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10 Secrets to Connecting to People through Blogging
Blogs can be fantastic vehicles to connect to others on both a personal and professional level. But with thousands of blogs out there, your blog has to compete with others to gain attention.
Here are 10 secrets any blogger can use to make their posts stand out.
- Make it Relevant – Take some time when choosing the theme and title of your blog. You want to be able to deliver on the promise of your blog. Make sure it’s a topic that you will be able to write about frequently. And while creativity is great for the title, make sure it follows through on its promise. The last thing you want is for people to visit your blog once and leave disappointed because the posts were on a different topic than they expected.
- Make it Interesting – Don’t write a post just to beef up your blog. You want to make sure each post is interesting and adding value to the reader. The moment you start posting impertinent and uninteresting information, you will start losing your readers.
- Make Your Personality Shine – Even though computers seem sterile, people go to blogs to connect with the writer. They want your personal flare to spice up the content matter. So, let loose and let your true self shine through.
- Keep it Concise – The Internet is all about speed. Blog readers are looking for quick snippets of information. Keep the lengthy essays to print. If you do have a longer article you would like to share, provide a summary in the blog along with a link to the longer piece.
- Be Frequent – If you are looking to truly connect with your readers, you’re going to want to update your blog more than once a month. Many bloggers find adding new posts several times a week works best. If you are unsure how frequently your readers would like new posts, do a poll. This keeps your readers involved and helps you deliver what they’re looking for.
- Provide Your Opinion – Often, blog readers are looking for more than just information; they also want your opinion. Product/business reviews and commentary on recent news are just a couple of the ways that you can present your readers with your opinion.This will keep your blog fresh. And because your opinion is unique to you, it will also make your blog content unique.
- Use Media to Bring it to Life – Don’t just rely on your words to keep your readers interested. As the old adage goes – a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, all it takes is a picture or a video to get your point across.Mixing media in with your written posts will keep your blog interesting and your followers coming back for more.
- Don’t Forget to Promote – Once you’ve fine-tuned your content, it’s time to build your readership. You can help your blog grow by promoting it through social media. Each time you publish a new post, Tweet it, announce it via Facebook, and if you’re a business, post a link on your website.If you regularly e-mail your clientele, you can also send an e-mail when there are posts that you think are relevant. Just be sure not to overload their e-mail boxes.
- Incentivize – Another way to keep your readers interested (and bring in new followers) is through giveaways. Invite your readers to comment on a post; everyone who comments is entered to win the item. Once the giveaway has concluded, be sure to post who won. Hosting these giveaways will keep your readers coming back to your blog. This is because they will want to make sure they are entered into the next one.
- Participate on Other Blogs – Another way to build your followers and connect with others is to keep active on other people’s blogs. Be sure to read other blogs and comment on their posts. Offer to guest post on your favorite blogs — just like how this is a guest post from CreditDonkey for one of our favorite small business blogs, Profit On Knowledge. This not only will get your name out in the blog community; it will also provide you with the opportunity to see how others keep their content fresh and relevant.
Sarabeth writes for CreditDonkey, where small business owners can search and compare business credit cards to find the right one for their unique needs.
Related articles
- 10 Ways to Build Your Blog Readership (searchenginepeople.com)
- How to Create Blog Content That Connects With Readers (e1evation.com)
- Give Your Blog a Boost – 7 Rules for Becoming a Blogging Superhero (bloggingwithbeth.com)
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi there.
Really nice article.I think most of your points are very basics that everyone knows but seldom utilizes.Besides for every success one needs to get the basics right.
Hi,
I would like to add one more point to your list.
11. Keep It Real- I think it may be closer to hundreds of thousands of blogs out there. With all that competition a lot of bloggers, both new and seasoned, start to hype up their content to get new readers, who then discover the post is mostly hyperbole.
They may get some new readers, but they sure won’t do much connecting with them.
Mike
Michael Cole recently posted..Get Two Weeks Of Maximum Leverage For A Buck
Great point, keeping it real ties in to #3, having a personality. We don’t want to communicate with an anonymous robot, we want to know there’s a human element on the other end.
Charles recently posted..Identity Theft Statistics and What to Do
Twitter: larryrivera
Hi Mike I like your point. It is very important to keep it real. I think most people are smart enough to see through garbage.
Thanks for sharing
Completely agree with the need to keep it real and with the point about not forgetting to promote your content. Some traffic will come about naturally but there is a need to promote yourself and build a relevant audience. How your promote yourself online is a strategy in itself. This is a great post BTW!
Andrew recently posted..Writing better titles & meta descriptions
I like most your tip #3: “Make Your Personality Shine”. There are just too many boring “Me-Too” blogs out there. Whenever I find I new blog (in my preferred niches) with a strong personality I usually bookmark it and I come back to it.
Bill recently posted..Backlink Energizer
Twitter: AboriginalMama
Giveaways! Yes, this one I learned recently is really fantastic for building traffic, as well as interacting more with my readers. I built a few really great relationships with my first blog giveaway, and it turned into a huge success as well as left me with a few lessons learned in a good way.
Plus, I took a few experiments and it worked really well.
Delena
Delena Silverfox recently posted..Omnis Network Promotion Code
Twitter: larryrivera
Hi Delena, I use to be big into giveaways. In my personal experience if you offer to many giveaways you end up with a list of people who don’t want to buy anything.
I advise caution on using giveaways as incentives. It also depends on how you use giveaways. I am specifically speaking about giveaway events that are held online from time to time.
Twitter: http://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/
PERFECT. All are very true and Effective especially from 1 to 5 not to be neglected.
Blog is a very interesting stuff. People enjoy here, learn here, teach here and shared here this make blog very much popular. So due to such reasons visiters like to visit here again and again. Suppose your blog is not unique, not informative, not teaching something new also very dull presented then who want to waste its time by visiting here. So the tips provided by you are the sureshot ways to make blog best and better.
Thanks for sharing it with us. Have a nice day.
Twitter: rfcamat
I think participating with other blogs is one of the best ways to connect to blog followers. Ileane Smith is one of the bloggers in the blogosphere who do it right.
I guess the common problem for most bloggers is how frequent they could make a new post for their blogs. The commitment for the blog can be very hard especially if the blogger needs to maintain more than one blog. He/she has no other choice but to outsource it or to drop the blog or just leave the blog there. Anyway, whatever the decision is… It will surely affect the blog’s followers.
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