Oct 23, 2014 / Traffic & Growth

Great, you have followers. Now what?

You have what most bloggers hope for: regular readers. What happens now? Keep these four tips in mind to hang on to your readers and attract some new ones.

For most of us, the thrill of clicking “publish” on a blog post has a less-pleasant side effect: the dread that it will fall alone in the online forest, unread and unheard. Eventually, though, someone else will wander through your neck of the woods — probably a few someones. Followers!

Now what?

Keep up the good work.

When we realize we have an actual, not-just-our-best-friend audience, some of us freeze up a little. It’s one thing to publish a post, but another to know that people — strangers, even! — are actually paying attention. Many bloggers fall into one of two common traps that seem like smart decisions, but undermine your success.

  1. Pushing yourself to post more frequently. Your audience already likes your current pace, and making yourself blog more will only lead to burnout. If you’re inspired to create more, awesome! But there’s no need to force it for your audience.
  2. Trying to write for your new audience (or trying to appeal to as many new readers as possible). Your readers relate to your voice. They care about what you have to say, and how you say it. Whatever you’re doing is already appealing to them; trying to be who you think we want to see mutes your natural voice, and trying to be all things to all readers leaves you with a diluted, perspective-less blog.

It’s great to have readers. It’s great to want to have more readers. You’ll get them by staying true to yourself, your voice, and your blogging goals.

Pay attention to your stats.

Think this seems at odds with what I just said about staying true to yourself? I don’t! Using your stats helps you optimize posting times, or teaches you what topics your readers want to hear more about. You still have to decide on topics, create those posts, and make sure they’re in line with your blog and voice.

In the early days of a blog, stats are not much more than a momentary ego boost — if you only had three viewers last week, it’s hard to use that as data to grow your blog.

Once you have some regular readers, you can begin digging into that data to make the most of your posts. Are there days of the week that are consistently high-traffic for you? Publish your next big piece on that day. Are there topics that are more or less popular? Use that information to plan your next few posts. Do you have a lot of readers from a particular country? Think about why they might be drawn to your blog. You can use all this data to inform your publishing schedule and maximize your readership. (Ready to go deeper into your stats? Check out our five-part series.)

Consider a roundup feature or newsletter.

Your regulars might still miss out on a post here and here. A weekly or monthly roundup post is an easy way to highlight your best content and share other links you love. The internet can feel like a noisy place, with endless sites and stories completing for our attention. A roundup post curates some of that content for your readers, helping them focus on the can’t-miss.  It’s also an easy thing for them to share with their own networks, helping grow yours.

If a roundup doesn’t feel like something that works for your blog, email can also be an effective tool — check out our primer on email newsletters.

Don’t stop engaging.

Your readers are drawn to your personality and perspective, but chances are you nudged them toward you by reading and commenting on other blogs, participating in blogging communities, or reaching out on social networks.

It’s great to have readers. It’s great to want to have more readers. You’ll get them by staying true to yourself, your voice, and your blogging goals.

Don’t stop just because you’ve hit 100 followers (or 1,000, or 10,000). The blogging community is a living ecosystem that’s constantly growing and shifting. To keep your place in it and contribute to that growth, keep up the engagement that helped your readers find you in the first place. We’re all responsible for the care and feeding of our blogosphere.

Whether you’re using stats to your advantage, sending out your inaugural monthly newsletter, or planning a weekly feature to take advantage of high-traffic days, never forget why you started blogging and what you hope to get out of it. Keep that in your sights while you work on building up your readership, and you won’t go wrong.

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  3. An important rule not just for blogging but for living! Staying true to yourself seems like it should be so basic and easy; but it has always been something I have struggled with throughout my life. It is the main reason for creating my personal blog. I’m delighted to read that your advice is in line with my personal blog goal.
    All the Best,
    Celeste

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  6. I’m new to blogging. Actually my first day. I was excited to learn I had a couple of comments, but I knew they were family and friends. I appreciate your tips and your wisdom based off experience and your know-how-to-blog expertise.

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  10. This is very helpful! Thank you!
    I have published six posts and have gotten just over 900 views, so I am still very new at this. My stats confuse me sometimes because I get a lot of views from foreign countries and often under Referrers, it lists websites that don’t have links to my blog. That makes me wonder if those are actual people reading my blog, or some kind of weird glitch in my stats. Any ideas on that?

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  16. Thanks so much for this post!!! I’m still very new but my page is growing. These tips are definitely encouraging.

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  17. Blogging U. challenges are great ways to get involved in a community, and we’ve got a longform-focused writing challenge coming in December that might be right up your alley.

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  18. This was very helpful. Your tips addressed the concerns I thought were exclusive to my own troubles as I enter this brave new world of the social media as an alien. It is helpful to know these issues are common to most everyone, and the solutions are down to earth, geared for sustainability and not just flash-in-pan results. Thank you.

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