How to Grow Your Blog Fast: 51 Experts Share Their Secrets

How to Grow Your Blog Fast: 51 Experts Share Their Secrets

According to HubSpot, 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5 times more traffic than companies that published zero to four monthly posts.

Our content marketing team is part of numerous blogging communities and the most common question among blogging beginners still remains – ”How to start and find an audience for my new blog?”.

This is why we decided to reach out to blogging pros and ask them to share their most valuable tips on how to build an audience for a new blog. Even if you’re not a beginner, this roundup post is a must read because the experts shared their key strategies that will help you skyrocket your traffic and engagement.

Without further ado, here’s the big question.

”What are your most valuable tips for building an audience that will fall in love with a new blog and stay engaged in 2019?”

Elijah Masek-Kelly is the Co-founder of PowerfulOutreach and SVP at Article-Writing.Co.

He is a featured writer in publications such as HubSpot Marketing Blog, SocialMediaToday, Business2Community, Business.com, Foundr, StartupNation, Relevance, and has helped clients produce compelling content for top tier publications like TheNextWeb, Forbes, VentureBeat, Huffington Post, FastCompany, and many others.

Building an audience is tough. Building an audience that loves your work is even harder! But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible!

Here are a few tips that can help you grow your blog:

1) Content is King!

This almost goes without saying, but if you want a blog that attracts readers – give them what they crave! Answer their questions, provide insight and guidance against their problems, and build content that can be referenced as the go-to resource of your industry. An easy way to generate content ideas is to look on tools like BuzzSumo or Ahrefs at the most shared content around a keyword related to your audience. See what’s popular and do your best to emulate it – or even better – upstage it!

2) Socialize Your Content!

The more people that you involve in the creation of your content – the more people that will want to share it with their networks. Expert round-ups, interviews, and references to other popular work will help drive avid readers to your blog.

3) Strategically Promote Your Content!

Even if you have the best blog in the world – it means nothing if you don’t have an audience. Search traffic is just one way to get readers, but it can be a long path to success to get discovered in between the millions of web pages on the internet. Try taking your content to the existing communities where your audience actively participates. Here’s a couple easy ways to start:

A) Answer question on Quora and link back to a blog post that provides an even better answer!

B) Share your blog posts in LinkedIn and Facebook groups related to the content.

C) Share your content on all social media channels daily!

4) Guest Post Like Crazy!

You can piggy-back on the success of other blogs by regularly contributing content to publications with established audiences. Let someone else’s audience know that you create great content and if they want more from you – there is a great source back on your own blog 😉 These are just a few easy steps that you can take on your path to creating an incredible blog, but it all starts somewhere. It might take months before you have the traffic you really desire – but if you don’t take small steps everyday then you will never get there!

Good luck!

Be authentic and post content on a regular basis.

To build an audience that will fall in love and engage with your blog, you want to tell a story. How to create a story?

Here’s a plan you can try out:

– Start by planning the bait: write a simple, short sentence that grabs attention such as a famous quote, an opinion, a controversial topic, etc.
– Tell what people will discover reading your blog post but not everything just yet.
– Find your tone. Be authentic.
– Incorporate visuals (Images, infographics, videos, etc.)
– Build the suspense (Tease the readers)
– Finally, satisfy your readers’ expectation by telling them the results, the truth, the solution or just what they wanted to find.

Think about writing a blog post like writing a novel or directing a movie.

PROBLEM
The goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds.

But congrats humans!

We humans now have an attention span lesser than that of a goldfish.

GOOD NEWS
Our brains processes images are 60,000 times faster than text.

More good news: most of us now have fast internet which makes it easy to play visual assets.

VISUAL CONTENT FOR BLOG GROWTH

Simple. Use content like:

– an explainer video to explain how a particular gadget works 
Tools: Screen-o-matic, Jing

– an infographic to show why X is better than Y (with statistics)
Tools: Piktochart, Visme, Adobe Illustrator

– an animated GIF to share something funny or show how, for instance, a plugin works
Tools: GIPHY Capture (on MAC), ScreenToGif (for Windows).
Or pick a pre-existing GIF from https://giphy.com/

BENEFITS?
Visual assets help you attract, entertain and engage your readers.

This, in turn, leads to:

Improved SEO
More conversions

STILL NOT CONVINCED?

Well, you deserve more stats:

1. More than 50% of the audience agree that they prefer video content.

Top tip: be fabulously unique. I don’t care what your niche – personal finance for women, exotic pets, home cabinetry, whatever – there are hundreds of established bloggers out there.

