A Plan For Bloggers Struggling to Find New Readers
This article was guest blogged by Skellie from SkellieWag.org. She is a regular contributor to some of the top blogs like ProBloger.net, CopyBlogger, and ZenHabits. In this post Skellie will talk about ways to acquire new readers to your blog.
The early stages of your blog are always the hardest. As your audience grows, others will shoulder some of the burden: they’ll link to you, recommend you, and vote for you on social media. In the beginning, however, there are few people around to help.
The process of ‘finding new readers’ is something every blogger needs to do. The word ‘finding’ very accurately describes the process. You can’t wait for an audience to find you. You need to go out and find them. You need to work out who they are, and go where they go.
In this post, I want to provide a concrete plan of action for anyone struggling to pull their blog out of a rut and find new readers. I used these same strategies to grow my own blog from nothing to 1,050 subscribers in three months.
1. Define your target audience
You can’t source-out new readers if you don’t know who you’re looking for. You also need to make sure the content you provide suits the kinds of people you are drawing to your blog. For that reason, defining a target audience is the first step any blogger should undertake.
If you haven’t and you’ve already started blogging, don’t fret. You can work out a target audience at any stage in your blog’s growth.
Your target audience essentially refers to whoever you are targeting with your content. What kinds of people will benefit most from what you write? What are they interested in? What are they not interested in?
If you have some readers already, you can work out what types of people they are by the comments they leave and the questions they ask. Are they bloggers? Designers? Gamers? Wannabe martial artists? Lawyers? Literature lovers?
Once you work out who you’d like to write for, this makes finding new readers a lot easier. If you know who you’re looking for, it’s a lot easier to deduce where they’re likely to be hanging out!
TIP: once you’ve decided on your target audience, let them know that the blog is written for them. After all, if you knew a blog was written specifically for you, you’d feel confident that most of the posts would be of interest.
Mention your target audience on your about page, or your tag line, or even within your blog’s title (SEOmoz, for example, is written for people who practice SEO).
2. Find your target audience on other blogs and websites
Other blogs and websites in your niche will be a perfect place to find potential readers. The question you need to ask is: how can I get links to my site on other blogs and websites in my niche?
If you think of all the ways you can do this, the list looks something like this:
- Leave comments and link up my username to my site.
- Write guest-posts and get links in the by-line.
- Purchase a link or banner ad.
- Get links from within posts.
When building my own blog in its early stages, I focused heavily on writing lots of guest-posts and leaving lots of comments. My target audience is bloggers and webmasters, so I focused my efforts on the blogs about blogging niche.
TIP: if you want to write a guest-post, ask first. Work out what kinds of content work well on the site you’re targeting and think of a post idea that sits in line with that. Send an email to the blogger summarizing your post idea, and ask if they’d like you to write the finished product (for their consideration — no obligation as yet).
If they say yes, send it to them. If not, you can use the idea somewhere else, and you’ve wasted no effort. You’d be surprised how many bloggers will say yes if you only work up the courage to ask.
ANOTHER TIP: bloggers do recognize the names of their regular commenters. If you regularly comment on a blog, you’re more likely to be indulged when you ask for favors. Send a link to the post on your blog that’s best suited to the target blogger’s audience and simply suggest: “I thought your readers might like this.” If it’s good, you’ll get a link. If not, what have you lost but a few minutes time?
3. Find your target audience on social media
All kinds of people enjoy using social bookmarking services like Digg and StumbleUpon, including your target audience. Vote up articles that would be of interest to your readers and you’ll start to make a name for yourself in that niche. You’ll also open up opportunities to connect with people who vote for the same articles that you do.
Though my site has been on the Digg front page twice, StumbleUpon (SU) is still my biggest referrer. Rather than bringing traffic in big spikes, SU traffic is a constant flow. Best of all, unlike Digg, you don’t need a big existing audience to get the ball rolling. Just one single vote can send you hundreds of visitors.
It’s my strong recommendation that any blogger looking to lift their site out of a rut join StumbleUpon, vote up targeted articles and add friends. Even very casual use can start to build up a network of social media influencers. Social media connections are invaluable for any blogger striving for growth.
