How to Gain Blog Readers

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Participate in blog carnivals. Search the Internet for "blog carnivals" and you should discover many. In addition to searching, the website BlogCarnivals can help you as well.
Step 2

Visit and comment on other blogs related to yours. Visit those blogs often and comment on occasion. In fact, why not make this a part of your daily or weekly routine.
Step 3

Respond to comments. It's good etiquette to respond to comments left by your readers. When you respond to your readers, they know you'll interact with them and may visit you often. You don't have to reply to every single comment, but if the reader asks you a question, you'll definitely want to answer him or her.
Step 4

Write guest posts. When you offer to write a guest post on other blogs related to yours, you can include a short bio with a link back to your blog at the end of your guest post.
Step 5

Run a contest. Whether it's on a yearly, weekly or monthly basis, a contest helps increase traffic. Many times other blogs will link to your contest bringing in more readers to your blog. Yes, some of those new readers may only visit for the contest, but many of them will stay if they enjoy the content of your blog.
Step 6

Join social bookmarking websites such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Delicious and others. Once you've joined these venues, submit your blog posts to them and encourage your readers to do the same.
Step 7

Write useful and informative content. If you write content that grabs your readers' attention, they might link to your content from their blog, thus bringing in more traffic for your blog. Moreover, they could find your content helpful enough to bookmark it on one or more of the above-mentioned social bookmarking websites.
Step 8

Offer your readers a way to subscribe to your blog. Many blog readers like to subscribe to their favorite blogs so they'll receive immediate notification each time you make a new blog entry. Some prefer to receive the notification via email, while others like to subscribe with their favorite reader. (Sign up for a free account at Feedburner and you'll be able to offer your readers both options.)
Step 9

Invite your readers to participate in challenges. By inviting your readers to participate in challenges, they may take you up on the challenge at their blog, and in return they'll provide a link back to your blog when they let their blog readers know where they discovered the challenge. Make sure the challenge relates to your blog. For example, if you have a writing-related blog, challenge your readers to set some monthly goals for themselves, and instruct them to announce the goals on their blog.
Step 10

Invest a few dollars into advertising. You may want to consider buying a text link ad or small banner ad on other blogs related to yours. Choose blogs that rank well in the search engines and have a good amount of traffic. To help you determine a blog's traffic stats, visit Alexa.
Step 11

Promote your blog through blog communities such as MyBlogLog and others. If you add the widget each blog community provides to the sidebar on your blog, you'll get to see who reads your blog. Then you can click on that reader's picture and find their profile page with a link to their blog. Visit their blog, and if it interests you, follow through with step two. Apply these methods to your blog, and you should begin seeing an increase in your traffic stats. Do you have any other ideas to add to the list? Leave your comment and let us know about them.

Comments

mrs75 said

on 2/4/2008 MidniteWriter, I'm so glad I was able to help you discover something you didn't know about, and I hope my advice helps you gain more readers to your blog. Best wishes!