Methods for creating interest in your blog?

Feathers · Aug 12, 2008

Quick story: I've had my blog for about 5 months now, and at the beginning I networked like crazy, posted twice a week on the dot, and made sure every post was vitally on topic. After a little bit I eased back to a reasonable level of commitment. But then a few things happened; I was away on some trips; I had some writer's block. I appealed to readers asking for opinions of what I should do with the blog, and regular readership plummeted. Plus, my internet has been sketchy, so I can't network as much as I used to.

I learned my lesson, and now I'm posting regularly again about interesting topics, but I kind of blew the faith and I'm wondering what I can do to restore it. Plus I think I need to generate a larger interest in the blog. Plus I want to avoid making such mistakes again.

So, questions:

How do you get moral back up, so to speak?

Besides networking and promoting in general, what have you done with your blog that really generated interest?

What things make people less interested in your blog?

I'm really curious here to see what kind of things people have come up with for their blogs.

Smile,
-Feathers

razibahmed · Aug 12, 2008

I know that I am not the right person to answer your question since I blog mainly for money. In my blogs, I try to give information that people may search for and then hope that Google sends some traffic. It works most of the time for me because, instead of going too broad, I try to narrow down a topic. I feel that there is a difference between regular readers and regular comments. For example, in my blog Techtainment (http://techblogbiz.blogspot.com/ ), I have 1005 feedburner readers but I hardly get even 3 comments a day.
As for your blog, Headdesk, I advice you to put a sitemter (http://www.sitemeter.com/) that will help you to have more information on your visitors. Secondly, you can put a email subscription form of Feedburner.

Nick Russell · Aug 12, 2008

I find that my RV blog www.gypsyjournal.net/NicksBlog.htm gets about half of its visitors from referrals from other websites, and half from search engines. I use its address in signature line in my posts on different RV forums and if I spend an afternoon posting on other blogs and forums, I see an increase in my numbers.

My new self-publishing blog at www.publishing4profit.com/myblogs/ has been slow to get off the ground. Again, through posting on related websites and blogs, I have seen new visitors, but I need to work on it more.

No matter how you get you visitors, it takes quality content and frequent posts to keep them coming back.

sgunelius · Aug 13, 2008

The articles on this page from About.com Web Logs should help:

http://weblogs.about.com/od/marketingablog/u/GrowABlog.htm

Also, you might want to read this article about blog posting frequency:

http://weblogs.about.com/od/startingablog/qt/BlogPostingFreq.htm

jerrywaxler · Aug 13, 2008

Beautiful blog, keep up the good work

Feathers,

I visited your blog and find it to be professional-sounding, informative, varied, and shows a lot of passion and commitment.

I think you are creating a lovely work here. I don't think there is any simple way to generate steady traffic - it sounds like you are doing all the right things I know about.

One opinion I've formed since I started about 15 months ago is that I don't believe the audience is as demanding about constant feeding as you are concerned about. I think blog writers are allowed to have occasional lapses as long as we create a good product.

The next step once you get a body of work on the blog is to start reaching out for collaboration. I'm not sure what this means exactly but I think over time, after you've been doing it for a while, you'll start networking with other like minded people.

I guess the "rule" I'm striving for myself is "keep the faith and keep on writing."

Jerry

susangpyp · Aug 14, 2008

A few things that might help:

1. Ask your readers what they'd like to hear about. Invite them to send you snippets for critique. Interaction is important. Invite them to send you private email that you will post on the blog without their identifying information.

2. Read other blogs and leave a link to your blog in your signature.

3. Maybe talk about entering writing contests and the business of writing. People are always interested in what contests did you enter? what did you enter? what did you win?

4. Personal stories of rejection and perseverance ... yours and others.

5. Personal stories of advice you were given and accepted or rejected and what worked. Ask readers for these stories.

6. Lots of categories and/or tags. Blog often. Use "continued" instead of taking up a whole page with one post.

These are just a few thoughts. Happy blogging!

Angela_785 · Aug 14, 2008

I think your blog is chock full of good info!

Here are a few things I've seen that help readers feel closer to my blog (and me, I hope!) and encourage them to comment:

People like pictures

Post personal pictures from time to time--either pics from a holiday that rejeuvenated your writer's spirit, things you find inspirational, interesting pictures that people can use as story starters or offer an opinion of what it makes them feel. This connects the reader's feeling/experiences to yours.

Ask questions

Whenever possible ask readers for their thoughts or experiences on a topic. This encourages them to share what they feel, and their more apt to comment.

