4 Simple Strategies to Increase Your Blog Audience

Increasing the audience for your blog requires more than excellent writing skills. Even the most up to date blogs and content packed blogs find it difficult to reach the best business prospects. Although the creation of thought provoking content is vital to maintaining your audience, it is equally important to focus on building your audience. Blog audiences are much more than loyal readers, they are your customers, the advocates for your brand and prospects that have the ability to share the information you provide in order to help increase your audience. The following strategies will help you focus on growing your audience.

Power of Guest Blogging

The first response for many people when they hear the term “guest blogging”, is why? You may be thinking it is difficult enough to find the time to write for your own blog, let alone someone else’s, but the fact is guest blogging is one of the best resources for building your audience. When you guest blog, you have an opportunity to include inbound links, which will boost your traffic. The more guest posts you write, the more chances you have of getting your name out there and seen by potential visitors to your site.

Social Networking

Social networking is not only one of the most effective resources for driving traffic to your blog, but it is free marketing. Set up an account for your blog on as many social networking sites as possible, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Share all new content on each social networking site and remind members of your community to like as well as share your featured content. Take advantage of Twitter by using relevant hashtags on your shared content. Join several forums that are related to the content on your blog and share your link whenever possible. People want to see that you are interested in what they have to say as well, so comment positively on other people’s content and offer suggestions through the forums.

Keywords and SEO

Writing great content is important for keeping your audience engaged, but you have to use keywords and terms that will cause the search engines to boost your content to the top of the page rankings. Spend some time doing keyword research to find out what people are looking for and use these keywords as the main focus of your content. Keep in mind that keywords are important, but quality content is equally important. Use keywords in meaningful way, in other words, do not keyword stuff, as this will not only hurt you in the rankings, but it can quickly turn your audience away.

Interviews

A great way to build your audience is by showing them you are interested in what others have to say. Encourage experts to share their knowledge and experience through your blog. When you invite others to be highlighted on your blog, most will share the information on their page and through their social networks, which can cause a significant increase in your audience. Offer to share your expertise with others is also a great way to get your name out there. Make announcements on your blog and through your social networking sites that you are available for interviews. When an interview opportunity arises, avoid throwing your blog into the interview, unless it fit’s the conversation. More often than not, you will get more attention to your blog if you let the host be the one to mention your site.

One of the first rules of growing your audience is patience. Building an audience takes time, energy, patience and consistency, so do not give up.