To develop a successful blog you need to blog
regularly. An article I read not
long ago suggested that posts should be provided on Mondays, Wednesdays or
Thursdays with Thursdays getting the most hits or views. If you can manage,
it’s good to post once a week, even more often if that’s possible.
You will probably notice
that I don’t do as I suggest. I don’t follow a regular time schedule. I am a
writer with limited time allotted for blogging, but I try to make each of my
posts meaningful.
Appearance Matters. You want your blog to be attractive and
accessible. Use an easy to read font like Verdana. Second, there should be
graphics not just print words. Third, readers like white space between
paragraphs, again for easy reading. Last, don’t make your blog too long. You’re
not writing WAR AND PEACE. Readers today want writing conversational in tone
and right to the point.
Keep in mind that drawing readers to your blog is
your goal. There’s nothing more
disheartening than writing an article and discovering that no one bothers to
read it. So how do you manage to build a readership with so many other blogs
competing for reader recognition and attention? There are a number of ways that
seem to work:
1. Join groups of people
of similar interests and advertise to them when you have a post.
I belong to several
writer’s groups sponsored by Yahoo for the most part. Some of these are
publishers’ groups, others are simply subject oriented like mystery, romance or
short story writers’ groups.
2. Have interesting titles
that are attention-grabbing and provocative.
Ask a question.
Begin with: How To _______
or create a list:
Ten Tips on ________
Keep focused. Topics
should be those that would most interest your perspective reader audience.
For instance, I’m a writer
and so my blog is concerned with topics related to writing.
3. Use social media to
publicize your blogs. I post on Facebook and Twitter. I am not progressive
enough to use Instagram or Snapchat, but you might consider them.
4. Do guest blogging for
others who share your interests or your field. This widens your audience and
brings new people to your blog.
5. Respond with comments
to other similar blogs. These bloggers may do you the same courtesy.
6. I don’t put out
newsletters but I know a number of bloggers who have had great success with
them.
7. Offer giveaways of some
kind.
We writers tend to give
away advance review copies of our books when they’re published in order to stir
interest of readers. There are many items that would interest readers and they
don’t have to be expensive.
Do you have any comments
or suggestions regarding blogging that you would like to add? What do you think
draws to readers to a blog?