4. Find your target audience on forums
This was another core element of the strategy I used to build my own blog. I joined a forum dedicated to my target audience — bloggers — and added my blog’s URL to my signature. I tried to make my posts thoughtful and knowledgeable, and to be active as often as I could.
As a result, I built up my initial audience almost exclusively from forum users. Despite sending me dozens of hits a day (a lot for a new blog!) the forum helped make me more knowledgeable in my niche. I would strongly recommend joining a targeted forum to anyone looking to find new readers.
Optimize your blog for new readers
The first question a new visitor will probably have is “What’s this blog about?” It’s a question a surprising number of blogs don’t adequately answer. Make sure you have an easy to find About page explaining what your blog is and what it has to offer. You can add details about yourself afterwards, as it’s not of primary interest to someone who’s yet to figure out if they want to explore your blog or not.
I’d also suggest that any blog struggling to find new readers should avoid advertising until it becomes more established.
One thing to understand is that advertising is a trade-off. While it presents some wonderful opportunities, they don’t come without a cost. They’re a constant reminder to visitors that, ultimately, you’re not just in it for them. You want to get something out of it too. Secondly, ads are rarely visually appealing. In the beginning, you’re unlikely to earn enough money to make this trade-off worth it.
I recommend that you hold off (or remove) advertising until the profits make the trade-off worth it. This is a strategy I’ve adopted for my own blog and something I’ve received a lot of positive feedback about. It really does help make your blog remarkable.
TIP: showcase your most popular posts in a prominent location on the sidebar. If they were very popular with your existing readership, they’re likely to impress your new readers, too.
I use this strategy myself and still receive a fresh in-flow of links to my most popular posts, even those that were published some time ago. Wowing new visitors with value is a great way to draw them into your blog (increasing the chances that they won’t forget you once they leave).
A one-month growth challenge
Sometimes general advice isn’t enough — we want a concrete plan to follow. For those of you who echo that, here are some goals you can set yourself this month. They will help you find new readers and have the potential to breathe new life back into your blog.
To be completed by one month from now:
- Write three guest-posts for a blog in your niche.
- Leave 50 comments on other blogs.
- Join a forum in your niche and actively participate.
- Start a social media account and engage with other users.
- Aim to get one link from a popular blog.
- Create a long list of resources for your target audience in blog post form. These posts are link-magnets!
Feel free to use the comments on this post as a place to talk about your struggles to find new readers, or to update us on your progress with the challenge. I’ll be checking the comments regularly and am happy to answer any questions you have.
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52 Responses
to “A Plan For Bloggers Struggling to Find New Readers”
3 Trackback(s)
- Dec 9, 2007: Ask the Readers: Where are the Holes in Your Leaky Bucket”?
- Dec 31, 2007: Best of the ‘Sphere - 30/12/07 | TechnoMoney
- Dec 31, 2007: Are you ready for 2008? | Koka Sexton
By xBrain on Dec 6, 2007
Ok Ades, I have a question for you. Hope that you don’t mind to answer..
What forum are active on?
Me : Carigold.com and forums.digitalpoint.com
By chipseo on Dec 6, 2007
great post and suggestions… I do like the challenge at the end, especially the first one. Write a guest post can be good, although I tried this and the time frame is going on over a month now? The article (in 3 parts) was written within a day (about a month ago) and is still sitting in the drafts… I do look forward to it finally being posted though :)
Scott
By More Blog Money on Dec 6, 2007
That’s a great plan for new blogs. I’m going to implement it as soon as I get enough content on mine.
Not sure if I agree with the advertising part. I think ads have become an accepted integral part of blogs - in fact isn’t ad blindness a predominant problem for bloggers?
People are so used to ads I don’t think they even notice them anymore let alone be bothered by them.
cheers
mbm
By Skellie on Dec 6, 2007
@ xBrain: it’s easy to miss it, but I’m actually the author of this particular article.
I was active on the Authority Blogger Forums.
http://forum.authorityblogger.com/
:)
By xbrain on Dec 6, 2007
I have the idea of using the link building services for those new in blog arena..
What do you think of it Ades?
