5 Steps to Grow Your Blog
Growing a blog or online business takes time, dedication and hard work. It’s not something that can happen overnight. Very few businesses start out with tons of people wanting to buy their product. It takes time to build the customers trust, a great product, and customer onboarding to ensure customer success.
Of course, if you are trying to grow your blog, you are the product! If you haven’t started a blog, and are unsure if you should, be sure to check out my post on 5 Reasons to Start a Blog!
Here are 5 steps to grow your blog!
1. Great Content
Make sure the content you are creating is a geared toward people you want to attract, whether it’s a lifestyle or parenting blog or even a food blog.
It also really helps to understand your audience. Try to think of content they would like, or questions they may want answers to. It may take awhile to know your audience, but after awhile you will be able to see what articles on the blog have the most views, meaning more interest, and be able to connect more with your followers.
If you have an online business or online service you are offering user adoption is important to ensure you have a good system that users want to interact with.
It’s also a good idea to publish consistently. When you publish consistently readers know what to expect. You may decide to post 4 times a week, or every Monday and Thursday, or even once a week. The important thing is to be consistent and set a goal that works for you and your schedule.
2. Get Social!
You can start by following people on social media who are in your niche, or finding people who may be interested in your content or product. What’s more important than followers though, is actual engagement. It doesn’t do any good to have tons of followers if you don’t interact with them. Make sure you also have your social media follow links conveniently placed preferably at the top of your blog so readers can find them easily.
Encourage readers to share content
One of the easiest ways to ensure readers share content is to make sure you have social sharing buttons. This can easily be done with a WordPress plugin if you’re using WordPress.
Another great way to encourage readers to share content is to include photos in your post. Most people are visually orientated and seeing an attractive image will likely encourage reading and more shares. Be sure to also share content with other bloggers, comment and engage with readers and share their content that is relevant to your audience.
3. SEO Optimization
SEO optimization is important to perform well in organic search so more potential readers can find you. Make sure to use keywords and phrases, and be sure to use keywords in your URL’s and file names, and unique meta description for each page. SEO Yoast is a great plugin for WordPress users and the one I use!
4. Guest Posting
Guest posting on other blogs helps to build your domain name and search engine authority. It’s also a great way to connect with new readers and get your name out there.
5. Email Subscriptions
It’s always a good idea to offer several ways readers can subscribe by email. On the Simple Mom Review site, I offer an email opt-in on the sidebar and at the end of each post.
Another great way to attract new subscribers is by offering a free eBook or other freebies. Make sure its something of interest to your viewers, such as if you have a cooking blog you might provide a free e-Cookbook or printable meal plan.
Being authentic, knowing your audience, SEO optimization, building a social media following, guest posting, and offering freebies to email subscribers, are all great places to start if you want to grow your blog!
What are the best ways you’ve found to grow your blog?
