useful because of the following:
- Influence: Posting good content on someone else’s blog adds to their value, which builds your relationship with them. This is advantageous to you because bloggers are largely influential on social media. If they speak highly of you, then it builds your influence, which then leads to more readers.
- SEO: When guest posting, it is courteous for the hosting blogger to link their audience to your blog as well. From what was discussed earlier, this makes the host blogger a referrer which will increase your referral traffic.
- Audience: Basically, you get to speak to the audience of the other blogger. If done right, you could make his/her audience your audience too. But you must make sure your guest posts add real value to the content of your host blogger to do this.
Guest posting is a two-way relationship; “scratch my back and I will scratch yours.” Being that, guest posts actually have plenty of advantages for the writer; it is considered courteous to allow the host blogger to create a guest post on your blog as well. Doing this allows them to build their influence, SEO ranking, and audience as well. In order to have a successful blog, you cannot practice crab mentality; you must be willing to help another in order to be helped in return.
At the end of the day, you may produce good content, but if you aren’t intelligent with the way you manage your blog, then your words will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. Study and practice these five tips to get your voice heard!