You need a brand, and that brand has to be:

• different, oh-so different, from all the other blogs in your niche
• it has to stand out, so that it’s instantly recognizable
• it has to engage the readers

By “brand”, I don’t mean just a name/slogan and a logo. Yes, those are critical. But I also mean your approach. For instance, you might start every post with a riddle, then end the post with the answer.

Or every post might include a 200-word call-out box with an example from real life of whatever your topic is.

Or your posts might be “narrated” by a different animal each time.

Or you might illustrate each post with LEGO or with zoo animals or with rag dolls pictured in a way that relates to the topic.

The Internet is overcrowded. We are bombarded with things to ignore. If you are just starting out, you absolutely must create something that can’t be ignored.

One big caveat, though. No matter how amazing your branding, your content had better live up to expectations. It had better be the best!

To grow your blog’s audience and keep them engaged all you need to do is create stellar content – videos, blog posts, podcasts, etc. Whichever it is, the only way to grow your community around you is by giving them value.

In short, see what’s working for your competitors, copy their content strategy, and what’s bringing them most of the customers – once you know what can have the biggest impact on your traffic, modify that according to your audience’s needs, and start creating your content. It won’t take long before you start seeing more and more people visiting your website.

Content is King! and there are more than a few reasons why you should put it as one of your priorities when planning Growth.

Let me share some “rules” our team is following to get more audience, better SEO results, and organic reach: 

                    –  Create blogs so they could be re-purposed. Generic articles. (you’ll get more references and save a lot of time)

                    –  Create shareable lists, and create shareable lists again:) 

                    –  Google the article you want to write about, then compare 1st and 10th on google – what’s the difference?

                    –  Show blog dates, update articles every 10 months

                    –  Make a plan, and stick to it.

To build a loyal following for your new blog. use the channels that your audience typically use to communicate. Add a subscriber platform to your site which allows you to connect with users after they have left: a newsletter, messenger or push notifications, for example, allow you to re-engage with past visitors, turning them from visitors into return visitors.

Help visitors navigate your blog, recommend the next bit of content they should read – the more content they consume the more likely they are to fall in love with your blog.   

Use cheap re-marketing ads to re-engage, build similar audiences/lookalike audiences based on your subscribers and repeat users or any quality metrics you have.

Understanding your audience is key. Time is precious. So, your blog must help them make progress towards their objective. You need to understand their pains, the jobs they have to perform and what they are looking to achieve. Your blog should then aim to provide bitesized content that helps them solve problems, takes away their pain and ultimately and helps them achieve their goals.

You have to really respect the reader and you have to truly want to help them and not blog posts that are just thinly veiled sales copy. If you try to sell from these posts then you are totally missing the point.

So key to this is first understanding why you are writing the blog. How does this connect to your business objectives without just being sales drivel?

There are many ways this can work but the following are a few of the obvious benefits to you from doing this the right way:

1. Branding – by showing your audience how to solve their problems and achieve their goals then you demonstrate your credibility and knowledge.

2. Content Upsells – say for instance you wrote an article about how to create a digital marketing plan then have an template a user can download to help them so they get some branded content (and hopefully end up on your highly valuable marketing list)

3. Remarketing – the people reading your article (however your promote it) should be your target audience. So, using simple, affordable tactics like remarketing (search, display, video etc) you can easily stay in front of your audience to help drive conversions.

Ultimately, you should just be focused on helping people. If you put out truly valuable helpful content and promote it well then you will build a readership over time.

Developing an audience for your blog is should be considered before you actually start to develop your content. When outlining your content strategy, define the target audience for each piece, identify how is this audience searching for this particular topic and what’s their goal when looking for articles on the topic.

With this information, you can start crafting your content towards the right persona, making sure that it offers value in comparison with existing articles from other sources, and that your content is engaging to keep the attention of your visitors.

Including quotes, metrics or references from influencers in your article will help you attract visitors when socially sharing these articles by including mentions to these sources, in most cases, they’ll be glad to re-post these to their own audiences.

It all comes down to perceived value.

You need to find a way to make your blog different in some kind of way, and then make readers feel like they get more value from your content.

Here are a couple ways to make readers fall in love with your blog, while also building links and growing organic traffic.

First, compile a list of your top 10-15 primary (and/or secondary) organic search competitors. Create a Google Sheet with four tabs – Competitors, Traffic, Links, Engagement.

Put the 10-15 competitors into the Competitors tab.

Traffic

Next, enter each of the competitors into Ahrefs and navigate to the Top Pages report. For each competitor, copy the URLs and Top Keyword into the Traffic tab in the sheet. After looking at all the competitors, you should have a list of dozens of traffic generating topics for the blog.

Links

Next, enter each competitor into Ahrefs and go to the Best By Links report. This will show you the content topics and types that drive the most links for your competitors. Make a list of these URLs/topics in the Links tab.

