10 Ways to Attract New Readers to Your Blog

Jan 7, 2008 in Blogging Tips, Lists

Everyone knows that starting a new blog from scratch is tough, but anyone who’s been blogging for enough time, will tell you that keeping your posting pace and readers is even a harder task. The problem is that, there’s a time in any blog’s life, when it simply stagnates, in all possible ways: traffic, subscribers, comments etc. This is probably because you’ve limited yourself to a few promotion campaigns and reached your demographical peak; chances are a few visitors stumbled across your page more then a few times by accident, which can both be a bad or good thing, depends how you see it I guess.

To overpass this obstacle, the most obvious thing to do is to bring new readers to your blog. Well easy said, harder to do, but let’s have a look at a few ways that are sure to at least bring you a fresh and constant surge of new traffic.
Before you read on you first need to make sure your new readers stick around, not just drop and leave, so if you haven’t read my ‘making your blog sticky‘ post, then this is a good time to do it.

Write Remarkable Content. Ok, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times from me, but it’s truer then ever, nonetheless. You can’t go wrong with building constant great and useful content. If you manage to pull that off, you’ll have new people crowding in on all directions, through word of mouth, linkage, bookmarks etc.
Comment on Similar Blogs. My bet is this is your best shot on gaining new readers and getting some attention, from behalf of other bloggers as well. Be sure to comment on blog that are similar to your, both in niche and development; truth is commenting on major blogs like let’s say ProBlogger and CopyBlogger, won’t get you too much attention, because there are simply tens, maybe hundreds of comments on each post. Also when commenting, make sure your comment should be as useful and contributive as possible, you don’t want just to drop a line like “great post, bye” and hope people will click through your link. Make sure you make your comments count.
Write Catchy Titles. Great titles are always a great way to catch somebody’s attention. A good title alone can motivate a visitor to read your whole article and outside of your blog a good post title will definitely make your site stand out. This is especially important with traffic from social bookmarks, such as digg or reddit.
Improve Your SEO. Search engines are a great way to drive targeted new readers to your blog, but because the competition, no matter the niche, is so fierce nowa days SEO can be extremely difficult, but if properly mastered it can be a powerful tool.
Promote Your Blog on Forums. This has been one of the oldest way to market and promote a website, of any kind, for loads of years and frankly it’s not a surprise, as it works like a charm. However problem with forums is that you have to be prepared to invest a lot of time into building your profile and authority, but if you manage to do so you’ll have a lot to gain from. Keep this in mind while posting on forums:
- Be on topic and contributive as much as possible. Nobody likes a spammer.
- Answer to any questions a forum user might have there, this way you’ll establish yourself as an authority.
- Actively participate in discussions, so you can raise your rep and post count.
Guest Blogging. This is really one of the best way to raise awareness to your blog and gain some new readers. I’m really a guest blogging fan, as there’s so many benefits to gain from it, although a lot of people kinda avoid it, because they hate the idea of writing content for somebody else, but I’m sure if they’d better analyze the potential advantages, thing would be a lot different. To make it really big you have to land a post on a really popular blog (1-2k RSS subscribers), as it will definitely land you the most targeted traffic and the best link juice, but the more popular a blog is , the harder it is to have a article posted. Keep this in mind when guest blogging:
- Introduce yourself. In a few words say who you are, where you blog at and politely ask the blogger if it’s possible for him to have a look at a article you’ve written, that you’d like to be guest posted on his respective blog. Here’s a little article I wrote way back, about pitching notes and networking with other bloggers.
- When contacting your fellow blogger, be polite and concise. Popular bloggers get tons of email every day, so it’s better not to waste his time with pleasantries.
- The article you’ve written for guest posting has to be very well written and relevant, not only for it to get accepted, but for it to stand out among the blogger’s readers. You want some attention and a excellent article, will make readers click on your link and read your blog.
Advertise. This is one of the most straight forward ways to attract new readers and most of the time is quite effective, but unfortunately a good campaign usually costs a lot of money. If you’re willing to spend some cash for your blog, advertising may be the right thing for you, especially with blog advertising getting easier, most effective and cheaper by the day.
Social Media. This is my personal favorite blog promotion method and it may just be the best. Due to a blog’s flexibility you can really harness the web 2.0 potential at a maximum, and easily drive traffic. The only problem with it, is that it’s a bit poor in terms of visitor quality, a powerful tool nonetheless. Be sure to read my introduction to Social Media and Social Media Marketing, before continuing.
Make Link Bait. If you manage to pull off a really good link bait, you won’t have any problem in brining in some new readers, in addition to the ginormous amount of link backs. If you want to read more about link bait and link baiting techniques, have look at my link bait guide.
Just Be Patient. Building traffic and a popular blog takes times, even though you’ll hit a growth slump keep on posting and working hard. It’ll eventually pass one way or the other, afterwards you and your blog will be back on the marvelous road towards success.

If you enjoyed this article, please reward it with a stumble or digg. Thanks !

The 10 Ways to Attract New Readers to Your Blog by Tibi Puiu, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

19 Replies

Marketing Blog
Jan 7th, 2008 at 7:04 pm

Great article im always looking for ways to attract more readers
Dave
Jan 8th, 2008 at 12:16 am

Good stuff in here. I have tried to be more active on social media and that is the exact avenue in which I found this article.

