Eight years of Blogging
Though I have been blogging for eight years now, I am not a famous blogger. I do not have thousands of pageviews a day. But I am happy that I strive to provide useful content to anybody who comes across my blog. Recently, I was at an intensive workshop that focused on self-branding, positioning oneself online. One of the key points that I discussed with my trainer Mr.Achyutha Sharma of BrandlabIndia was understanding who my Target Audience is and how to create content that is valuable to them. He encouraged me to create tutorials and video content. Me being Miss goody two shoes ‘chamathu ponnu‘ created a FB live the moment I was back in my hotel room and downed three spoons of cough syrup to make sure I didn’t wheeze through the video.
How to find readers for your blog
This video attempts to answer the big question that us bloggers have – How to find readers for my blog? Today, it is not enough if you create content, you must also find users who will find the content useful. A well-maintained blog sure does get organic pageviews through Google and other social media channels. This number can be increased significantly through advertisements and promotions. However, promoting yourself mindlessly is of no use. Furthermore, these pageviews do not always convert to users who will visit your blog over and over again. What you need to do is to educate and engage with people who are your actual target audience.
Target Audience
Three ways to find readers for your blog
- Create and share content that is of value
- Participate in challenges and contests
- Be a part of an active community
Create and share content that is of value
People like it when you give things away for free. But it not possible to do giveaways or offer freebies like templates all the times. What you can do instead, is share your knowledge. The easiest way to get people to come to your blog over and over again is to create tutorials. You can use this free template that I have in the post on how to create DIY tutorials, to create some for your own blog. If you do create them, share the links with sites like Craftgossip or Craftgawker (assuming that your tutorial is craft/design related). These sites promote high-value content and drive a large volume of users to your site. You can also write how-to articles, tips and tricks, create infographics, icons, planners, printables, color palettes or recipes that could be used by your Target Audience. This helps in establishing trust which is crucial in winning over your audience.
Participate in challenges and contests
There are two advantages of Participating in challenges and contests. One is that you get to come out of your shell and experiment with new techniques or ideas. The second is that you meet new people and learn from them in the process. Most jewelry challenges (even cards for that matter) happen as blog hops. Getting traffic from blogs in your niche increases your credibility and in extension users. In the recent times, organisers of most contests ask their participants to upload their work to social media and tag with appropriate keywords. This in turn exposes you work to a new audience.
Be a part of an active community
Being a part of a bigger community that supports independent designers and bloggers really helps. If you are an Indian blogger, sharing your posts on Indiblogger or Blogadda is a very effective way of reaching a new audience. Also, there are several specialised groups on facebook for niche blogger. Blogging groups like Chennai Bloggers club connects me with other bloggers in Chennai and furthers networking.  Bead peeps, Resin Art fun Forum are two active and fun FB groups on jewelry that I am a part of. We read each other’s posts, review designs, and also offer suggestions whenever required. It is like having you own little focus group that you can brainstorm with.
In conclusion, these are three tips of mine on How to find readers for your blog. You can find more examples in the video. I would love to hear from you on how you promote your blog and increase your pageviews. Please share your tips in the comments. If you are blogger looking to move your blog from Blogger to WordPress do check out this article before you move. It has loads of tips for you.
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Thank You once again for your support!
Looking forward to another year of blogging.
I hope you find it interesting
Cheers
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