4 Tips For Organically Growing Your Blog’s Following
“Organic growth” is one of those buzzwords you hear a lot when it comes to blogging. It sounds good, but what does it mean? Well, think of your blog as a garden. Instead of using a bunch of artificial products that have short-term gains, but which could taint the vegetables you’re growing, you roll up your sleeves to do things the old-fashioned way. Water, sunlight, soil, and weeding, doing your best to make sure the vegetables you get are all-natural.
That’s essentially what organic growth means when we’re discussing blogging. You aren’t trying to take artificial shortcuts, like paying for Facebook followers or buying positive product reviews. Rather, you’re trying to earn an audience the old-fashioned way. That takes more time, more effort, and more resources, but the results are cleaner and more permanent than what you would get if you just threw money at it, and hoped for the best.
So, if you want to organically grow your blog, here are some tips you should take to heart.
Tip #1: Target Your Blog
Too often, bloggers will attempt to appeal to the broadest possible audience in order to court more followers and more traffic. However, instead of casting a wide net, you get better results by fishing a smaller, denser pond. Put another way, you should find a niche your blog will appeal to, and which will follow your blog loyally. You have to know who you’re aiming your blog at and get a sense of what they want if you’re going to persuade them to bite down on your hook. Once you have them hooked, though, they’ll keep coming back for more.
Tip #2: Produce Great Content
It seems obvious, but too often bloggers forget that the key to growing their audience is to actually have great content on their blogs. You can do all the social media sharing, networking, and search engine optimization tweaking you want, but if you don’t have content people want, it won’t make an impact. So before you ask how to grab a bigger market share, ask what it is you’re producing. Make sure it’s good because the content you’re making is the whole reason someone will follow your blog in the first place.
Tip #3: Interact With Your Audience
Blogs aren’t static things that exist in an air-tight, glass case. They are places where you can talk directly to your audience. Not only that, though, but audiences expect you to interact with them. Even if it’s just answering comments in the comment section. If you have social media pages linked to your blog, though, communication becomes even more important. So remember, make your blog into a conversation, instead of a billboard or a soapbox.
Tip #4: Network With Other Bloggers
Your first reaction may be to view other bloggers as the competition, but it’s important to remember that your audience is not a finite thing. People can choose to be fans of more than one blog. So, by reaching out to fellow bloggers for mutual assistance, you will expose each other to your respective audiences. Sometimes all it takes is a guest blog, or a single, signal-boosting line, to get a lot of curious folks to wander over to your blog to see what you’re all about.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to fellow creators. Whether you’re interacting online, or you meet up at a convention, sometimes the key to serious, long-lasting growth is getting someone else to tell their friends about you.
For more information on how you can grow your blog organically, and reach more people than ever before, simply contact us today!