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5 Fool Proof Ways to Attract More Blog Traffic

Author: Ivana Taylor   |   July 18th, 2011

The best advice I ever got about blogging came from Anita Campbell, publisher of the award winning Small Business Trends with well over 100,000 subscribers.

It came on a day that I was feeling very down. I had been writing posts and…linking to other blogs, doing all the things I had read about but, my readership wasn’t increasing exponentially the way I thought it should.

That’s when Anita told me that attracting an audience was a lot more about persistence and consistency.  Building a thriving readership requires doing effective behaviors every single day and over time a sort of snowball effect will start happening.

Here are five easy-to-do daily strategies to incorporate into your blog marketing strategy.

1. Relate to your customer. The easiest way to get customers to hear you is to relate to them. How are you like them and how can you help them from your own learning experiences. Brainstorm and make a list of what you both like and dislike in your industry or niche. Write about how you are frustrated with “such and such” happens and how you overcame that frustration. Story-telling can be intriguing. Rope them in with your ability to relate to them through your own story.

2. Offer Solutions. Now that you have formed a relationship with the customer because you share the same likes and dislikes you can help them. You don’t have to be the decision-maker for them but simply offer different solutions to the problems or concerns. Even through your story you might have tried one solution and found that didn’t work and you tried another solution and found that was successful for you. You can point out that the first solution could have worked in perhaps a little bit of a different scenario.

3. Engage your customer. It could be that in your story you didn’t find a solution or maybe you want to hear how other people find a solution and what worked for them. Ask your customer direct questions in your blog and share from one another what worked and what didn’t work. Make sure that you follow through with commenting back to your questions. If you want your customer to speak up you need to let them know that they have been heard and their opinion does matter.

4. Get an expert. After your initial blog and you find out what people have tried. You could invite an expert in your field to help narrow the scope or explain why certain solutions work better than others. You will gain respect from your customer if they know they can go to your blog and find out the honest truths, the ins and outs and even get advice from a credible source.

5. A Note from your CEO. The face of the company is your CEO. People value the opinion of the top dog. Have your CEO contribute to the blog as an additional or the final piece of the topic at hand. Blog 1 was about your story and the introduction of the topic. Blog 2 was about offering solutions to the issue or concern. Blog 3 was about engaging your customer and learning from one another. Blog 4 was about offering credible advice from an expert. Blog 5 will close out your topic with a note from your CEO in regards to the topic at hand.

When you think about it, growing a blog readership is a lot like growing a flower from a seed.  With daily watering and sunshine it grows a little every day (it’s just invisible to you because the growth is all happening underground).

Then one day, a green shoot breaks through and you start seeing the fruits of your gardening. Blog marketing is very much the same.  Practice these daily behaviors with persistence, and you’ll see your readership grow.


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