Blogging 102 – Tips for Blog Growth

Photo from Search Engine Journal

You know what’s a really great feeling in blogging? When someone reads your post, when they understands your message and when they appreciate your content. It makes you feel like you have a connection with people you’ve never met from a world away or right down the street. It’s a certain kind of magic to your soul that’s difficult to fully explain.

In order to feel this though, you have to effectively market your blog, positioning it within the WordPress community and beyond. Because unless you get readers, you won’t get that connection. How does one do this, might you ask?

A good picture goes a long way. A great picture goes even further. A strategically placed photo at the head of any blog post can provide more click-bait for your post than anything that you write. So don’t just pick any photo, pick the perfect photo. Edit it. Brighten It. Ensure that it’s high-quality and the perfect addition to your post. The photo will entice them to click and your writing will keep them reading.

Write what people want to read. Please note that this does not mean stop writing what you’re writing. This means take what you’re writing and turn it into something for a wider audience. Take your niche and turn it into something that people want to read. It’s a habit of bloggers to write ‘Me, me, me, me, me’. Which is great. Your blog is a diary so that’s very reflective of your life. Thing is, when people go to Google to search things, they’re not going to search ‘Me, me, me, me, me’. So, how do you change this your posts into something they will search? Say you have some incredible banana pancakes for breakfast and want to share the recipe on your blog. Don’t write ‘I had the most amazing banana pancakes for breakfast’, write ‘The most amazing banana pancakes you could ever eat’. You’re still sharing what you love, but in changing the subject and content from being ‘Me, me, me, me, me’ to something that will entice readers, more people are likely to find your post, read your post and find it helpful to them and their love for banana pancakes.

Self Promote. This can be done in a lot of ways. If you’d like to grow organically within the WordPress community, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you make friends in the WordPress community. Your friends will introduce you to their friends and so on and so forth. If you’d like to grow your organically online, make use of social media. Change your usernames to be the name of your blog, include your blog link on all of your social media profiles. If you leave a comment on someone’s youtube video or instagram post, sign the comment ‘Sincerely, {Name of Blog}. The more places that people see your blog’s name and URL, the more chance you have to gain readers from around the web. If you really want to think outside of the box, print some business cards with your blog’s information on them and hand them out around town/post them to bulletin boards. Garner that attention from wherever you can!

Collaborate. Collaboration with other bloggers is one of the easiest, most simple ways to introduce people to your audience and to have them introduce their audience to you. Sure, some of your audience may overlap, but I guarantee you there is an opportunity for new people to see that collaboration and discover that you exist for the very first time.

Be consistent. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if you really want people to pay attention to your blog you need to be consistently posting to your blog. People have short attention spans, and if you don’t post for a long time, they’re going to forget about you. Not just that, they’re going to move on to following someone else to fill that space in their heads. Gauge your audience and work with a schedule that you can commit to. If you can post every day, great! Do that! If you can’t, try to commit to two-to-three posts per week. People need to know that when they come back to your blog, they’re going to find something new to read. And, it’s estimated that people will only visit your blog three times to find zero new content before they move on. If it’s been three weeks since you’ve posted, that’s perhaps one of the reasons why you’re struggling to find growth. Work with a consistency schedule that you can keep up with.

Use your analytics to your favour. (I spoke of this here) If you go into your wordpress analytics, there’s an option to see which of your posts were most popular by day, week, month and year. Click on “Year” and see which of your posts were most popular this year. People obviously liked and resonated with these top posts, so consider broadening your discussion on those topics. It obviously appeals to you because you’ve already written about it, and it appeals to others because of the attention it got, so why not expand?

Please take all of the tips in this post with a grain of salt. If you’ve disagreed with one of my points, you don’t have to follow it. These are just tips and tricks that I’ve learned in nearly 10 years of Digital Media Management with different companies and charitable organizations. I’ve seen blogs flourish and I’ve seen blogs driven into the pavement.

If you’d like to read more of my thoughts/tips on Digital Marketing and WordPress growth, please click here >

74 thoughts on “Blogging 102 – Tips for Blog Growth”

    1. Make a social media profile specifically for your blog. Ie I have a personal twitter and then I have a millenniallifecrisis twitter. I use millenniallifecrisis twitter to meet new people, share my posts and follow other bloggers and people I like. That way you dont have to share with your friends and family If you’re not ready but you get the benefit of having social media ❤

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  11. Thanks for the tips 🙂 I’m using my blog as a journal through personal growth and healing at the moment so it’s pretty well all about me. I’ll start to think about how I can change my wording so it’s not all about me.

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    1. Thanks for reading, Jo! Using your blog a as a journal is absolutely the best thing to do! I can’t stand when I see people who are writing the most offensive things possible as a means to try and get attention. You know what I mean? Attention seekers who think if they talk about the popular subjects people will flock to them? Using your blog as a journal is authentic. Much better!

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      1. Thanks V 🙂 I’m not using it for attention seeking but more of an achieving thing. When I write my small daily blog I’ve achieved something that’s not just making my bed lol

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      2. What a great way to use blogging. I had never thought of that.

        I use my own blog as a way to create space for the things I care about. My day job is not always satisfying (there’s work to be done, after all) so blogging lets me explore the things I find more interesting.

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      3. I’ve been diagnosed with severe depression and trauma so it’s nice to feel like I’m achieving something. It’s part of my daily routine now 🙂 I’ll probably change it to life lessons learned or something through my eyes if I start directing it away from myself.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. There’s a lot of people in this world suffering in silence who like reading stories of other’s who have suffered or are suffering to know they’re not alone.

        My posts about mental-health and well being on this blog have been read far and above any other posts I’ve made. There’s a definite audience for it – people like to know that they’re not suffering alone. And honestly, if you can share your lessons learned, you might help them in the process. I think it’s a great idea.

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  18. Thank you so much for this post. I started my blog in Feb this year and only after 3 posts I found myself losing inspiration. Your tips have truly given me something to think about. I’m curious to learn how one would one go about making friends in the wordpress world? Do you find people in the same niche as you or any blogger would do? I am really keen on growing my blog.

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    1. I would say that you should start with the blogs you follow. I mean, you obviously follow them for a reason – so reach out. Say Hey. Tell them about you. Start a conversation. Start talking back and forth. As the connection grows, your network on WordPress will grow. People on this website are so open, you don’t have to be afraid of cliques or mean girls/boys. This place is for everyone!

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  21. This was really well thought out and written (and really helpful). I think commitment has been my biggest issue so far, but I also struggle to sometimes write what others want to read. So definitely some food for thought – thank you!

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  29. I struggle with self-promoting. I don’t have a lot of social media (other than a Facebook), so I do most of my self-promoting there or by interacting with other bloggers. Are there other ways to self-promote? Or, if you have already written on this topic, could you please post the link so that I could read your post on it?

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    1. Off the top of my head I’d say If you’re solely using wordpress to promote, I’d recommend collaboration posts. I made a post about cyclical marketing for blog growth – basically breaking down the math of why collaborations are good for you. I’m on my phone right now so I can’t find the link. It’s under the ‘Marketing’ tab on my blog. Sorry! I’ll find it in the morning and link it for you.

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  32. I run from reading too much to avoid overload but you’ve made my 5 minutes here a relief. Thanks for sharing these tips! A newbie.

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