By Ades on Dec 7, 2007
xbrain, I am not that active in forums at the moment, but sometimes I do check http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/, http://www.webmasterworld.com, forums.digitalpoint.com.
can you elaborate on link building services, what are they? and how you want to use them?
By Rudy on Dec 7, 2007
I always find when bloggers are giving money away (contests, etc.) that always bring in visitors - and repeat visitors too.
Certainly is the quickest way to get hits.
By xBrain on Dec 7, 2007
In the digital point, there is a guy provide this service for free trial exclusive for DP members. I did try on my blog.
Guess what, technorati up from 88 to 130 within a month, linkback is increasing and they do the directories submission manually to about 50 directories..
I will do some write up later about this service
By the way, thanx Ades for dropping to my blog and drop some comments there :)
By Skellie on Dec 10, 2007
@ More Blog Money: It is — that’s why you need to get a lot of hits before you get just a few users taking in the content of your ads. That’s why I suggest doing without them until you get a big enough volume of traffic.
By Heidi on Dec 10, 2007
Great ideas! As a beginning blogger, I need all the advice I can get - and I love the piece about no ads!
By plonkee on Dec 10, 2007
I do most of these, and I’m pleased to see that they’re considered helpful. I think I need to try some more guest blogging. I haven’t had too much success with it up to now, but I guess I need to get my name in people’s minds more.
By Greg on Dec 10, 2007
Having a plan of action is really the key if you want to make an impact with your blog. This plan doesn’t have to include regular posting, or guest posting or what have you. What it has to have are clear goals for the author and some kind of standard to write by. Great post skellie, your name is popping up everywhere on feeds.
By cell phone on Feb 15, 2008
If you are ranking on yahoo for a really high traffic keyword for your blog then you shoul write more important articles. Soon or later your blog will be on #1 then you will get tons of visitors to your blog.
By Flimjo on Mar 12, 2008
Being a regular commentator on related blogs really helps. I have done just that in recent days, and my traffic has doubled. It’s amazing. It only works, however, if you provide valuable comments on those blogs.
By make money blogging on Apr 5, 2008
If I could my humble opinion to this awesome post. Im a blue collar worker by day. And have a large referral network of other contractors I do work with and trust their quality of work. Call it a community if you like. So when someone needs some work done I have someone in my community I know I refer them to. I guess the idea here is to create a community or a sense of community within your niche and refer your readers there. I occasionally get emails that are out side of my abaility to provide accurate answers to so I refer them to places and bloggers I know I trust. Not just some affiliate product link. know what I mean here. I have a post on my blog of bloggers whose opinions and content I trust and in it give their lin and RSS feeds for my readers to use and subscribe to. Some dont like giving out links for fear of visitors leaving the page. I dont view it that way.
Just my .02$
Cheers and Beers
Shane
By PS3 on Apr 17, 2008
I agree with Flimjo and would emphasise the need for quality content, none of this “amazing post” type two word replies.
By titan on Apr 29, 2008
Yap. Thats how i did at my blog today. Give more contest or challenge really can attract more people to come to our blog.
By Eva White on May 10, 2008
Great tips. I think this is one blog that should be quite popular.
By Platform Beds on Jun 23, 2008
Great tips you have here, for finding more readers for our site. As a new blogger, I was at a lost to what I should write about. What are the things that people would be interested to read? With this post, you have given me more ideas. Thank you for your write up
By paulette on Jul 27, 2008
A well define target market can save you time and earn more profit.
By Internet Shopping US on Aug 8, 2008
I usually go to forum websites, and post little bit intro about my new post and than directly referring to my new post. I got good success with it.
By Articlealley on Aug 17, 2008
If you have a small budget listing in a few strong directories is helpful - places like Yahoo are expensive but BOTW are better priced.
Article marketing is a free method of increasing traffic and getting known.
I agree that setting a target is really important, particularly during the first six months or so when progress tends to be the slowest.
Nice Blog and good name
Adrian (A different Ade!)
By PowWeb Review on Aug 19, 2008
In my opinion one of the most valuable uses of time when building a blog is article marketing. The same crowd that surfs ezine is the crowd that picks blogs to regularly follow, becoming a known expert in a field is essential for popularity with blogging.
