Everyone wants to know how to get more readers for their blog, myself included.
Because, after all, if you’re not reading my blog, you’re missing out!
Right?
Recently, I realized that I have some pretty committed readers, though they may be small in number. And maybe, just maybe, I should focus on interacting with them before I go out and worry about everyone else who isn’t reading my blog.
This goes along with a marketing principle I once learned: it’s far less expensive to keep a current customer than to gain a new customer.
Now, I’m not spending a whole lot of money to get readers. But time…time IS money, especially in my world.
Here are some of my tips:
- Make sure you are interacting with the readers you already have. Respond to their comments, invite them to leave comments, engage them.
- Interact with other people’s blogs. Leave comments. Link to them. Share the love.
- Get known for something. Maybe you have a great conversion story or a unique perspective on something. Differentiate yourself.
Also, I say this a lot to people who ask me about blogging, but you need to be reading blogs. What works for other people? How can you make it work for you?
What tips do you have? Or what questions do you have about gaining readership?
Sarah Reinhard, author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent & Christmas Reflections for Families, is a Catholic wife, mom, and certifiably addicted blogger who can be found online at SnoringScholar.com.
Sarah Reinhard
When Sarah Reinhard's not writing online at SnoringScholar.com, she can be found on Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, Facebook, or Google +. She's the author of a number of books, including her latest title, Catholic Family Fun: A Guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative, or Clueless.
Great points, Suzanne! š (Sorry I'm just now getting to replying…I keep forgetting, each week, to check the comments here!)
Good luck to you, Inae!
Network. Start a twitter account and a facebook account.
Start a facebook page for your blog (using Networked Blogs) then follow the instructions to get your blog feed into the Networked Blog page (and you can find instructions to get those blogsposts into your profile).
Network on facebook. There are people on facebook who will accept friend requests from Catholics, Christians and pro-lifers just for the asking (like me, for instance).
Pipe your blog's feed into your twitter account. You can do this with feedburner.com You can choose options to use your blog's blogpost labels as twitter hashtags.
You can't just blog and then just wait for people to come. Well you could, but you won't get a lot of people that way. You have to comment on other people's blogs, LINK to other people's blogs, etc. You have to be involved in a community.
Great post. I've just started a new author blog and it's discouraging at first. But I found a few similar blogs to read and comment on, and they lead to more blogs— I'm up to 6 followers now (on Blogger, 5 on Networked Blogs).
I'm thinking of adding a new blogroll on my site to which I will add the blogs of those who comment on my blog, so I can keep coming back to them to read and comment on theirs.