When you start blogging, you may want to earn money or just share your thoughts with others. Whatever your goal, there are some basic “best practices” that will help you gain new readers and keep existing readers interested.
1) Write regularly
Blogs live and die by their content. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get from search engines, and the more visitors you have, the more readers you will get. Regularly updated content is also great for keeping your existing readers interested. A reader will not keep coming back to your blog if they see the same post every time. Readers want new content.
Many people suggest a daily posting schedule. That’s a lot of work! If you think you want to try writing a new blog post every day, I suggest you try before you create your blog. Use your favorite word processor and write a blog post every day for a week.
If you find yourself tired of writing at the end of the week, consider writing a post only every few days. The most important thing is not so much how often you write, but that you keep a regular schedule. If all you can manage is one post a week, but your readers know you’ll be available on Wednesday night, then they’ll come looking for it.
2) Spread the (link) love!
A common approach with new bloggers is to try to keep readers on their own blog by not linking to other blogs. The idea is that if I link, people will click on the link and leave my blog.
That’s true, some of your readers will follow your links. But if they find what you linked to helpful, they’ll come back to read your next post. And linking to other blogs is a great way to get the attention of the owner of the other blogs. They are likely to come to see what you wrote about them, and they are likely to stay and become readers. Or they may return the favor and bond with you at some point.
Liberal linking is a good technique both to provide value to your readers and to get more readers.
3) Read (and comment on) related blogs
Regardless of what you blog about, you can bet someone else is blogging on the same topic. Reading those other blogs helps keep you inspired. You’ll often find topic ideas on other blogs that you hadn’t considered, and you can put your own perspective on the topic and write about it yourself.
Commenting on other blogs is also a great idea. By commenting on another blog, you are letting the owner of that blog know that you liked it enough to take the time to comment. It is very likely that they will visit your blog and read some of the posts, and perhaps leave a comment.
When you leave a comment on another blog, you will be prompted for a URL. Be sure to put your blog’s web address in that field. That way, when someone visits your blog and sees your comment, they can click your name to go to your blog.
Regularly leaving comments on other blogs is a great way to make friends and increase your readership.
4) Market in moderation
Many people these days get into blogging to try to make money.
You can make money from blogging by placing ads on your blog pages or by linking affiliate products in your blog posts. Some bloggers think that the more they do, the more money they will earn.
In reality, if you use too much marketing on your blog, your readers will ignore you. Those who can’t log off will probably get upset and stop reading. It is much better to be moderate in your marketing efforts. Subtle marketing is more likely to make you money than blogging like a carnival barker.
5) Be authentic
When you’re trying to make money through a blog, it’s tempting to promote any product that can make you money. Remember, however, that you are dealing with your reputation. If you promote a product that is not good, the readers who bought the product will not trust your recommendations in the future.
Similarly, if you write a blog post that isn’t honest, only to get people to click on the ads, eventually your readers will stop trusting you.
Always be authentic and honest in your writing, and never post anything online that doesn’t reflect how you really feel.