After Years of Blogging, Still No Readers: What Am I Doing Wrong?
Years have passed and you still don’t seem to have a solid readership base. No, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a lousy writer. Maybe you just need to tweak a few things or slightly change your approach to blogging.
Take a look at a few things you might be doing wrong and what you can do about them.
1) Write for your audience, not just for yourself
If you were writing only for yourself, you’d call it a diary and not a blog, right? Blogging is about trying to reach other people. Your personal stories and anecdotes are absolutely valid and noteworthy, and they can certainly make your content more relatable and engaging, but getting your ideas across to a wider audience requires putting yourself in the shoes of your readers first. After all, you are doing this for them.
This will require you understanding the issues your audience faces and trying to relate your story to how you can help them solve those issues. Sometimes this means conducting small-scale market research or at least seeing what are the things people talk about in the domain you are present in.
Your ultimate goal should be to provide value to your readers. A study by The New York Times found that if the content is useful and people learn something from it, it will more likely be shared. People remember practical ideas more easily and are more likely to share them with their network if they serve a purpose.
2) Focus on one topic, not a hodgepodge of them
If you started a blog about personal finances and then publish a post about your amazing vacay with personal photos, you might be a bit off track there.
Build your blog content around a specific theme and/or niche. This is essential since you are probably trying to establish yourself as an expert on a certain matter and build your personal brand.
Readers expect consistency and addressing random subjects causes confusion. You need to create and retain a relationship with them so that anytime they want to find out more about a particular topic – YOUR topic, they come to YOUR blog. In a similar way, topic inconsistency confuses search engine crawlers because it’s not clear to them what the blog is about, which may affect your domain ranking.
Instead of trying to cover everything that one may find interesting, go in-depth on one topic, cover every angle of it and become recognized as an authority. This way, you’ll get a slight push from the search engines, rank better, and make it easier for new audiences to find you.
3) Create a content strategy and posting schedule
Now that we’ve sorted out the topic consistency issue, we need to talk about your content strategy. Do you have one? And what about a posting schedule?
Building a successful blog requires time and effort. No, it most often does not involve a romantic story of one post reaching millions of readers overnight. It takes time, a good plan, and regularity.
Readers expect regular posts. You have to be reliable, credible, and provide content in periodic intervals. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you need to crank a post out just for the sake of it! Quality over quantity is the main principle.
Always.
Plus, having a schedule helps you manage your time better.
4) Optimize your posts for search engines
Although this is quite an extensive topic, there are some rather basic things you need to do to make your posts SEO-friendly. By optimizing your blog, you improve your chances of ranking better in SERPs. After all, what good is all that effort in making your posts insightful and e
To bullet-point the basics:
- do a keyword research and create content around it,
- format your blog posts properly – use headings, sub-headings, lists, bold text,
- format your images and visuals as well – focus on image captions, alt text, and reasonable image sizes because huge formats affect loading speed (which we will talk about next),
- use SEO tools and plugins to make this entire process easier – we swear by
Joast SEO.
There is so much more to be done here, but just making sure you get these right can make all the difference.
5) Improve the design of your website
Did you know that 53% of mobile site visitors leave the page if it doesn’t load in three seconds?
That’s why you need to work on reducing the loading speed of your blog if you want your visitors to stick around. With over 3.7 billion global mobile users and an increasing number of people accessing the Internet via mobile devices, everything needs to be fast and mobile-friendly.
Also, the design of your website has a huge impact on the user experience your blog provides. Not only does a well-designed website give out a professional look, but it also captures the user’s attention and builds trust. At the very least, make sure it’s easy to navigate your site and that people can find the most important information quickly and easily.
6) Build an email list and promote your content on social media
Building an email list is probably one of the most emphasized steps in the blogging community. With 91% of consumers checking their email once a day, it is a very good place to start communicating with your readers.
In addition to growing the number of your subscribers, promoting your content across social media is also a way of making your blog discoverable. Depending on your target audience, pick the right platform and attract the right people who would be more interested in what you do and appreciate it.
Add call-to-actions to encourage sharing your content. In fact, if rebranding is part of your plans, combining a .ME domain with your blog name can turn your website address into a call-to-action. Plus, if you decide to connect your blog with your name, nothing says personal more
7) Connect and learn from other bloggers
As you can see, being a successful blogger requires learning, a lot! You are the content strategist, community manager, photographer and the IT person for your blog – all at the same time. The best way to start acquiring the knowledge you will need is by following people who already made it work. Research who are the bloggers in your niche and start reaching out.
Look at the topics they cover, think about their ideas, and use it as an inspiration to find your own voice. If you ever decide to build upon their ideas by providing a fresh perspective on something they wrote, make sure to refer and cite their work. That way you signal that you respect your fellow bloggers and prevent any legal and ethical issues in the future.
Another way of building good relationships with other bloggers and reaching new audiences is guest posting. And blogrolls are also a good tactic for boosting blog traffic.
Whatever you decide to do, be genuine, be kind and be supportive. It’s all about the community you create.
Ready to kickstart your blog traffic?
Like any skill or craft, growing a blog takes time. After all, it is about more more than just creating content – there is a variety of factors that can determine whether it gets read or not. We have tried to get you thinking about some key ones you should start thinking of. But the important thing to remember is that if one thing doesn’t work, it mustn’t stop you
