Imagine this, you create the perfect blog and fill it with amazing content and then sit back and wait for the audience to come.
But, you soon realize the only person reading your blog is your best friend.
Not that there’s anything wrong with your bestie being your number one fan, but you obviously created your blog to help people. To share your ideas with people. To make money etc.
So, now what? How can you increase blog traffic? And not just any traffic, but quality blog traffic?
Well, you need to create your blueprint for growing your audience and finding your dream blog readers.
I know, you are thinking, “Yea, obviously. But, how am I going to do that as a newbie blogger?”
Don’t worry, I’ve got you!
Who Is Your Ideal Audience?
The first step to finding your tribe of loyal fans is to define who exactly that ideal person is.
So, how do we do that?
Well, most people will tell you to make a whole client avatar thing with your ideal client’s normal income, how many kids they have, how often a month they drink wine etc. etc.
I don’t really like this.
To me, it’s just not overly helpful and there is a more efficient way of going about things.
I like to just skip obsessing about who the ideal audience is and just go find them instead.
Head to The Source
I suggest clearing your afternoon and spend it analyzing everything on the internet regarding your niche.
By doing this you can better figure out exactly how to get people interested in this niche to head on over to your corner of the internet.
If you haven’t signed up yet for access to the Success Library, now is the moment. Sign up below and I’ll send you the link. In the library, download the Find Your Dream Client Workbook and make your way through it. It will be transformative for finding your audience.
Your Exact Audience Blueprint
When I started blogging I was completely overwhelmed. Everybody said I needed to be on a different social media platform.
Some people said Twitter was the best. Some people were fans of Instagram. Some said to invest in a fancy post planning tool. Some said to invest in Facebook ads.
How are you possibly able to do it all?!?!
Well, what I learned was, you can’t. You just can’t do it all. And you know what? That is OK! You shouldn’t do it all.
In fact, your blog traffic will benefit from coming up with a plan to attract traffic to your blog which is perfect for you and your specific niche.
So, I am going to go through all the ways that people attract a blog audience. As you read, take notes on what ideas appeal to you.
Consider your personality (are you someone who loves to post on Instagram every day? Or are you more of a person who likes to get into analytics of SEO?).
And consider where you think your particular blog audience hangs out (from the results of the workbook I mentioned above) and what they enjoy (will they love to receive emails from you, or are they more likely to check your Instagram posts daily)?
At the end, we will see what you discovered and put it into a plan catered specifically to your business.
So, let’s go through the ways you can attract an audience. We will start with guest posting.
Guest Posting
Guest posting means penning posts about your blog topic and having them published on other websites. This is great for a few different reasons.
1. It allows you to get some of that other blogger’s audience. People might read your post on this other site, like you, and then head on over to your blog.
2. It helps with SEO. These guest posts will likely have links back to your blog. This helps Google to know that you are an authority figure and that other great websites think your blog is awesome.
The downside of guest posting is that it can potentially take valuable keywords away from your site.
For example, if you run a blog about gluten-free baking and you do a guest post on a popular cooking blog and write about the fundamentals of gluten-free baking, well, that blog could potentially now appear above you on Google search results for the term “gluten-free baking.”
However, that article does link back to your site. So, it become a bit of a balancing act.
If possible, write guest posts about things related to your blog content, but without keywords that you are specifically trying to rank for on Google.
So, maybe instead of writing about the fundamentals of gluten free baking you might write instead about your favorite baking pans. That way you are still writing about baking, can still link back to your blog, but won’t feel in competition for keywords.
Another option is to have guest bloggers on your site. This allows you to take a break from writing for a week and gives your readers another perspective. That guest blogger will also likely share your post on their social media networks so you can still gain some of their audience.
One way I really like to do this is with a guest blog roundup post. So, for example, you might reach out to other bloggers and say, “Hi, I’m writing a roundup post on the best gluten free cookie recipes. Would you like to contribute a 200 word selection? I will provide a backlink to your blog.”
You could have several bloggers contribute to your post and then make sure you email all of them when your post is published. They will then likely all share it on their social channels, which, again, helps you.
Are you wondering how to even find people to write guest posts with? Well, I’ve found two good ways.
- Just contact people directly through their contact form on their website.
- Search for Facebook groups of bloggers in your niche. There are tons of groups out there for travel bloggers, food bloggers etc. These communities provide a great place for pitching these types of post roundup ideas.
Forums
Finding forums online related to your specific niche topic is a great way to leverage yourself as an expert in your specific community.
Just be careful with the number of self-promoting links you use throughout your posts. It’s important to keep a balance of posting genuine good advice and linking back to your blog.
Here are a few places to look for forums:
Reddit is great for gaining an audience, but people on Reddit can also be super harsh. I suggest not posting any links to your blog on any Reddit sub categories unless you have some thick skin and can handle the critics.
Discord
Discord is a forum service in which you need to be invited to each specific forum. I have found that the best way to find relevent forums is by searching on Google for “topic name discord” and then searching through for forums which you can join.
Google Search
Another way to find forums is by just Googling “topic name forum” and weeding through the relevant results.
Have Your Readers Work for You
Who better to drive your target audience to your blog then your target audience? If you can get your readers to work for you, that is always a win! So, let’s go through how this is possible.
Affiliate Programs
If you sell a product or service on your site you can create an affiliate program for this. So, basically, you can offer your loyal readers who have used your product or service before a percentage of your profits if they promote and sell your product or service to their readers/ friends/ family etc.
This is actually super easy to set up. There are tons of companies out there that offer this type of program for a low cost. My personal favorite for setting this up as a newbie is a company called Gumroad. They have the lowest cost of any company I have found and are easy to use.
Social Share Buttons
Definitely make sure you have social share buttons on each page and post on your site. Remind your readers that they can share your content with some type of call to action. This can be as simple as writing at the end of your post, “If you found this information helpful I would love if you would share it!” and then include social buttons for this.
Make your content irristable to share with amazing graphics.
Now it is time on to head on over to the next post on SEO for more great ways to attract an audience of loyal fans.
Summary:
- Every blog based business will have a different map for gaining an audience. This is dependent on the blog niche and your personality
- Forums can be a great place to get people back to your blog
- There are several ways to get your existing audience to work for you in order to grow your blog fandom