Engagement

Next, enter each competitor into Ahrefs and go to the Top Content report to view the content that has generated the most engagement across key social channels. This will give you a list of content ideas that you know will resonate with the target audience.

Once you have completed this simple 4-step process, you’ll have a proven content strategy capable of driving traffic, links and engagement from your audience. Hit all three of these pillars and you’ll not only build an audience, people will share it with others.

Note: once you have the content engine cranking, make sure you are trying to go one level better than all the competitor content in order to differentiate yourself, and provide more value.

One way I do this on my blog is by going deeper, and making the content more actionable than practically every other site in the industry. I also supplement content with checklists and templates to help people implement the content faster.

What is your unique angle? Why will people keep coming back?

I don’t think there’s a single tip or two that you can follow for a day and – boom – you have an audience. To build an engaging audience you need to create an effective strategy and stick to it for quite some time.

The means you use to do it – email newsletter, YouTube videos, LinkedIn posts, etc. – vary depending on your goals. But there are three things to keep in mind to successfully build an audience that always remain the same.

#1: Something to keep in mind before you start: Decide on why you need an audience. Is it to get more client inquiries, get more affiliated sales, sell your courses, books, etc.? This will help you decide what the most effective means to grow your audience will be.

#2: What to do once you get people interested (for ex., they sign up for your newsletter or join your Facebook group). Getting their email addresses is just half of the deal. Have a plan how to keep them engaged with you and your content.

#3: Be consistent. Show up and deliver value even if it sometimes feels no one is watching.

I think building an audience has to start with the quick wins like social media, using videos and offer insights and tips that people will remember you for. Too many people are saying the same old things, so I think adding your personality and thinking outside the box and being very active on social media is a great place to start, while you are trying to drive traffic via SEO and any other methods.

I think you need to offer information over sales pitches, build trust with people and show them you are worth listening too is the key part no-one likes to be sold at, so personally I would go in and offer lots of value, get people engaged and then take things from there, obviously i come from an SEO background so that has worked well in the SEO industry, but I think this works for many other niches aswell and the costs are low and it doesnt have to take a huge amount of time.

Using incentivisation to encourage people to share your content!

People are no longer doing things on the internet for free. A sign up, a social follow, a share of your brands content, none of that comes without hard work or $$$ anymore.

Having said that, there are still ways to generate traffic to your blog. It just takes a little gamification, incentivisation and creativity!

One example of this is a recent customer of ours that used a contest in his blog post to generate shares, signups, backlinks and referrals.

Here’s a video expliner of how this tactics works – http://link.topgrowthmarketing.com/46015ceb69d0

Post example (contest may be over when you post this though) – https://expertvagabond.com/best-travel-backpacks/

The the tactic is:

1 – Create more valueOlga Bedrinayour blog posts, add something like a giveaway to generate engagement, referrals and shares.

2 – Once a reader enters the giveaway on the post they are given a few ways to win (1st place winner, random winner or milestone unlock winner).

3 – To collect points, people have share your blog post and refer friends to the giveaway who will also share it.

Remember to always provide value and understand that blog posts don’t just “go viral”. People are not promote your brands content for free (of course there are some excpetions for super high quality content etc).

A good idea is to think of it from the visitors point of view, think “what’s in if for me”!

My #1 tip for building an audience that will fall in love with your blog and crave for more is to create truly valuable content. Unfortunately, the brands and companies too often forget what “valuable” means. And writing another 800-word article on the topic that everyone else has written before is what it’s not.

Find your content marketing “sweet spot”: that is, the audience that is looking for you out there (this is where the keyword research comes in) and your expertise. Nobody wants to read another 101 high-level fluff that the Internet is full of. Write what you really know a thing or two about and go into the details that nobody normally goes into. Do your research and run experiments that will provide you with unique data. If you just write about the same thing as everyone else out there, nobody’s going to want to read your blog.

Another thing that I find very important is aesthetics. Your blog might provide tons of useful information. But if it’s difficult to read, people are simply going to skip it. Add videos and other visuals to your posts. Break down the information into smaller chunks to make it easier for your audience to understand.

And don’t forget to promote your blog! Search for relevant Slack and LinkedIn communities and engage in the conversation.

Be consistent with your message and brand. And know your audience. If you know who you’re speaking to give them great content and they’ll be back for more. Gary Vaynerchuk knows his audience and keeps on giving value over and over. His fans have become brand ambassadors for him and also addicted to his content. Make your content addicting.

Study who it is you want to serve with your blog.

Go look at the books they read on Amazon and read the reviews. Not the 5 star reviews, but the 2 and 3 star reviews. What do they say is missing?

