When you first start a blog, you may be a bit underwhelmed by your initial level of traffic and engagement. It’s challenging to build an audience, and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.
However, with the right strategies and plenty of patience, you can learn how to build an audience for your blog — and keep readers coming back for more.
Define your target market
The first step in building up an audience is to figure out exactly who you’re targeting. Think about the topic of your blog and ask yourself, “Who would be interested in reading this?”
QuickSprout recommends pulling together a highly detailed profile of a “target community member,” complete with age, job, location, family demographic, hobbies, preferred social networks, and so on. This audience profile will become a valuable tool for honing in on your content and marketing efforts.
Identify how you offer value
Begin by brainstorming and jotting down a few subjects that you’re knowledgeable about and would enjoy sharing with others.
You might include hobbies, areas of expertise, passions, or professional interests. As a starting point, a broad list will suffice. For example, it might look something like this:
- DIY woodworking
- Home improvement
- Vegetable gardening
- Animal care
These are broad terms that can each encompass a dozen other things. But this broad list enables you to sort through your many options to pick and address any real-world challenges that your audience faces. If you start out narrowly, you risk preaching to a nonexistent or small crowd.
With your initial list completed, check out a few places that can help you pinpoint more specific topics.
Quora
Quora is a questions and answers website that is used to look up some of the topics you listed in the previous step.
Browse through the popular questions related to the items on your list to determine what users tend to search for. Are the existing answers on Quora enough to satisfy user curiosity? Can you add to these answers, or provide even better explanations?
Google is your next stop. Search for some of the questions you found on Quora.
Are the results helpful? Can you explain things better? If the answer is “yes,” then it’s a good indication that there is an audience interested in what you have to say.
Make yourself accessible
You’ll want to build a website so that readers can find you.
With a website, you’ll be in total control. You can pick the best way to present your ideas, determine the most user-friendly site layout, and select the extras and features that suit you.
One of the fastest ways to create a website that takes social sharing, spam protection, and design into consideration is WordPress.com. It’s free to get started and doesn’t require any coding knowledge.
Learn the basics of SEO
Another important step for attracting additional followers is to read up on search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. You don’t need to be an expert in SEO, but you should know the basics. These practices will improve the chances of your blog appearing in search results, thereby attracting new readers.
Some SEO best practices include:
- Use narrow, targeted keywords (but make sure you’re using them organically in your posts).
- Post unique, clearly written content on a regular basis.
- Create accurate meta-titles and meta-descriptions, these are the titles and descriptions read and analyzed by search engines.
- Create helpful content that other website owners will want to link to.
Blog posts drive site visits
First and foremost, research shows that the small businesses frequently publishing content see significantly more website traffic.
HubSpot found that small businesses (with up to 10 employees) that published more than 11 blog posts per month attracted three times more visitors than companies that shared only one article (or none).
The same research also revealed a correlation between the total number of blog posts on a given site and the amount of traffic it received. Specifically, small businesses received the majority of monthly site views when they featured up to 300 posts on their sites — more than 3.5 times the traffic of websites with fewer than 20 posts in total.
Consistent publishing increases leads
Not only does more content mean more website traffic, it also translates to additional leads for your business. HubSpot found that small businesses publishing more than 11 times per month generated twice as many leads than those that published 6-10 articles or posts per month.
Even a few extra blog posts can make a significant difference in your lead-generation strategy; so, if producing leads is one of your business goals, consider publishing more frequently.
Engage, engage, engage
One of the best ways to attract new fans to your blog and build relationships with other bloggers is to engage with them on their websites and social media pages. Become an active member of the online community that you want to be a part of, always keeping your “target community member” in mind.
How can you do this? Read, like, and comment on blogs similar to your own, and share content that may be useful or interesting to your target audience.
When your name appears on other sites — even in the comment sections — you’re increasing the brand awareness for your blog. Pam Moore, a veteran marketer, says that it takes five to seven impressions before someone will remember your brand, so the more that you get your name out in front of your target audience, the better!
Leverage social promotions
As you engage with other bloggers and potential fans on social media, you’ll begin to acquire followers. Keep these fans engaged by promoting new content (or recycling older content) through your social channels. Make sure to use engaging images and clear headlines to capture people’s attention as they scroll through their feeds.
Paid social promotion is also a viable way to reach new readers if it’s in your budget. Almost all social media platforms offer some type of ad program, so use your community member profile to select the best site and target your ads appropriately.
When done correctly, these paid promotions can yield big results. According to Hootsuite, 75 percent of Instagram users take an action, such as visiting a website, after looking at a sponsored post on Instagram.
How to keep readers coming back
Once you’ve built a solid readership with site visitors, adjust your mindset to cater to established followers as well as attracting new fans. First and foremost, you should create content regularly so there’s something new for your audience to read on every return visit. It’s also important to continuously engage with them through comments and social media.
You may want to start a newsletter to provide updates to dedicated fans. Further, you should encourage readers to follow you on social media if they don’t already do so.
When you follow these tips on how to build an audience, you’ll grow a dedicated fan base that will return to your blog regularly. Don’t forget to be patient, though! You probably won’t go viral overnight, but with time and dedication, your audience will grow.
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