{Tips for Blogging: Part 2} Growing Your Readership

Photo via Flickr CC by Jamiesrabbits

Before I delve in and give you the regular tried and true tips for growing your readership, I want to point out the one big huge mega tip that will work EVERY SINGLE TIME.

#1.  Wow the socks off the people who are already reading.  Even if you just started your blog yesterday, you probably told some friends on facebook, right? Emailed your mom?  Explained to your grandma what a blog is and then how to get to it?  Somebody is reading, right?   They are your single biggest asset.  If you can impress them, write content that they can't help but share on facebook and pinterest, then your blog will grow.   Because people love to share great stuff. 

Blog growth is exponential.  We live in an age where it is so simple and quick and free to share a great article with everybody you know.  So 3 readers will turn to 10, and 10 to 100, and 100 to a number that kinda makes you shiver when you think that that many people read the words you typed yesterday.  But it won't happen overnight.

Okay, so now for the other tips.  The tips that will help nudge your blog along while you rock that first tip.

#2.  Participate in blog parties.  In the early days of this blog I made a point to have a project ready each week to submit to some of my favourite blog parties.  I did a lot of them in the beginning and paid close attention to my blog stats to discern which ones were bringing in the most traffic.  And then I started focusing mostly on those ones that were at the top of the list.  I rarely participate in blog parties now, but many of my most loyal readers today came through those blog parties. 

Here are some of my favourite blog parties:
The Home Decor and Organizing Linky Party @ Organize and Decorate Everything
Hooking Up with HOH @ House of Hepworths
The CSI Project, a weekly themed blog party

#3. Do a series.  I feel a little bit as if I've just shown you all my poker hand.  Here I am, doing a series, telling you all that a series will grow your blog!

But seriously, one of the best things I've done for my blog is the 31 days to an Organized Home. Many of you first discovered my blog last October during that time.   The benefit of a series is that it gets readers clicking around.  They like a post, so they click over to see the rest of the series.  One pageview turns into many pageviews, and perhaps even a loyal follower! 

#4.  Encourage people to engage and commit.  People often ask me how I got so many facebook "like's".  The answer is simple.  I asked them.  At the bottom of almost any post that I expect will go reasonably viral, I say something like "Thanks so much for visiting The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking.  Please take a moment to "like" me on facebook or follow me on Twitter!"  And people do. It's that simple.  Ask them.  People who like you on facebook or follow you on twitter or sign up for your rss feed will come back again and again. 

#5. Link to your old posts. This is another way to get people clicking around.  If everyone who visits your blog views three pages instead of just one, you will triple your page views!  Don't be awkard or spammy about it, just share your own relevant links just as you would any other link you think would be helpful to your reader.

For example, last month I shared some simple Easter cupcakes and in that post I linked to an delicious chocolate cupcake recipe that I had shared over a year earlier, back when I had fewer readers.  In the last month, I've seen the total pageviews on that chocolate cupcake recipe quadruple.   The backlink gave new life to a mostly dead post that wasn't collecting page views anymore. 

#6. Link liberally to other blogs.  I don't believe in bloggy karma, but I do believe in treating others how you'd like to be treated.  If you want people to link to your articles, be generous with your own links.  It's not magic, it's just good blogging.


#7. Leave valuable, insightful, entertaining comments on other blogs.  Every couple days I get an email or a comment from people who found my blog by clicking through from my comment on another blog.  It's not huge hoards of traffic, but remember, blog growth is exponential. And somebody who would click over to a blog from a comment on another blog is a) somebody who reads blogs and b) somebody who engages with blogs they like (because they were in the comment section in the first place, probably leaving a comment of their own!)  Those are just the kind of folks you want poking around your blog!

Oh, and every once in a while the blogger herself, the one who owns the awesome blog you love and comment on, will click on over to see what you are all about and completely blow you away by leaving a comment on your blog. Like the night, back when I was just starting out and all my readers were people I knew, that Melissa Michaels of the Inspired Room, the very reason I started blogging in the first place, visited this post and left a comment.  It totally made my day week.

But Kelly, you forgot to say to blog regularly and consistently...

Back when I started my first blog in 2007, blogging on a consistent schedule was the holy grail of blog growth.  It was #1 on every article I read about growing my readership. Nobody wanted to follow a blog that didn't post 5 days a week. That was because most of us, back then, still visited our favourite blogs by pouring our morning coffee, sitting down at our computer and...get this...typing in the URL of the blog we wanted to visit.  Although some people still do that, today the vast majority of people following your blog will keep track of new posts through an RSS feed or a link from your facebook page, so they may not even notice if you fail to blog everyday.  Yes, consistency is very good, and more content (assuming it's good content!) will always equal more page views, but I thoroughly believe that consistent blogging is not as important as it once was. And for some of us, it just isn't doable.  And that's okay.

That said, I have set a bare minimum for myself of two blog posts a week.  I don't want my reader's wondering if I'm dead just because I have morning sickness and some laundry to catch up on.
 

{This is part 2 in a week long series about blogging. Click here to read part one. }

Oh, and....Thanks so much for visiting The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking.  Please take a moment to "like" me on facebook or follow me on Twitter!