Congratulations! It’s a Blog: Attracting Readers to Your new Blog

Congratulations! It's a Blog: Attracting Readers to Your new Blog

You've done the technical work of creating a blog. You've chosen the platform you want to use. You've selected the hosting option that works best for you. You've spent hours designing your blog so it reflects your brand. You've read all sorts of articles with advice on starting a blog. You've even 'seeded' your blog with a couple of great inaugural posts. You are launched and ready to go! Now what? Now it is time to take the steps required to get people to read your blog, and hopefully become followers.

Simply Write Good Content

The success-blog path to obtaining more visitors and more followers is getting others to share your posts on social media. The best way to make this happen is to write content that is engaging, current, and well-written. You can write engaging content by using the following strategies:

• Avoid blocks of texts. Use subheadings, numbered and bulleted lists, and lots of white space
• Don't use big words and complex sentences. Aim for an 8th-grade reading level
• Enrich your content with pictures, videos, gifs, memes, and infographics
• Find ways to incorporate your message into a story
• Write in the 2^nd person this engages readers and it adds an authoritative yet relatable tone to your posts

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Optimize Your Content

If you've read a dozen other articles suggesting this, it's because it really works. If you aren't sure how to optimize, do the following:

• Use keywords, but not too many. Keyword stuffing will get you kicked to the bottom of SERP results pages.
• Make meta descriptions
• Add links from your website to your blog and back again
• Consider mobile devices when writing your content
• Learn what Google has to say about search engine optimization

As time goes on, you will need to play close attention to this issue. Search engine algorithms are being updated on a regular basis to ensure that internet users are directed to websites with the content that is most useful to them.

Promote your Blog on Social Media

Introducing your fledgling blog for the first time on social media can feel a bit like ripping off the band-aid. It's uncomfortable, and there's a lot of nervous anticipation. However, at the end of the day sharing your blog content on social media is simply what you must do to draw the attention to it that you need. If you can get friends and family members to like and share your content also, that can help you get a head start.

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Use Incentives

This works in two ways. The first is that you can simply host some sort of giveaway on your blog. This can be done without a huge financial outlay. The giveaway could be for a discount off of merchandise or services on your website, access to premium content, or a special gift. Many bloggers who use this technique offer the incentive to the people who comment on the content. The second way to use incentives as a marketing technique is to use an incentive to get others to like or share your content.

Make Frequent but Judicious Use of the Like, Share, and Retweet Buttons

When it comes to content and blog promotion, reciprocation is a big deal. If you promote another person's content on social media, they'll be very likely to promote yours in return. This will result in visitors to your blog, however it is important to be judicious when you share content. Don't curate content just for shares, curate content because it is valuable to you.

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Invite a Guest Blogger

Using a guest blogger, especially one that is more established than you is a great way to motivate new visitors to pay attention to your blog. Find fellow bloggers who are looking to promote their brands, have great blogs themselves, and who can add great content and value to your posts. Then, ask them if they would be interested in guest blogging. If possible, try to create a relationship with several bloggers who you believe have the ability to connect with your target readers, and you with theirs. The opportunities aren't limited to guest blogging, there are opportunities for cross promotions, multi-blog giveaways, and other cooperative efforts.