Do the same for Podcasts and blogs. Read the comments.

Next go to your competitors Facebook pages. Look for the really successful competitors who are truly crushing it. Look at the ads they’re running. Subscribe to their emails and reverse engineer what they’re doing into your own format.

Once you have all this information go create your blog.

Don’t just answer what you learned is missing, but speak the way they do. Use their language in your copy and limit all the other BS that isn’t relevant (remember no fluff).

Lastly, make sure you partner with all the major influencers around your topic. Everyone will collaborate when pitched the right way (remember always WIIFM – what’s in it for me)

You got this!

First, determine that there is definitely an audience for our chosen topic. Second, find out what that audience wants to hear about. This can be by survey, asking personal contacts, or sending out questions over social media.

Regarding social media, you should be looking to build your following on social media as well. Monitor hashtags and respond to individuals talking about your niche topics. Follow and connect where appropriate. In turn, share your articles on social media so your following can read your blog and subscribe to continue coming back. Optimally, they will tell others about you so they follow too.

Any way you can engage your fans and followers via video is seen as authentic and more impactful. So, live video on social media is a great idea to build following. Consider a podcast as a complement to your blog. Audio and video can be embedded in your blog, so you have a few ways of incorporating any podcast onto your blog making it a bookmarked destination for those online.

Focus on quality rather than quantity. I will explain that with 4 (short) case studies.

But first off, one detailed long-form content high quality piece is way better than a dozen lame, generic, short content pieces.

Secondly, content creation (be it an an article, an infographic, a podcast episode, or a video) is worth 20% of your effort/budget/time.

The rest of 80% of your focus should be on content promotion which may include paid advertising as well as earned media campaigns like blogger outreach, media outreach, product give away, guest post outreach, influencer marketing and much much more.

CASE STUDY # 1
WaitButWhy.com has attracted millions of visitors by keeping things simple; they create doodles and write detailed guides which are loved by all.

CASE STUDY # 2
Then there is Buffer which went from 0 to 100K customers within 9 months by writing a single guest post each day.

CASE STUDY # 3
Then there is River Pools & Spas which generated at least $1.7 million from a single article (by ; and the article address an FAQ their prospective clients used to have.

My best tip to build an engaged and loyal audience is to treat them like your friend. Answer their questions in-depth and only recommend products that you use and love. When you are authentic on your blog it goes a long way and will keep your reader coming back for more. When you get into this mentality it can make it easier to write too. Many new bloggers get writers block or aren’t sure what to say, but if you pretending you are emailing a friend it comes out much easier. One of my first ever blog posts on my site was 90% from an email that I sent another mom friend.

BuzzSumo recently did a study of 1 million blog posts and articles. What they discovered was SHOCKING. According to the study, 75% of all online content gets ZERO links.

Source: http://bit.ly/LinkStudyBuzzsumo

However, they also found that certain TYPES of content can outplay the game.

If you want people to will fall in love with your new blog and stay engaged, focus on content formats like List Posts, Guides, Quizzes, “Why” and “How to” Posts, Infographics and Videos.

CASE STUDY:

You definitely heard of Brain Dean, who runs a website Backlinko.com, his LIST of SEO techniques got an amazing organic traffic and has 5.4k backlinks to date.

The most effective way, especially in 2019 when everyone is creating 10x content, is to build a personal blog and share everything you’re learning and doing. That kind of content is unique, and people love it. It’s also a great way to get email subscribers – “Follow my journey to X, I’m sharing everything along the way.” That’s much easier than trying to stand out with exceptional content that’s better than everyone else. 10x blog posts can do well in search engines, but they don’t always equate to an audience who follows you. A personal story is a great way to grab attention to your blog, and make it different from everyone else’s.

In my experience, these are the best ways for engaging an audience and keeping them engaged on your blog.

1. I hold blogging events which my audience seems to enjoy. I have a linky party on Monday which lasts through Friday. I also host blog parties every other weekend.

2. Readers love contests and giveaways. If you choose a winner randomly from the comments left on the article, you’ll get a great deal of comments.

3. Reply to your readers’ comments. People will continue to reply if they know you read their comments and take your time to write back.

4. Most importantly, you want to solve people’s problems. That’s why they originally came to your blog (unless you’re a humor blog). Continue to solve their problems. Offer actionable tips.

The Most valuable tip for building an audience is to know them. In short, if you know your audience than you can build your business. I recommend doing a good brainstorm about your audience before you start your new blog.

It’s really the simple things that make a difference.

