How to Grow Your Blog

What does it even mean to “grow your blog”? Basically, it’s all about attracting and retaining your “who” — your reader.

Creating growth starts with informing your target market that you even exist. Because if they don’t know you exist, then how could they be interested in your content or products?

Once they know you exist, you need to build a relationship with your new audience. This is generally done by getting to know them, sharing about yourself, and helping them however you are able.

Here are the six best ways to get your name out there and attract new visitors to your blog.

1) Pinterest Content Marketing

Pinterest is a search engine, similar to Google. However, what makes it so powerful is that it also has the sharing functionality of social media.

By creating interesting, attractive images for each piece of content on your blog, you can attract attention on Pinterest and entice new people to visit your blog.

To really take your Pinterest marketing to the next level, apply to join some large group boards. These are boards that have multiple contributors, and they grow quickly because so much content is added to them so regularly. It’s a great way to get your content in front a large audience that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to!

2) Joint Venture Webinars (for Fun and Profit)

You produce content, right? Normally, you probably write your content as a blog post, or maybe record it as a video that then you publish on Facebook or Youtube.

But what if you took that SAME content, and instead offered it as a live training — a webinar?

Not the sleazy kind of webinar where you say you’re going to teach something, but then instead you just spend the whole hour pitching the crap out of your product.

Instead, a truly valuable webinar, with NO pitch!

Now you might be asking, “What would be the point of that?”

Well, what’s the point of any type of free content you create? Of course, the answers are: to provide value to your audience, to strengthen your relationship with them, and attract new people to follow you.

A live webinar can do all those things, and by simply adjusting the format of your content you can make it be perceived as much more valuable.

So much more valuable, in fact, that another influencer would quite possibly be *happy* to promote your content to their list.

Their audience gets value, you get exposure for your blog. It’s definitely a win-win!

3) Roundup Posts (+ Case Study)

Last week, I published a post on www.sortedbook.com, a small blog that I write on for the readers of Sorted (my book about life organization). The post was titled “The Eight Best Home Organization Blogs” and was an example of a roundup post: a post that “rounds up” a bunch of different content, resources, people, or ideas on a specific topic.

Then, I asked each of the different bloggers that I’d featured in the post if I could share the article on their facebook page — and they all said yes!

And that’s when something crazy happened. My little blog that normally gets only 50 – 100 visitors each day BLEW UP with 1,500 hits! I’d expected a little bit of extra traffic, but that was insane!

4) Epic Guest Posts to Generate Traffic for Your Blog

We all know that guest posts are a pretty good way to get a backlink for your site (improving your SEO) and also gain a little bit of exposure to someone else’s audience.

But why write a regular old guest post and get mediocre results when you could write an EPIC guest post and get 10x the results? Make the most of the opportunity you have to get in front of someone else’s audience!

You can read all about how to write an epic guest post in “Expanded Guest Post: How to 100x the effectiveness of your next guest post,” an article by Bryan Harris.

But the long and short of it is this: a) write an incredibly useful, extremely detailed post. Really give your best stuff on the topic. Let it all out and don’t hold anything back. b) include links to a content upgrade/email opt-in offer.

You want to provide a ridiculous amount of value, and then provide a free resource that will enable readers to take action on your post.

5) Get Interviewed on Podcasts 

The podcast world has been blowing up over the last couple of years! Right now, starting your own podcast is incredibly trendy.

But starting a podcast is a lot of work, and keeping up with it requires regular, consistent content creation. Also, there’s increasingly more competition out there.

(I’m not saying you shouldn’t start a podcast — far from it! Podcasts are a wonderful way to grow your brand, and it’s still a relatively new industry that has tons of space for new influencers. I’m just saying that you have to be ready to commit to the work, and you have to have enough time available.)

But what is A LOT easier than having your own podcast is being interviewed as a guest on other people’s shows. And with all these new podcasts that have been started up lately, there are plenty of hosts who are looking for interesting people to interview!

Take advantage of this perfect storm, and start applying! Podcast interviews generally don’t take very much time or preparation, especially after your first couple.

Make sure that you do prepare well for your very first one. Come up with some great information to share that the audience will find truly valuable and create an amazing content upgrade that will entice people to visit your website and join your mailing list.

Don’t just show up and chat. Really serve valuable information and promote that freebie you have to offer.

6) Use Facebook Ad Campaigns to Promote Your Blog

Have you ever tried Facebook ads? How did that go?

Quite possibly, if you’ve only dabbled in them, and you weren’t working with an expert, you might feel like they weren’t really worth your time and money.

Done wrong, Facebook ads can be expensive and not very profitable.

If your first ad was for a product, then most likely it WON’T pay off.

However, if you have a long-play strategy that involves first warming your target audience up, then you have a chance at creating ad campaigns that produce BIG results.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: business models, on the most basic level, are simply your plan of how you’ll sell something to someone.

So instead of trying to do everything at once and use Facebook ads to find your someone, interest them, entice them, and pitch them — slow down! First focus just on finding the “someone,” then slowly start warming them up.

How do you do that? Create ads that simply share your free content or promote a free opt-in offer that would appeal to your target audience

The BEST Strategy to Grow Your Blog in 2017

We’ve covered six great ideas to get more traffic to your blog. But which one is the best?

Well, they are all good, so the best one is the idea that you’ll enjoy executing the most.

Because, ultimately, these strategies will only create big results if you consistently work on them, and it’s difficult to be consistent with stuff you don’t enjoy doing.

So pick the one that sounds like the most fun to you, and then dive in!

Oh, wait! I know you’re anxious to get started, but before you run off to take action, first take just a quick minute to leave me a comment. Let me know which strategy you’re going to use to grow YOUR blog! (and leave me a link to your blog so I can check it out! 🙂 )

 

Want to learn more about online business strategy and how to grow your blog? Subscribe to my mailing list! I'll send exclusive content straight to your inbox.