4 Essential Strategies for Growing Your Blog

Whether you are a seasoned blogger or just starting out, growing your blog is on every blogger’s task list. And while it may seem like all the others are more successful with their blogs than you, it’s important to remember that not every blog sees growth at the same rate.

However, there are some essential strategies that you can use to your advantage and grow your blog readership.

Optimize Your Website

All your promotion and publishing efforts will be for naught if your website is poorly designed or takes ages to load. In a fast-moving world of today, where people have short attention spans and browse the Internet while on the go, it’s crucial that your website is professionally designed and optimized.

That means your website should have responsive design, be mobile friendly, and load fast. Consider using a caching plugin and optimizing your images to ensure they scale nicely and to ensure they load fast as to not to break the flow.

Avoid using too many ads or clashing colors to ensure maximum readability and offer pleasing design.

Finally, focus on writing content that truly provides value and offers a solution or an actionable step your readers can take to improve an aspect of their life.

Be Social

No matter which stage of blogging you’re at, social media marketing will play a crucial role in getting your content seen.

However, rather than just sharing links to your latest blog posts, engage with your followers. Part of being social is talking about someone else and with someone else, not just yourself.

Get involved in a conversation or start one by replying to a Tweet or a hashtag, tag someone to mention them, always reply to comments and mentions. Take a moment to also share other people’s content. By praising someone else it actually increases your authority and puts you into a better light at the same time.

There are a few tools that will help you with the use of social media, from scheduling posts to keeping track of certain hashtags and topics.

A good practice to help you save time with social media is to plan for a set time each week when you will schedule your social media updates for the week ahead: this should include a mix of your own content, content from relevant sources your audience would enjoy, and any other content like quotes or questions that can be used as conversation starters.

Build Relationships With Influencers

The best way to get your content seen is to connect with influencers whose audience is larger than yours.

The best way to get on the radar of an influencer is to become a regular name in their feed; either by commenting on their blog or by sharing their posts on social media networks and mentioning them. Your comment should show that you paid attention to the article and question and that you genuinely care about the topic – even if you disagree with the view.

Another way to get influencers to notice you is to write a roundup post including them and then sending them a short, polite email telling them you included them in your post.

Avoid asking for anything, rather focus on providing value, show up consistently, and they will soon share you with their audience.

Guest Posting and Collaboration Sites

Even if you’ve heard the news that guest blogging is dead, the truth of the matter is that guest blogging is still very much alive and an effective way of growing your blog readership.

Before sending your pitch to first guest posting opportunity that comes along, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Make sure the website is related to your blog’s niche – publishing a guest post on a website that has nothing to do with your niche is a wasted effort not only for you but for the website owners as well.

Get to know the website in question – take time to get familiar with the website you want to guest post on and get a feel for the type of articles they publish and the headlines that get the most clicks.

Get on their radar – before sending a pitch with your guest post, take time to establish a relationship with the website owner/editor. Leave comments on the blog and share their articles on social media.

Make the most of your bio – write a compelling and interesting bio to be included with your guest post. Instead of linking to your homepage, consider linking to a special landing page created specifically for their audience. Of course, consider investing in the best lead generation software so you can include an email signup form on the landing page.

We hope these 4 essential strategies help your efforts of growing your blog. What is your favorite method to grow your blog?