Wouldn’t it be great if your blog had a loyal band of readers who would keep coming back time and again for more. Wouldn’t it be great if they kept sharing your work on social media platforms and recommending your blog to all and sundry.
If you take a look at all the popular blogs out there, you will realise that almost all of them enjoy a dedicated readership base – a band of followers that contribute towards the blog’s success.
So how can your blog too have a dedicated readership that will propel it to success?
This is how you can create a loyal band of readers for your blog.
1. Identify your Target Audience and define their Information Needs.
You take the first step towards creating a band of dedicated readers for your blog by identifying your audience. Once you have done so, you need to identify which of their information needs you wish to target; keeping in focus at the same time your strengths and the defined niche of your blog.
2. Deliver Value – Every-time.
The next step would be to create content aimed at meeting those specific information needs as identified above. Thus if an article of yours is able to meet ‘effectively‘ a specific information need of your target audience, the same will be valued by your readers. I call this process ‘value-delivery‘.
1. Identify your Target Audience and define their Information Needs.
You take the first step towards creating a band of dedicated readers for your blog by identifying your audience. Once you have done so, you need to identify which of their information needs you wish to target; keeping in focus at the same time your strengths and the defined niche of your blog.
2. Deliver Value – Every-time.
The next step would be to create content aimed at meeting those specific information needs as identified above. Thus if an article of yours is able to meet ‘effectively‘ a specific information need of your target audience, the same will be valued by your readers. I call this process ‘value-delivery‘.
Now, I recall your attention to heading above which says that you need to deliver value ‘EVERY TIME’. Thus every time you post, you need to ensure that your content is satisfying a ‘specific’ information need of your target audience and thereby creating value.
An excellent strategy in this regard would be to scan the top blogs in your niche and identify topics with thin content. Target these topics by creating resourceful posts and you could see both your authority and readership growing quickly.
3. Remain Dedicated to your Niche.
Diversify within and not beyond your niche. To build and to retain a dedicated readership, it is important to remain dedicated to your blog’s niche and diversify within and not beyond a niche. By diversifying beyond the niche you risk loosing out on your existing readers.
4. Be Visible.
To build a dedicated readership its important to be more ‘visible’ to your readers. You can achieve this by:
- Being active on Social Media.
- Creating an ‘About Me’ page and linking therefrom to your social media profiles.
- Encouraging comments on your blogs.
- Replying to reader’s comments and queries ;actively’.
- Thanking readers for social shares.
5. Turn Visitors into Readers by giving them a Reason to Subscribe.
Turn visitors into readers by giving them a compelling reason to subscribe. Explain to your readers how they can benefit from subscribing to your blog – create a call to action by highlighting an information need (as discussed earlier). You can also award instant rewards for subscribing – a free ebook that summarizes some of your best information resources.
Other Tips to Gain More Blog Readers:
Other Tips to Gain More Blog Readers:
- Speed Up your Blog – Nobody wants to wait.
- Impress with your blog design and give visitors another reason to turn into loyal readers.
While all this might seem easy enough on paper, executing the same successfully would be demanding both on your time and efforts. You will probably see very little result initially, but give it time and you are sure to succeed.
It is also worth remembering that even the most successful bloggers have had to work hard, over a considerable period of time, to see the results; and the dedicated following that they now enjoy wasn’t built in a day.
Do share your views on the topic.
Do share your views on the topic.
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