Have a sense of humor

I want people to visit my blog for the info, but I also want them to enjoy their visit. People connect with humor and they'll return if you try to incorporate it into your 'blog voice.'

Network

I try to visit fellow writers blogs whenever possible, and especially those who comment on my blog. Post on several sites when you update your blog. Use your blog in you sig like we do here at AW, stuff like that.

Too, I highly recommend StumbleUpon. Someone put my site up there (but you can do it yourself, or just ask me to do it) and now I get a ton of traffic from there. I tried Digg, but didn't see much happen there in my stats, so either I was doing it wrong or it just didn't work for my type of blog. I'm not really a teckie type gal, tho.

Offer something that can't be found elsewhere

The Emotion Thesaurus on my blog draws a huge audience that returns every week to see the latest updates. However, 90% of the comments we get are on other posts, so that tells me that the other content we offer is attracting visitors as well. Think of what a writer needs in the way of information and try to deliver it in a humorous or unique way.

Anyway, I know some of this you already do, Feathers, but I thought I'd keep it general for anyone who might need some additional ideas on how to get traffic to their sites.

flashgordon · Aug 14, 2008

You've got a lot of great advice already, and as you are surely finding out, there is no "right" way. Each blog and blog audience is different. I would focus on generating more readers (I don't know what your RSS count is, which is only an approximation of your readers since many are just robots). To do this, you need to get your blog ranking better for both keywords and the long-tail. It looks like you have approximately 1,122 backlinks at the moment: that is a good start but not very many if you are trying to get your blog to rank in Google for various keywords.

I'd work on building backlinks and making detailed posts that target the long-tail. Then do some internal linking of those posts, as well as social bookmarking and networking of those posts. This will help bring them up higher in the SERPs.

That should help generate some more traffic, and hopefully more readers.

Feathers · Aug 14, 2008

Wow. Great advice everyone, thank you so much for your responses and encouragement. I've got Google Analytics so I usually compare that with the amount of comments I'm getting, to see if people are liking my content. That's mostly how I gauge user response.

Razibahmed, do you know where I could get the email subscription button? I've got a plain old RSS one up already.

Flashgordon, would you mind clarifying all that? I don't know what backlinking or long-tail means. I know about internal linking, which I've been implementing, and I've done some networking of individual posts on my site, but I'm not really sure about social bookmarking. And I have no clue what SERPS is. Thanks, lol.

-Feathers

razibahmed · Aug 14, 2008

http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/publishers/fbemail

Here, you can find more information about email subscription button

Feathers · Aug 14, 2008

Thanks

WWWWolf · Aug 16, 2008

I'm not a successful blogger, and I know exactly why it's so, because I read successful blogs.

Here's what makes me read anyone's blog:

Interesting content. It doesn't have to be an entirely original topic, but at least it needs a definite direction. I also tend to follow blogs that have one topic far more easily than blogs that have "a Person and their wide varied Interests". I've got a LiveJournal that people probably don't read and topic-related blogs that people might read if they were interested of these topics at all and I actually bothered to update them more than once a month.
Frequent updates, but not too frequent. I don't have time for all blogs every day. If I open up the feed reader and find 100 updates this week, no way I'm going to read through them all - I'll have to read the site every day in that case, and there's exactly one site that I have the willpower to read every day. But if there's about 10-20 updates per week at most, sure, why not?
Technology that works. RSS/Atom feeds with full articles - I don't think I'll come to the blog site itself unless the article itself looks interesting based on a glance. And if you want me to comment, don't force people to register; allow CAPTCHA'd commenting with name/link, or, better yet nowadays, OpenID logins to comment.
Word of mouth. I'm not actively looking for new blogs to read, I have already quite enough of them to follow - but I'm always willing to try something if I know it's good. If someone I know says the thing is worth subscribing to, or points to the blog, and on the first glance the blog seems to have interesting content, I'll hit the subscription button. It's not a big threshold, generally.

Spillthebeans · Sep 2, 2008

I've found that pictures do generate traffic, especialy unique pictures. I have a personal blog for friends but after putting a few travel pics, google images picked them up and a lot of strangers visited looking for pics of the destinations I've been. Ironically, I didn't really want that traffic.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 2, 2008

I just try to write gooder. If you post it, they will come.

veinglory · Sep 2, 2008

Angela said what I would have, but betterer.

Feathers · Sep 4, 2008

Really? I thought it was "bestest"

nighttimer · Sep 6, 2008

It's not exactly Field of Dreams is it. You can build it, but it doesn't mean they will come.

As a freelance writer as well as a blogger, I find it helps drive traffic to the blog when someone reads an article I've written and then follows the link back to my blog.

