Bits of Advice on Growth and Readership
In the past, we’ve shared quick optimization tips, sharing plugins, and other tools to help drive traffic to your site. Over on The Daily Post, we’ve published interviews with popular bloggers on growing your site and building your readership.
Here are snippets from a great Q&A with author Cristian Mihai.
What’s your secret to building such a large following?
The secret is to do something you’re passionate about, something you care deeply about. Because if you do so, odds are that someone else will relate to what you’re doing. If every post you write means something to you, it’ll undoubtedly mean something to other people, too.
Another key aspect is consistency. It’s not all about quantity — posting every day, for instance — but also about quality. Readers should know what to expect every time they get notified that you posted something new on your blog.
Blogging is not a numbers game. Yes, as you become more popular it’s easy to lose track of things; it becomes more and more difficult to realize that those numbers are actually people. Every like, comment, and follow is an action performed by another human being.
Statistics only offer you a cold perspective of what’s going on with your blog, but what matters more is the level of interaction that you manage with fellow bloggers. Also, if you think too much about followers and such, you’re going to try too hard. And you’re going to fail.
What types of posts perform better?
It’s almost impossible to determine why some posts perform better than others. Sometimes it’s ironic, because you worked really hard on a certain piece — did a lot of research, tried to make it all come together in the most attractive way possible — and you just don’t get people to care enough to leave a comment. Other times, the exact opposite happens.
Popularity simply means how many people relate to what you’re doing. Engagement means how many people care enough — whether they agree or disagree — to actually respond. The goal is to figure out what it is that makes people follow your blog. What type of posts do they enjoy reading most? That’s when your stats may prove useful. If you analyze the posts that perform better, you’ll see they’re often similar in theme, structure, and so on. That’s what readers want most.
Ping-O-Matic 
Comments are closed.