Before you can build content that your audience will love, you must first know your audience. This will take time, measurement, and experimentation. It should also involve a two-way dialog between you and the members of your audience, in order to test ideas and determine new topics worth exploring. So be accessible: share your email and encourage people to get on touch (or just be active on a conversational social network like Twitter and let people know they can reach you there). Involve your audience in content creation and they’ll be more interested in keeping up with what you’re publishing.

Focus on writing for readers, not for search engines.

Blog your passion. Do not check stats. Create helpful content. Build bonds with top bloggers by helping them and asking for nothing. This is how to build an audience that falls in love with a new blog in any year, and how to boost engagement. If you want to GET love, GIVE love.

1. Actually Offer Valuable Content

There are now over a billion blogs on the internet. If we don’t publish something with real value, we simply can’t penetrate the market. There’s no shortcut around this, but it’s also important to understand that value doesn’t always mean quality: a really well-written post or a professionally-made YouTube video might lose traction to a simple post with a very interesting, viral content.

You will need to do your homework around this: research your audience through building a buyer persona and a thorough keyword research. Find out about viral and in-demand topics through tools like BuzzSumo, and aim to write the best, most interesting piece about the topic. Try and try again until you hit the tipping point, and then, maintain consistency.

Generally, even when someone is really engaged while reading one of your content, they won’t subscribe immediately. It is only after they’ve read the second or third good piece from you that you will finally get that follow or subscribe. So, consistency is very important.

This is admittedly easier said than done, but there’s no way around this: bring value, and the audience will come.

2. Promotion

Without promotion, no matter how good and valuable your content is, you won’t get tractions. With the saturations, we can no longer deny that it’s now a “pay-to-win” field: we will need to spend money on advertising, giving giveaways, working on influencers, etc.

So, the key here is maximizing cost-efficiency mainly through two things:

Targeting: the better you can target your audience, the higher ROI

Organic: use organic campaigns to minimize costs

3. SEO

SEO is in a sense, a form of promotion, but deserved its own section due to its uniqueness.

The main goal here is to treat each of your post as a landing page: build backlinks to each content through various promotion channels, and let it climb the Google SERP.

So, when promoting your content, your aim is twofold: getting organic traffic, and getting more backlinks. In turn, the backlinks will be your long-term source of organic traffic when this content finally hit the first page of Google SERP.

My most valuable tip is using ego bait content. Ego Bait Content is a smart and imaginative way of attracting quality links to your site. Not just that, but it also gets you new leads for your business and keeping your audience engaged with your content.

A little ego boost can work wonders for you. You may not this realize it unless you actually try out this method. Create content that will attract the attention of the influencers in your niche. Your content should be good enough to keep them engaged like never before.

Invest the time writing a small number of fantastic articles, rather than a large amount of mediocre articles. Then, repurpose your content so people can consume it any way they like.

The truth is, convenience is more important than ever. You’re at a huge advantage if you’re able to deliver your message in whichever way the audience member ultimately prefers.

Whenever I publish an article, I already have the following done in advance:

1. The post is slightly modified to fit for audio, and is used as a script for my audio blog, which can be subscribed to through any podcast player.

2. The main points were made into a downloadable SlideShare, which is published on SlideShare’s website the day the post goes live.

3. These two things are combined together to make a YouTube video.

4. Social media graphics are made from the post, to be shared on all the major social networks.

On each of these platforms, I’m hitting a different audience, who gets to consume the content through their preferred method.

Because each platform also acts as a distribution platform to get my content in front of new people, I also spend less time actively marketing each article. This means I can spend more time each week creating micro content – more social posts, Quora answers, Q&A YouTube videos etc. to keep my brand top-of-mind with my existing audience, and bring in new audience members as well.

When you can get each distribution platform building each other up, rather than keeping them heavily isolated, you start to do very well.

However, it’s all dependent on that truly valuable article that you started with. That piece of content that shows people you’re not just ‘another blogger’ – you’re someone exceptional worth paying attention to.

When it comes to blogging, building an audience that leads to high engagement is not rocket science until you stick to easy to digest, obstacle-free, and scanable content. You should focus on creating crystal clear blog posts that answer your visitors’ question instead of filling your article with useless words. No one has spare time in this busy life to read worthless stuff. Spend enough time on crafting killer posts backed by real facts, polls, infographics, and stats to deliver quality. They (audience) will not only engage but also share. Besides that, one can also enhance engagement by interacting with comments in timely manners.

Blogging is more like a skill where a blogger practices to create content, understand formats, learn marketing and get familiar with basic designing. If a new blogger wants to build an audience and get them engaged in 2019 then I would encourage them to focus on three important elements;

1- Have a defined purpose : A clear purpose makes it easier for bloggers to build an audience, and grow a tribe. When you have a defined purpose, you target the right audience with the intentional and helpful content. From domain to blog header and content, it is important to tell your readers what your blog is about and how your blog is the perfect place to find resources.

