Building up Your Blog: Traffic Takes Time
Awaiting traffic on your brand new blog is about as far as you can get from instant gratification. Even those who have been doing it for months or years may not see significant growth, despite efforts to bring in more traffic. And the same is true for building or becoming part of an online community. There is a lot of work involved not only in managing your own blog, but in nurturing it in ways that will help it to grow and flourish. There is a pretty big learning curve associated with such an undertaking, especially for those who have no base knowledge of how traffic is generated (which is a large portion of the blogging public). In truth, writing a blog is the easy part. Building up a following, on the other hand, requires a lot of time, effort, and patience.
However, there are a few things you can do to speed up the process (although you shouldn’t expect results overnight). The best way to start is by making sure that you have a niche, because there’s a pretty good chance than anything you are blogging about is already being done elsewhere by someone who has been around long enough to scoop up most of your would-be readership. So if you want to blog about nutrition, for example, you might be better suited to avoid a clinical sort of take on the topic (since there are probably plenty of nutritionists out there already doing the same thing, with the credentials to make them credible) and focus instead on making it personal (blog about your experience growing your own organic vegetable garden and the changes it has wrought in your life). This way you are making it your own, and you can always expand once you gain a following.
But don’t pat yourself on the back just yet. Starting your blog is only the first step. Now you must increase your visibility. Certainly people may wander onto your site, and they might continue to visit and tell their friends and so on. This is great if you want to have a couple hundred readers ten years from now. However, that might be a little more time and patience than you can spare. In order to reach people, you need to reach out. You can do this by joining related blogs and forums, in essence inserting yourself into an already existing community of people who are interested in the same topic as you. By communicating in these areas, you can learn to navigate the internet landscape, get the help you need to expand, and get your own name out there simultaneously. Again, this will not deliver immediate and unparalleled results, but over time, you should see a return on your investment, so to speak.
Finally, you need to ensure the return of any traffic you do get. Readers are a fickle bunch, especially the short-attention-span-theater variety that surf the net. So you need to provide content that is both engaging and fresh on a regular basis. Offering freebies and reviews once in awhile as added value couldn’t hurt, either. You also need to treat readers like customers by offering them personal attention. Respond to all the posts you receive and strive to form relationships. Make the time and you will see a payoff.
Sarah Mitchell writes for All Cases. The site specializes in custom carrying cases and a variety of others to suit your specific needs.