Whatever works. :Shrug:

Madisonwrites · Sep 7, 2008

So...I Have A Blog....

OK, I have a blog (link is on my signature). I love posting on it because I use it help create intrest in my writing and what I'm up to with it as a way to promote myself. However, traffic...what traffic? I get a few posts from my friends and every blue moon I get a post by someone I don't know or an anon. So, how can I increase traffic to my blog?

One important thing...it needs to be free. This is not something that I'm willing to put money into...at this point, anyway.

And, yes, before anyone suggests it, I have submitted my blog to Google and you can find it through them. But seriously, any other ideas?

Peachnuts · Sep 7, 2008

Connect with others, leave comments on theirs, meet their friends.
Come on over to my blog and we'll shake hands!

susangpyp · Sep 7, 2008

Madison: take what you like and leave the rest. My two cents:

I think that the key to successful blogging is a good description up top. You might want to change it to something that would invite people in ...information they can use...not just asking them for feedback.

Critique agent blogs, talk about getting an agent, talk about querying. The idea is to become a place that people find good, reliable information. When you have traffic you might want to start critique groups. Also use a lot of keywords that people surf with agents, writing, query, etc etc. Talk about the market, find interesting tidbits that are hard to find...

I have a blog that is fairly successful and in the beginning I answered every comment, I used a lot of keywords and posted regularly (also use the MORE tag so that only the first few lines show up so you can post more on your front page and will attract different readers). Later on I started doing Check in posts and my readers basically talk to each other. I think this could be the equivalent of critique thread later on.

Try to establish yourself as a resource for your genre. Change the "byline" up top to reflect information you'll be imparting on your readers. Be a go to person. Then as you get more readers you can post material to critique and invite others to do the same.

BEST OF LUCK!

Madisonwrites · Sep 7, 2008

Hey, thanks, susangpyp! That's some great advice! Def take you up on it!

Woodsie · Sep 7, 2008

Peachnuts said:
Connect with others, leave comments on theirs, meet their friends.
Come on over to my blog and we'll shake hands!

Copy that.

asorum · Sep 7, 2008

This post hits close to home. I have been trying to improve my blog Information About Alaska. I upgraded to better theme with WordPress, got my sitemap correct, dug into the Google webtools, added technorati tags and starting using "pretty" urls. I think the next step is better networking with other Alaska/Northwest related blogs.

If you have time, feel free to visit the IAA site and let me know what I'm missing. There is probably plenty

Feathers · Sep 9, 2008

Susan has some great advice. I suggest you read the thread about things you hate/like in a blog. That was great to see what people do/don't want. A few basic things that I did for my blog:

1 - I made myself reliable. I post regularly ( 2-3 times a week seems to be the prime number) with real posts, not just a brief "sorry I couldn't come up with something" post. Also, I keep my stuff on topic....if I say I have a writing blog, then I won't go talking about my pets and plants and vacations every other post.

2 - I made myself accessible. I tried really hard to make my blog topic clear, by writing a good blurb, keeping all my sidebars oriented to that topic, and writing posts that are focused, so they don't run more than 1,000 words.

3 - I tried to make myself useful and unique. This had a lot to do with my blog focus; I realized that I enjoy relating with others and sharing what I've learned personally, so that's what I do - pretty much every post is about something I've learned and how other writer's can use it themselves. The unique spin is that it's always personal, so it has a truthy feel to it.

4 - I made the blog visually attractive. This is actually something I'm working on, seeing how I have a Blogger template which is pretty basic. But I made sure that I didn't use too many varying colors and that the text was sized in an attractive, readable way. I break up the mundanity of my blog with a few photos, make sure to break up long sidebars, and keep everything proportionate.

5 - lastly, I networked. I linked to other blogs and websites that were helpful and went well with my blog's topic. After getting a few links, I started asking people to trade links with me if I found their blog and liked it. Many of them say yes. I commented on a lot of other blogs - surprising how many hits this garnered - and I put links to my blog wherever I could, making the link part of a longer hook that interests people. (hopefully)

-Feathers

brc23 · Sep 10, 2008

Super great advice...always an education around here.

The trouble I seem to be having is my email is at the bottom if people have questions. More often than not people email me personally, which is super great, but they say things I wish the public could see like,

"I've been trying to lose this weight for years, 2 personal trainers later you help me for free and more helpful than all of them combined!"

All I could think was, "Dang, why didn't you leave that in my comments so OTHER people would ask for help too"... :roll:

I think it's that when it comes to health and weight loss people like to be more private so I don't rely on comments to drive my viewers I have to have good content.

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