Over the weekend I ran an ‘open mike’ discussion which asked the question of How do you find Readers for Your Blog?

There were quite a few responses to the question – some of which went a little unnoticed as they were moderated until I got home. So I thought I’d summarize some of the main themes that arose in the discussion with a few quotes from those who left comments.

For the full series of comments see the post – but here are the main themes listed in no particular order except that they are vaguely the order that people submitted them in (keep in mind that these ideas come from readers – not all of them will be for everyone):

1. Comment on Related Blogs – raising4boys writes – “Commenting on related blogs is probably the most effective strategy early on in the process. And responding to comments when people leave them on your blog (this encourages them to keep coming back).” And from Brody – “I visit other blogs in my niche, add them to my feed and participate in the discussion on their blogs via the comments. Writing interesting comments often gets people to click through to see your site.”

2. Join Forums – elprezidente writes – “I’ve found that one very quick way to infuse readers to a new blog is to be active in discussion forums related to your blog topic. Locate posts that ask for help with something you are familiar with and share your experience.”

3. Write Effective Post Titles – Aziz writes – “Simple and to the point. The title should create an instant urge to read the entire post… But of course it should be related to the topic of your blog”

4. Interviews – Ollie writes – “One example being to interview fellow bloggers who are in the same niche as me. This has gone down well, and has been great for both myself and the interviewee as traffic flows between us.”

5. Persist – Dan Norman writes – “Persistence is key. After starting up a new blog last month and letting go of another this month, I notice that traffic (quality traffic) doesn’t happen over night. On my last site, I think it took 6 months before ASK.com found me.”

6. Connect with Local Bloggers – Rob O writes – “The other thing I’ve been doing just recently is connecting up with other bloggers in my city and the neighboring towns. We’ve got something of a link exchange going and a nice side-effect to this is that I/we have discovered that there are quite a few more bloggers and/or website authors in the area than ever expected.”

7. Give Away Free Stuff – Peterandrej writes – “I’ve had some success with giving away free stuff, like free templates for WordPress. It doesn’t give me lot of new readers, because my blog is written in Norwegian, but the templates give lots and lots of new links to the blog, giving it a much better pagerank in Google, which in turn should mean more readers from search-engines.”

8. Be Opinionated – Trent writes – “Be opinionated, but encourage opposing viewpoints in the comments. Opinionated makes you interesting – encouraging other perspectives makes you essential.”

9. Ask Questions of Other Bloggers – Trent also writes – “Ask questions of other moderately successful bloggers and try to network. If you shoot too high, you’ll often get blown off because these people have so much stuff to read and deal with.”

10. Use Trackbacks – Maki writes – “Sending highly creative and penetrating trackbacks about a blogger’s original post.”

11. Advertise – Mike Panic writes – “Buy advertising space on related websites.”

12. Educate Readers about RSS - Mike Panic writes – “With the most recent blog I launched I created a page in WordPress called Feeds which not only has the RSS icon on it but a description of what a “feed” is and what are some of the most common ways to subscribe and use feeds, mostly pulled from a CC article.”

13. Offline Promotion - Mike Panic writes – “Talk to friends, family and coworkers about them… you’d be surprised how much the traditional way of “networking” really does work…. also Business cards, depending which blog I’ll post on a community board at a grocery store.

14. Search Engine Optimization – Michelle writes – “Properly optimizing my blog has been a big boost to my readership. Once I figured out how to play around with SEO I started getting a regular 25-35% of my hits from Google.”

15. Quality Content (mentioned by many) – ilker writes – “Posting only quality content.. obviously! Better posts are discussed more, increasing both the number of comments and references in other blogs.”

16. Blog Carnivals – Slade writes – “submitting posts to Blog Carnivals”

17. Memes – Leanne writes – “I’ve picked up a handful of wonderful friends and readers through initiating the “Thursday Thirteen”. Yeah, a meme. Bloggers want to know about bloggers, not just the business aspect of it but the *person* writing the blog. Reading a quick list of “getting to know me” type tidbits gives me instant inside information on whether or not I will become a regular visitor. Some participants have used it solely to gain business, but frankly I think that turns people away. People are interested in people first, and what they do second. It works.”

18. Frequent Posting - baggage writes – “I also try to post frequently. I find that the more I post, the more readers I have. The less comments, but the more readers.”

19. Guest Bloggers – Random Good Stuff writes – “I invite other bloggers to guest blog and allow always one link back to their site. I have 3 active guest authors … and in return they link to my site from time to time.”

20. Get Links from Other Blogs – Jamdo writes – “Getting mentioned on other sites and blogs in the same niche, I think, has been the best way to get a readership who keeps returning to a blog. Make contact with other bloggers in yoru niche via comments, email, AIM, skype, homing pigeons – whatever.”

21. Newsletters – Adrian writes – “The Zookoda newsletter provides nice spikes and people tend to forward the newsletter to their friends.”

22. Social Networks – Ilya writes – “Submit your story to Digg and reddit and, regardless of whether it makes the front page or not, you get 50-100 free hits. The easiest way to generate quick exposure. Failing that, comment frequently on blogs that you like. With any luck, the blog author will want to find out more about you, follow the link to your blog, and perhaps write a post referencing one of your posts.”

23. Pitch Your Posts – Marty Weil writes – “I view other bloggers as a PR pros view journalists working in traditional media. I reach out to bloggers using tactics successfully employed in the world of professional media relations. For instance, I “pitch” specific posts that they might find adds value to topics they are writing about. I also send email introducing them to my blog, but only if there’s a good fit between my blog and theirs. The key is to be very selective in approaching the “media gatekeeper”–just as successful and smart media relations people do.”

I’m heading away for one night as part of our long weekend here in Australia for Australia Day and so thought it might be time for a reader discussion on the topic that everyone seems to be asking me about these days – ‘how do I find readers for my blog?’

Share you own experiences and tips on how you’ve drawn readers to your blog.

What’s worked for you?
What hasn’t worked for you?
What would you recommend for someone just starting out in blogging who has no readers?

Looking forward to reading your responses when I get home tomorrow.

Have a good weekend!