2- A captivating design : Accept it or not, a website design is a crucial element in attracting an audience and make them engaged. When you have an impressive design along with proper navigation, readers will most likely stay on your blog for a long time. And, the more a user stays on a website, the more he/she is likely to convert and become a subscriber or a customer.

3- The takeaway for audience : Now that blogging is becoming a full-time career for bloggers, it’s important to focus on quality content creation & helpful resources for the audience. No one is more likely to return to your blog if you fail to impress a reader in the first attempt. And, the most important thing that attracts an audience is the content, and the blog design. From the beginning, pay attention in creating useful content that has big takeaways for readers. When writing a new post, or creating a resource, cross check what’s in it for the readers. Cover the pain points and give your readers the insightful answer they have been looking for everywhere.

4- Give readers something extra : If you want to build an engaged audience then you need to offer something extra. It can be a free ebook, workbook or even beautiful printables. Make sure to give it as a freebie when someone signs up for your email list. This way, you gain more subscribers and also, put them into an email list where you can communicate with them and build a relationship.

5- Have an authentic blogging voice : Nobody likes to just keep on reading without forming a bond with the blogger. An authentic voice is thus an important factor in building a trusted audience. When a blogger tries to be genuine, and share the actual experiences, mistakes, creations with the readers, they most likely believe you and expect to read more from you.

If you look at any individual or company that builds a valuable audience, two things always stand out. First, they have a content tilt to a very specific audience. That means they are providing value about something that is different from everyone else out there. Second, they publish consistently over a long period of time. Done and done.

Build a solid mailing list through your content and site, or through paid marketing efforts. Then, once you have those leads in place, it’s important to set up remarketing ad campaigns through Google and Facebook to deliver targeted ads to those audiences — which have already shown an interest in whatever it is you have to offer.

We like to focus most of our efforts on creating valuable long-form content that answers common questions that our target audience has. After we’ve created a meaningful resource, we then create a few infographics to go along with it. This makes the reading and engagement process a lot easier and more effective. Lastly, we will then use these same content methods to provide value to our social media followers and fans as well. This is where the visual content and engagement really comes into play.

Of the many different things that you need to consider when creating content for your site, it’s really all about the value given to your audience. With more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today, you need to create more than just content. In fact, you need to make it much better than what is currently out there, while also seeing what your competition has to offer. In short, give your audience the best possible experience on your site, and they will remember you. Don’t forget to also aggressively promote your best content through social media and with paid advertising as well.

Here are two key tips for building an audience that is engaged with your blog:

1. Use transitions in your blog posts

The most important factor by far in building an audience that loves your blog is writing style.

You need to develop a relationship with your readers. The way to do that is to develop a writing style that is conversational and chatty.

And the secret to writing chatty blog posts is to use plenty of transitional phrases that contain the word ‘you’.

Here are some examples:

• I know what you’re thinking…

• I think you’ll agree with me when I say…

• You may be wondering…

• Here’s how you solve this…

• Let me break this down for you…

• You’re about to find out how…

• Do you ever wonder… ?

Transitions keep people on your page because they lead the reader from one paragraph to the next.

But they also build relationships with your readers because they turn your article into a conversation.

2. Send your email updates on the same day of each week

Nearly all successful email marketers stick to a schedule.

Subscribers who know they can expect an email from you on a certain day each week are more likely to read your content and less likely to unsubscribe.

Unreliable and sporadic emailing results in a disengaged subscriber base.

Pay close attention to what your audience is talking about, asking about, and challenged by, and make your content all about them and those topics.

I think most people are looking for information that can’t be found elsewhere. With that said, you need to take a close look at your competition and what resonates with their audience.

You’ll need to look for things like blog posts that get a lot of mentions and social shares as well as content that generates comments on their website.

Armed with that info, you’ll need to create a content calendar that not only expands deeper than their content, but also brings something new to the table.

Don’t just regurgitate the same info.

That won’t work.

Be unique and take a stand on the topic.

As mentioned, readers don’t want to read the same thing they have read 100 times on other sites.

And when you’re starting out, you’ll need to build relationships with others. This can be done on social media, via email, etc.

Ideally you will want to create relationships in shoulder niches, meaning not a direct competitor, but a niche that has an overlap with your audience.

This is key as you can typically work out arrangements where each of you can share each others content on social media, via email newsletters, webinars and more.

Basically, leverage other people’s audiences.

And because you and your content bring a new, deeper take to the table it will resonate with your audience that has a greater likelihood of engaging with everything you publish.

