Simple strategy to get more followers to your blog

As soon as people start blogging they become very enthusiastic about it. It is so exciting to check out the statistics of visits, receive “likes” and comments, get new followers. For some bloggers it is closely related to their business and they expect to convert subscribers into consumers of their products and services. Some people blog just for fun, and for them the amount of followers shows their success as a writer and entertainer. As you probably guess the amount of followers is connected to the amount of general traffic: first you need to get visitors and then convert them into subscribers. Being very interested in promoting my own blog, I have read a lot of related articles, analyzed plenty of material and came out with this simple strategy.

Listed below are 11 easy tips for increasing the popularity of your blog.

1) Write more, publish often. According to HubSpot’s Benchmarks report, companies that blog 6-8 times per month double their lead volume comparing to those who blog 3-5 times per month. An average company will notice a 45% growth in traffic if it increases the amount of published posts from 11-20 to 21-50 articles. Solution: to get more traffic, blog at least 2 times per week and publish more than 50 articles. Some of the visitors will eventually become subscribers.

2) Increase the amount of Twitter. According to the same report companies with 51 to 100 followers generate 106% more traffic than those with 25 or fewer. You can read about how I get new followers on my Twitter account here.

3) Expand the Facebook reach. Increasing amount of Facebook likes to more than 1000 will help to generate 185% more traffic to your blog. To get more likes to your Facebook page you need to promote it wherever possible: in the email signatures, on the business cards, in the LinkedIn groups, in your tweets, etc.

4) Expose your blog to new readers. You can expand your audience by diversifying the topics you cover. If you start writing about wider variety of subjects, it will increase the chances to find your blog under different search terms. The important thing here is to blog within the same area of interest that you have chosen (photography, design, arts, etc.). For example, I want to explore the following topics in my Interior Design blog:

• DIY
• Before & After
• Creating lists (e.g. 20 Most Famous Interior Designers, 30 Best Interior Design blogs, etc.)
• Buy-guides (recommendations on how to select fabrics, wallpapers, paint, tiles, etc.)
• Product reviews

5) Use new formats. Browsing through the Internet I have noticed that some forms of presenting information are more appealing to me than the others. Thus, I absolutely love to download free e-books and read “how-to” guides. The following formats are some of the most effective and you can try to use them to grow your audience:

• e-books & e-magazines
• research & reports
• free templates
• “how-to” and “step-by-step” guides
• videos

6) Concentrate on creating amazing titles. You can write an outstanding article but if you don’t put an effort to create an attractive title, nobody will read it. The title must call to action (to read the full article) and to explain what this article is about in a few words. Here are some examples of the titles which are usually very effective:

• 10 easy steps to grow followers of your blog (people love ready-to-implement solutions)
• How to get 1000 blog followers in 3 months or less (narrow the time frame for desired result)
• 10 little known tricks that will increase amount of your blog followers (sounds intriguing)
• Hot list: new trends which make blogs super popular (people love hot lists and trends)
• 10 lies about SEO (be controversial, put some well-known facts and prove them false)
• New strategy which will save your blog from dying (threat – solution)

7) Make an outstanding design. I have already outlined the importance of blog design here. Appealing and original blog design will increase the chances that your readers will come back. Some tips to make your blog design stand out from the crowd:

• register on Instagram. Surprisingly or not, but Instagram today has become one of the most popular applications to edit and share photos. Not only small business but even world famous luxury brands such as Marc Jacobs and Tiffany & Co use Instagram for inbound marketing.

  

• focus on making your content more visual. “Visually oriented” – that’s how I call current trend in website design. The popularity of such applications as Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr makes it clear that you need to enhance your blog with more illustrations, e.g. photos, graphics, cartoons, etc.  As an example, you can see updates from my Facebook page. Which one is more appealing to you?

 

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8) Make it easy to follow you. In order to make readers follow your blog, you need to make the subscription procedure very easy. Place “follow” button on the most visible place. Make people see how many followers you already have. If your readers want to follow you on other Social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, let them know how to find you there. For the reference you may visit my About page.

9) Interact with other bloggers. It is so much said already about it, that I will not go deep into detail. Post comments, reply to comments, read other blogs, put likes and be nice to people.

10) Stick to your niche and maximize it. In my blog I write a lot about my Interior Design studies. No surprise that other Interior Design students subscribe to my blog. Attract readers who have the same interests as you – chances that they will become your followers are very high.

11) Focus on creating great content. We can discuss importance of design, SEO, marketing, but without interesting content your blog is worth nothing. The formula for publishing outstanding posts is very easy, you just need to be:

• original
• comprehensive
• entertaining

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• 31 Types of Blog Posts for Every Day of the Month (iacquire.com)
• 2012 – achievements, 2013 – resolutions (essenziale-hd.com)