Okay, call me pathetic... but seriously?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by leilani on February 13, 2010 at 11:09am

I have no idea what a girl's gotta do! Gosh, when you find out, help a sister out! But I'll check your blog out :)

Permalink Reply by Kayla Aimee on February 13, 2010 at 12:07pm

You know my honest opinion? I'm turned off by the "followers" box. I have a good and loyal readership and I am ever grateful to them for continually returning to my site. I think the followers box feels, I don't know, arrogant maybe? People don't need to know how many followers I have. I can track my stats/feeds privately for advertisers if need be. I think things like the followers box is what leads to jealousy and unrest in the blogging community.

That said, here is my advice on growing your readership:
- patience. It takes a while.
- find your niche. There needs to be something that sets you apart that people come back for. You need a common theme, even if you write about different topics. For me, it's that I publicly share my many awkward and neurotic moments, but it could be that you write film reviews. Every post doesn't have to fit that theme, but you do want the majority of your posts to reflect it.
- start a feature. choose one day a week where you write about a specific topic and invite your readers to participate. Don't overuse this, it gets old if you do it every day of the week.
- connect with your readers. You have nine followers. That's an awesome start! Are you interacting with them? You should be. I make sure to reply to every single comment I receive (I do it via email) because those people did not have to take the time to stop on my site and leave their thoughts. In return, they will probably keep visiting and if you really grow a relationship with your readers, then one of them will send you a giant delivery of cadbury eggs (In turn, you should do nice things for your readers sometimes, like giveaway free stuff or direct them to cool links where other people are giving away free stuff)
- be genuine. Don't comment for comments, comment because you want to. People are turned off by falseness and while a certain level of self promotion is fine (e.g. I link my blog on twitter when I post) no one likes to be spammed or made to feel as though your interaction with them is self serving. I hear the "comment on other people's blogs" recommendation alot and that's fine but don't use someone else's blog as a vehicle for self promotion. Comment genuinely if you like their content and have something to contribute :)
- develop good content. Really concentrate on developing a unique voice and writing style. Scope out other widely read blogs to see what they are doing. Are they more concise? Do they use photos? Etc.
- submit your posts to sites like delicious, stumble upon, or other blogs in your niche. When I do craft related posts, I submit it to different sites that fit that genre, like craft roundup blogs.
-be sure your blog is easy to navigate and easy to read!

And finally, don't be discouraged! There is a LOT of stuff on the internet. Okay, that was really long, sorry! I hope it helps!

Permalink Reply by miss esther on February 13, 2010 at 3:14pm

Thanks Kayla! I like the idea of starting a weekly feature.

Permalink Reply by PinkNic on February 13, 2010 at 12:48pm

This post should help you get more followers :)

Permalink Reply by Nic Lake on February 13, 2010 at 1:00pm

Haha how true that is. Maybe I should make a post like this. ;-)

Permalink Reply by Ella Unread on February 13, 2010 at 1:31pm

Keep commenting! I don't think there's another way. I mean, you can always follow in order to be followed (some people tend to return the favour) but then you're following many blogs you don't even like!!!
I would also suggest checking if the option to make your blog "findable" through search engines is enabled.
Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Jaxie Fantastic on February 13, 2010 at 2:07pm

I've been blogging for over 2 years and only have 24 followers... but I have just recently started putting real effort into commenting on others and really building relationships. 20sb is an excellent place to network. Comment on the discussions, find people with blogs you'd like to read and then comment on their blogs. To me, building the relationships is more important than the number of followers I have.

Permalink Reply by Britt Trotman on February 13, 2010 at 3:10pm

someone may have asked this but do you use Twitter? I receive the most traffic from Twitter than anything else that I do.

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