But none of the above really matters unless you are building your email list so that you can reach out to these engaged users when you have new content to share. So, you’ll need to be sure you have implemented various CTA’s throughout your site in order to capture this info. This can be done through content upgrades, exit popups, slide ins, etc.

With that captured info, you’ll have an avenue to bring your audience back to your content whenever you publish something new.

People won’t fall in love with your website, they will fall love with your product if it can provide real benefit for them. You have two ways to earn this in the case of a SaaS: you can provide something new or you can provide the same thing, but with less resource investment. After you find this sweet spot you can start to work on a community.

In my eyes this is the ‘Age of Influence,’ where anyone can build an audience and effect change, advocate brands, build relationships and make a difference. So… my ability to do all of those, consistently, authentically, and with passion is my greatest blogging accomplishment.

Here are a few of my tips…

1. Listen first: Throwing up a blog without first understanding your ideal audience is an exercise in frustration. You need to deeply understand your audience first. Take a look at what other successful bloggers are doing in your space. Technorati.com is a good place to look for top-performing blogs in your niche. Browse around and find one or two that appeal to you, and study them. What kinds of posts get the post engagement? What topics? How are they addressed? What kind of comments do they get and from whom? What social platforms does the blogger use for sharing the content? Also try Google BlogSearch (http://google.com/blogsearch) or Twitter Search (http://twitter.com/search) to search for topics to see what people are talking about.

Doing this kind of digging can help, because it gives you more of a sense of your audience, what they’re interested in and where they hang out on social channels. Write these characteristics down and use them to build your own ideal reader profile. This should include more than basic demographics. Are they young mothers? What kind of hobbies do they have? Where do they like to shop? What interests do they list on their social profiles? When you have a full reader profile in mind, you can better understand what drives that person so your topics will have a better chance of resonating with them.

2. Look for Holes in Your Competition: Take a look at your competition’s blogs and websites. Are there content holes they’ve missed that you can take advantage of? Ways to add value not already available and help you stand out. Those consistently provide lots of content have a bigger chance of attracting people who are actively looking for information.

3. User-Friendly Navigation: Keeping your blog easy to navigate with intuitive category labels will help people find the information they seek much faster. Also, make it easy for readers to leave comments and share your posts on various channels that will help lead others back to you.

4. Commenting on other blogs: A good way to start to develop an audience is to comment on more established blogs in your niche—but only when you can add something meaningful to the conversation. Look for other blogs in your industry that have a good amount of traffic and comments, and contribute a comment. Most blogging platforms will let you identify your website when you’re commenting. If someone finds your comment of value, they will often click through to your site to find out more. The trick here is not to get promotional (such as adding a self-serving link to your articles in the comment) or saying something meaningless, such as “great post!” Look at it as a way to add value to the blogger’s post without stepping on toes. Perhaps you could pose another question or offer a different spin on the topic. Make seeking out and commenting on other blogs a part of your daily activities. The more you contribute to the conversation happening around you, the more you’ll be seen as a thought-leader (and people will click on your link to check you out).

5. Syndicate, syndicate, syndicate… share your content via all social channels always including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, which also makes it easy for others to share. And don’t be afraid to do it more than once periodically sharing old posts via your social channels, especially those that were well received. Also let others freely repost your content with a link back to the original post, or even without.

6. Use an editorial calendar to plan your blog and social posts: Having a written editorial plan and plotting it to a calendar makes it easier to stay on track and measure your progress. It also helps you see at a glance the relationship between your blog content and your social platforms, so you can plan your posting strategy more efficiently.

7. People hate to be “sold” on social: Don’t fall into the trap of endlessly talking about yourself and your product on social channels. Remember that people come to social channels to relax, have fun, hang with their friends, etc. Beginning a post or an update with “Read my Blog” or “New Blog Post” can be a turnoff. What is it about your post that would be intriguing to the reader? Talk about that idea instead, and mix in a good amount of sharing other people’s content, too. Your ratio of self promotion to other types of posts should be low (not more than 10-20%).

8. Don’t Close Your Comments: Don’t close the door for people to leave comments on your blog; doing so leaves the impression that you only care about what you have to say and are not willing to be responsive to others. Seth Godin can do it, and it sure works for him, but until you are playing in that league, don’t go there

9. Use social with an eye on building relationship: When people find you on social channels they’ll naturally want to know more about you, so make links to your blog/website easy to find. Make it easy to know who you are, what your full name is, and personal things about you. Readers and followers will relate the most when they can easily access such information… and it will make you easily accessible to brands and potential partners.

Remember that social media isn’t a blast medium—it’s a conversation medium. When planning your posting strategy, always be thinking of ways to help your reader get something done, make their life easier or just enjoy every moment. Be a good networker online. When people comment on a post, always “like” the comment and answer back promptly. Take a look at their profiles and tag them or use their name when you respond. Use it as an opportunity to extend the conversation by asking questions and being friendly—just as you would in face-to-face networking situations.