By SEO Florida on Aug 20, 2008
Post itself defines what to do with the visitors, what really visitors like in your writing, and for what they are currently looking for, lets say the same post is ideal to improve blog visitors, it defines how to get more readers and readers itself coming and posting comments too, which is great achievement.
By Endy on Sep 5, 2008
I have most of them, and Im happy to see that they’re useful. I think I must try a few more guests blog. I haven’t had much success with which it so far, but I think I need for my name in people’s thinking.
By kouji on Sep 24, 2008
i’m a big fan of comments. since my blog’s on short poetry, i wander around commenting on other poetry and haiku sites. and a lot of my preliminary readers have been those same bloggers, deciding to follow my comment back to my site. and they tend to be quite loyal, as well as appreciative.
By titan on Sep 28, 2008
My idea is make contest or competition. That will increasing your readers and visitor.
By gout on Oct 20, 2008
I think, your advice are very rationale and I agree….I alredy do some points above….but very difficult to be consistence and focus….do you have any idea?thanks
By reddebt on Oct 28, 2008
i guess, play with content. More unique, more people will come. We should know how to play with our readers. :)
By tivitune on Oct 29, 2008
if we know what our readers want, we just need to provide that information only. Am i right?
By SEO Test on Nov 7, 2008
I like to use social media, and it’s work for me :D
By Angela Kristin on Nov 27, 2008
Really very informational Blog…
Thanx for sharing Skellie
By Phillip on Dec 13, 2008
If it use i will make on my blog
By Agolf Cartson on Dec 21, 2008
I know it should be obvious even though I’ve been running a blog for more than 18 months now I never though of telling new visitors what the blog is about on the “about” page. That page has always just been about me. LOL!
I’ll go change it immediately. Thank you.
By Car accident Claim on Feb 4, 2009
Good post, however it is a good idea to comment the keywords that you feel bloggers would use to find your blog. otherwise you are not likely to achieve your goals successfully.
By Hot Tub Chemicals on Feb 5, 2009
Ya if no one can find your site for what ads you are wanting to run, then it is totally useless… In my opinion
By Laura Brandau on Mar 8, 2009
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been trying to figure out how to use StumbleUpon effectively and this post gave me the insight I need to start working in the right direction.
Best,
Laura
http://www.bridging-the-gap.com
By sanaullah on Mar 23, 2009
Every niche has that one blog that you look up to alot, although its a good choice to comment on it but why not send a trackback and blog on the same topic but with your point of view on it?
Every trackback leaves a comment on the trackbacked blog with a linkback to your post, that sends you some really targeted traffic, now the oinly thing left to do is for you to write a great post on your point of view, something that will keep every single reader from the target blog!
By Generic Levitra on Apr 7, 2009
I recently start blogging and am happy to find these great tips, am sure other people like me will definitely get help with these kind of articles. Thanks for this
By News magazine on Jul 20, 2009
This is really a very good and effective article for those who started blogging. Love to read the post
By Womens Clothing on Aug 13, 2009
I have just started blogging on women clothing and fashion trends, definitely this post will help me to improve my blog .. thanks
By Engagment Rings on Aug 25, 2009
Well i am doing blogging from last 1 year, and let me tel you that it is the best thing , to share your thoughts with others
By Leather Jackets Online on Oct 13, 2009
Hi…
It is a great job done by you…
really a informative post..
thanks for sharing the information..
By PS3 on Oct 14, 2009
Lol, just the sort of post I was talking about not wanting to see in 2008!
By Office phone system on Oct 14, 2009
I like the 1 month challenge, it sets up some good guidelines that should cause a noticeable effect in the number of new visitors.
-Jack
By San Diego DJ on Oct 22, 2009
Its a shame that this isn’t just intuitive to all bloggers since its so simple.
By Office phone system on Oct 22, 2009
I have found that Twitter can be an excellent source of good traffic, so long as you have a good deal of followers and the tweet is re-tweetable.
-jack
By PS3 on Oct 26, 2009
i came across the similar advices before, but your article is much more informative. thanks.
By tplst on Nov 18, 2009
Nice ideas especially for new blogs :) i hope my blog will be populer.