This is a guest post by Matt Powers.
A successful blogger not only knows how to draw traffic to their site, they know how to keep their readers coming back time and time again. This requires a deep understanding of your target audience including their day-to-day concerns, their interests, how their problems can be solved, and much more. It sounds like a lot but there are some clear steps to help you achieve this more easily.
In time, by staying consistent, it will become like second nature to you. By keeping these five blogging tips in mind, you’ll increase the likelihood of being a highly successful blogger.
Building Relationships
Building relationships with your readers is a key aspect of successful blogging and in order to do this you not only need to interact with your readers but you need to be genuine and authentic by expressing true emotions while at the same time being informative.
If you aren’t authentic and appear dishonest, your readers will begin to distrust you and will eventually disappear altogether. Be sure your blog includes a personal touch that enables your readers to connect to you and to what you are saying. Be real and the relationships will build naturally with those interested.
Know Your Readers Well
By engaging with your readers, you’ll not only help to build relationships with them, you’ll get to know their needs which will in turn provide you with ideas on what to write about. This is one of the biggest factors in attracting people in your target market. What type of problems do they have that you might assist in solving?
One way to get to know your readers better is to survey them with a poll on your site/blog. You should also encourage interaction and feedback on every blog post with a call to action at the end asking the reader to share their thoughts and opinions. This builds engagement but also tells you more about your readers and what they want.
Meet Their Needs
Now that you know what your readers want, be sure to meet their needs. Use their questions to write posts that will provide the answers they’re looking for. This is a great way to earn trust and once you begin to answer their questions concisely, help with problem solving and provide other useful information, the more likely they are to share your content with others.
While a blog is a space to share your personal feelings and opinions, if you spend too much time focused on yourself, your readers will grow bored. It’s not all about you – unless you’re using the blog as your own personal diary.
Share Personal Opinions
Sharing a personal opinion is a great way to get your readers to interact on your blog through comments. Keep in mind that there are likely to be a wide variety of opinions on any given subject and not everyone will agree with you. Don’t worry about having a difference of opinion, as long as you aren’t attacking others; it’s all about pulling in traffic and getting people to talk.
Again, sharing your opinion doesn’t mean it’s a rant session. Say what you think and feel but invite your readers to do the same. And when they do, take time to comment. Be polite and encourage healthy dialogue. Your readers will come back again for engaging content and conversation.
Keep It Organized
Not only do you need to give your readers what they want, you also need to make sure they can find it. Most importantly, your blog should have a search field that allows visitors to search for a word or phrase on your blog. Make sure you assign categories to your articles so that they can easily be found. Give the reader every possible chance to find what they’re looking for or you might miss out.
It’s important to anticipate what your blog visitors want to read, meet those needs and show them exactly where they can find it through clear category names. The quicker they can find what they’re interested in, the more likely they are to continue to come back.
With these tips, you will have a well-balanced, informative and interesting blog that people want to read and share with their friends. Now all you need to do is come up with more original ideas for blog posts.
What advice do you have for giving your blog reader what they want?