Using social media can definitely help you get the word out about your blog if you use it correctly, and it all boils down to just three things: listening, planning, and concentrating on relationships. Keep these things in mind and you’ll soon get better at writing blog posts that prompt response, encourage sharing on social channels and keep your audience coming back for more!

Blogs live or die depending on email list growth. And email list growth depends on your calls to action. And a good call to action has three things:

• Prominence

• Promise

ª Proof

If your email signup box is easy to find (prominence) and it tells the reader what they’ll get specifically (promise) and if it tells them that other people have also signed up (proof) then you’ll see much faster list growth. Take a look at this example:

(Upload the sign up box diagram in this post – https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/how-to-start-a-blog/)

So it’s all about that little signup box. Once they’re on your list, you’ve got the chance to keep people engaged. Without a fast growing list, you’ve got to fight hard for the next visit every single time.

Whether it is a new blog or old blog, quality content is the only thing that makes your audience fall in love with your blog and keeps them engaged.

You can write quality content only when you understand your niche better. So always choose the niche which you know better and have knowledge about it.

Most of the people choose wrong niche and they fail or I must say choosing the niche with zero knowledge, result is the failure.

Many times newbie bloggers ask me how many topics they should cover in a week or in a month. The same question can pop up into your mind also.

Let me tell you one thing it was never about quantity, it is about quality. So whether you write one article or three articles per week, ensure you provide quality stuff to your audience. Forget quantity, focus on quality.

Always try to solve their problem with your blog posts. Everyone loves the person who solves their problem.

Building an email list is the second important thing which helps to engage with the audience. There are lots of people who will visit your blog today but a few chances to visit again. But if you capture them with the help of a subscription box, you can send them emails whenever you write a new blog post.

This way, you will get them back again to read your blog. Don’t worry you don’t need to spend money at all this from day one. You can use email services like Mailchimp (allows you to send 12000 emails to 2000 subscribers every month).

You need to take a stance. If your content is wishy-washy, then your audience will mimic that. It’s not enough to just get a bunch of influencers thoughts, you need to have a position of your own and fight for it – let a few people get into a little argument in the comments. You need to get people fired up if you want them to be engaged in 2019;

When you start to build an audience it’s super important to create blog posts with valuable content that helps your readers solve a problem. Creating great content is what keeps readers coming back to your site and staying engaged. A person can have the best website design in the world but if their content is not top-notch it will be hard to keep the readers engaged and coming back.

Be honest and genuine. Don’t be a fake. People like hearing about real people with real problems, and respond better to sincerity than phoniness! That is why so many people love me!

After the most recent Google update, search engines appear to be emphasizing user experience more. Consistency appears to help with SEO especially combined with creating great content. So be sure to do that and you should do well.

I’ll keep this short and sweet:

1. Life will be much easier if people are actually interested in what your blog is about. You’ve heard this before and it’s far from the sexiest thing in the blogging process, but do your keyword research. This is the key differentiator between trying to build an audience for your blog, and building a blog for an audience.

2. Don’t be afraid to be yourself, even if “yourself” sounds very different from the top bloggers in your niche. There are no rules to blogging and authenticity is always compelling.

I think one of the most important tips is to create value. It doesn’t matter how long is your articles, how good it’s optimized for SEO or that you shared it on all social media channels and newsletter. All these things important too, but it’s not going to keep your audience or attract new users.

Creating value takes time, effort and sometimes money. But it’s worthy! Your audience might not be the most significant, but it’s going to be loyal, and they will trust you. Each business needs this type of users.

To build an audience that loves your blog, you need standout content. This is especially important now when there’s so much noise and competition in the online space. Think about what your distinctive point of view is. Where do you deviate from the rest in your niche? What are they saying that you don’t agree with or where you see things in a different light. 

Is there an opportunity gap that you can fill? Are there pain points and questions frequently rated by your audience that are not adequately addressed by others in your niche. When you create content that focuses on these areas you’ll build an audience that gravitates toward your work.

Next, be very clear about what your brand will be about and what you want people to associate your brand with. If it’s difficult defining what it is, define what IT’S NOT. This way you won’t attract an audience you’re not interested in serving.

My 2 favorite traffic sources are Google and Pinterest. I would recommend for new bloggers to focus on these essential traffic engines as they will help you to build an audience organically using the content that you will be working hard to create. In terms of paid traffic, Promoted Pins are definitely a great way to build your email list – it is still relatively new so there is less competition as compared to other paid traffic sources. This results in more affordable advertisements.