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.”
About Darren Rowse
My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like 
thanks you all These are very practical problogger.net thanks all
Great list, Darren. I will definately make use of these suggestions.
Finally I know how to increase my puny traffic :)
Thanks Darren for the summary.
Finally I know how to increase my puny traffic :)
Thanks Darren for the summary.
Good list, Darren. I will make use of these suggestions.
Finally I know how to increase my puny traffic :)
You not use this reader finding ways :D Because not need big reader community
Opinionated makes you interesting – encouraging other perspectives makes you essential.”
Superb summary! It really useful for beginner blogger like. Sometimes, I get confused how to raise my traffic, but after I read this, I’ve got an inspiration! Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article
” Opinionated makes you interesting – encouraging other perspectives makes you essential.”
thankss !
Finally I know how to increase my puny traffic :)
Thanks Darren for the summary.
thankss
thank you
I own a country inn and restaurant at Mount Rainier, WA. After 30+ years of innkeeping, I have a lot of interesting stories to share. So, I started a blog. The purpose of the blog isn’t so much to advertise the inn—(my website is very successful) as it is to speak in the first person…sharing my experiences with interested readers. Innkeeping covers so much territory—food, interior design, people-stories, gardening, wine, travel, etc. etc.
I’d appreciate any suggestions or advice from seasoned bloggers.
alexanderscountryinn.blogspot.com
Thank you!
Bernadettte
I keep encountering the folowing problem. Anytime I add links in the dashboard, all my posts disappear and in the side bar appaers a message:
Do a media release and get thousands of hits.. :)
There is one more point that you forgot and that is avoiding grammatical and spelling mistakes in your blog posts.
Did you see the spelling mistake in the above sentence. “your” has been written as “Yoru”. These small mistakes can , of course, snatch all your readers.
Really grate post and i ll follow your suggested ways with my blogs
I keep encountering the folowing problem. Anytime I add links in the dashboard, all my posts disappear and in the side bar appaers a message:
I own a country inn and restaurant at Mount Rainier, WA. After 30+ years of innkeeping, I have a lot of interesting stories to share.
Great article, i found it funny that most of the things they suggestested were tactics you had already mentioned, you can see that most bloggers copy or learn from one another.
Superb summary! It really useful for beginner blogger like. Sometimes, I get confused how to raise my traffic, but after I read this, I’ve got an inspiration! Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article
Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article
Superb summary! It really useful for beginner blogger like. Sometimes, I get confused how to raise my traffic, but after I read this, I’ve got an inspiration! Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article
Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article..
Thanks Darren for the summary.
Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article..
Finally I know how to increase my puny traffic :)
Thanks Darren for the summary.
best regards
Hi dareen,
you are right.If all bloggers follow these simple guidelines then there is no barrier to get High traffic rate.But can you tell that we can get more traffic in a day by PPC?
Thanks
I think joining forums is very important. I tried this strategy and now I have lots of visitors coming from forums.
Finally I know how to increase my puny traffic :)
Thanks Darren for the summary.
best regards
Those are great tips to increase traffic. I especially liked the idea of commenting on similar blogs.
I love the blog, keep it up. I find this kind of stuff interesting. Seems like an honest mistake on the sales rep’s part, but it is something that shouldn’t happen.
Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article..
It’s hard to convince a blogger to send traffic your way if they’re not sure that you are going to routinely post fresh compelling content.
Fantastic. I should look into getting that Zodooka newsletter feature on my blog, anyone else using it?
Thanks for the tips. What do you think about posting short excerpts and links to articles from other sites?
its I think joining forums is very important. I tried this strategy and now I have lots of visitors coming from forums.
I think that the most important thing it’s to be confident that you’re giving excellent services to your clients, and that’s why the new clients are looking you.
I get confused how to raise my traffic, but after I read this, I’ve got an inspiration! Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article
It’s hard to convince a blogger to send traffic your way if they’re not sure that you are going to routinely post fresh compelling content.
It’s hard to convince a blogger to send traffic your way if they’re not sure that you are going to routinely post fresh compelling content.
This control seems like a great tool. The problem I am having is that I cannot get the jpg to render. I followed the instructions from version 1.1 and the postcomment.aspx as well as the DLL from version 1.2. There was no readme
It’s hard to convince a blogger to send traffic your way if they’re not sure that you are going to routinely post fresh compelling content.
tahnk you..
its I think joining forums is very important. I tried this strategy and now I have lots of visitors coming from forums.
Whenever I add a site to my blogroll, I make a post about the site and how good it is etc. I mean it genuinely, but 9 times out of 10 you’ll get a link in return, and occasionally they’ll write a post about you as well.
I get confused how to raise my traffic, but after I read this, I’ve got an inspiration! Thumbs up for you, I really like this article. I’ve been added this site in my technorati favorites so I can read another useful article
It’s hard to convince a blogger to send traffic your way if they’re not sure that you are going to routinely post fresh compelling content.
tahnk you..
It’s hard to convince a blogger to send traffic your way if they’re not sure that you are going to routinely post fresh compelling content.
tahnk you..
its I think joining forums is very important. I tried this strategy and now I have lots of visitors coming from forums.