I have a suggestion; I see a lot of these “how to be a better blogger” articles but they always come from those bloggers who blog on blogging. Maybe I could write a guest article on my experience as a new blogger and since my blog is not about blogging, may provide a fresh prospective to those that are blogging on other topics as well. Just a thought.
Tibi Puiu
Jan 8th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Thanks for your comment Dave, just dropped you a line in your e-mail inbox. Maybe we can work something out ..
fouramjava
Oct 27th, 2008 at 5:59 am

I do not appreciate you blogging MY photo. #11 should be “Never blog someone else’s photos unless you are given proper permission.”
myjuditz
Oct 27th, 2008 at 6:47 am

“10 Ways to Attract New Readers to Your Blog” ?

Stealing photos from Flickr’s members ?
Posting without permission ?
Art of blogging includes posting others pictures?
Post your own pictures, that is what you should teach those who wants an interesting and “personal” blog.
myjuditz
Oct 27th, 2008 at 6:59 am

Tibi Puiu, you are the one hosting this blog ?
What a shame, you are a Romanian !!!!!!!
Ask for permission before posting any photo, Foramjava has “all rights reserved ” - under this license you could be brought in justice.

De ce trebuie sa ne facem intotdeauna de ras, noi Romanii ?!
Cere permisiunea celor care-ti sunt prieteni si au fotografii, nu fura munca altora !
annelies
Oct 27th, 2008 at 7:32 am

Dear Sir,

I join my friends in their protest.
You are not allowed to blog Flickr pictures without specific permission of the photographer.
Therefore I request you kindly to listen to @fouramjava’s complaint.

And furthermore…
you pretend knowing the rules of blogging.
You forgot blogging rule number 1!

Ask permission!!!
Don’t steal/use photos from other photographers, not from Flickr photographers and not from other persons if they use the “all rights reserved” copyright and if they did not give you their permission.

Kind regards,
Annelies
Larry
Oct 27th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

And I suppose if you cannot write good content or catchy titles of your own, you could always “borrow” from someone who can. You could even put their name on the page someplace in fine print if your conscience bothered you. After all, is that really any different from using a photos or other artistic content that is not your own? It is sad that someone would be so desperate for attention that they would resort to such low tactics.
Tibi Puiu
Oct 27th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

@all the flickr guys (especially fouramjava): the photo has been removed. I’ve already sent an e-mail to myjuditz (in romanian), in which I better explained the issue at hand.

It’s very late here and I’m extremely tired, so I won’t start over again on it (maybe mayjuditz can shed some light up, if, of course, she understood and empathized the situation.).

In short: the post is very, very old (almost a year old, if you look at the time stamp) and I can’t totally recall how I managed to get a hold of the respective photograph. What I know is that I always look for photos on flickr, when browsing for ‘auxiliary’ blogging material, that have a CC free to use license. I don’t know what happened back then. Maybe it was a flickr glitch, maybe fouramjava accidentally turned off the CC, maybe I just copy/pasted it, somehow. I can’t remember. Again, it was a long time ago, so, please, bear with me.

As for asking permission, I totally agree with you guys, but put yourselves in my shoes for just a second. Image what it means to ask every user for permission to use a photograph (most don’t even answer inquiries. Tested.), also, considering that I use the flickr filter to look for publicly released stuff.

I totally understand your various frustrations or sense of misjustice. If you’ve taken the time to read a few of my post, you’d know then that I’m not the type of person or blogger, if you will, that endulges in such types of practices. I’m totally against plagiarism or various other content theft.

Trust me, there are worser things then posting a photograph on the internet (which, I, at least, credited, unlike other people). What do you think of people stealing someone’s work, on which that someone toiled over it for days and week. How about and entire website copy/pasted? Yes it happened to me. So, chin up and start hunting down the real ‘thieves’ out there. With respect,

-T.P.
Larry
Oct 27th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Thank you for doing the honorable and right thing.
Sincerely,
Larry
fouramjava
Oct 27th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Thank you, Tibi Puiu, for your reply.

I have to assume that at the time you found my photo, it was made public, and just recently made private for friends and family.

I have given permission to a few people to blog my photos. I wish you would have contacted me before blogging. Of course, yours was the first one I found, and I know there are many others out there.

I do know how easy it is to grab a photo from flickr and other sources, but I have my own photos so I have no need to use others.

My photos are private, for friends and family now.

My recommendation is you get out there and take your own photos, which would eliminate the need to ask permission. Makes life easier for everyone……….

Thank you for removing the pic. I appreciate it.
Chris
Mar 12th, 2009 at 7:17 am

Very interesting read. We have recently added ourselves to twitter and although we are still looking to grow our number of followers we have seen traffic to our blog almost double in the last week or so.

Thanks.
jim
Sep 24th, 2009 at 7:25 am

I sell ads directly on one blog and through a 3rd party on another blog. From my experience using a 3rd party doesn’t necessarily make selling ads that much easier. I’m sure it helps for some blogs, but I’ve done better
Carol
Oct 6th, 2009 at 3:53 am

Great tips, I shall be on the case straight away now
Thanks

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