If you’re currently trying to get your blog off the ground, you may be looking for simple ways to expand your audience. Besides having great content, having a strong readership base is one of the indispensable elements of maintaining a successful blog in the long term. Although a hit blog may not occur overnight, if you play your cards right and make a series of smart choices, you may be able to slowly but surely gain – and keep! – a wider audience. Check out these four key tips to help you attract more readers and turn your blog into a success.
1. Create Perks and Plans To Help Foster a Loyal Reading Audience
One clever way to attract a loyal reading audience and keep them coming back is to institute membership plans and associated perks. You can choose whether you want to monetize these plans for an extra source of income as well. Regardless of whether or not you charge money for these plans, having a subscription or membership model can help ensure that your blog gains a strong readership base for the future. You may want to:
- Start up or consider using a blog subscription service
- Offer discounts on any products or services you may be selling to readers with a membership
- Offer exclusive content to readers who sign up for your email list
- Post new blog pieces regularly to foster audience loyalty
2. Understand Your Reader Demographics and Cater Your Material to Them
Before you post any new content, make sure you’ve done your research on your audience. Publishing content that engages your audience is essential to maintaining high levels of blog readership. Once you know what your audience wants to read, you can begin catering to them. Make sure you:
- Do market research on the topics that may be most appealing to your readers
- Tailor your material to the types of content that have gotten the most clicks or the most positive feedback from your readers in the past
- Gather survey information or comments from your readers to learn how you can continue creating appealing content for them
3. Write on Hot Topics and Craft Eye-Catching Headlines and Accompanying Graphics
For a quick way to get clicks on your website, you can’t beat writing about hot topics in an eye-catching way. Posting content relating to buzzed-about topics can help you get your name out there and garner a wider audience. If you choose to use this option, you’ll want to:
- Write about current buzz topics in your niche
- Create fun, informative and eye-catching headlines to garner clicks
- Use graphics and other visual content, such as videos, to flesh out your blogs and make them more engaging
4. Understand the Tricks That Can Optimize Your Content for Search Engine Rankings
Finally, if you plan on making your blog a full-time job, or even if you just want to keep it up and running for a long time, it would be helpful to learn the basics of search engine optimization, or SEO. Using a few key SEO tricks to optimize your content can improve your blog’s rankings in search engines and may lead to a wider readership over time. For starters, make sure you:
- Use headers
- Use bullet points
- Place keywords in your article
- Avoid blogs that are too short or too long
When you’re trying to write the next hit blog, gaining and maintaining a wide, loyal readership base is key. Although you may not be able to expand your blog overnight, you can slowly and steadily gain readership and name recognition by making a series of smart choices. Instituting perks for loyal readers, catering your material to your audience’s desires, writing on hot topics, and optimizing your content for search engines can all make a major difference in your blog’s journey to long-term success.
