6 Easy Ways to Grow Your Blog

When you write a blog, it’s easy to just plod along, writing a few posts here and there. Thousands of people have blogs and are happy to keep them going as they are, and that’s just fine. If you want to step up your blogging though, to gain more traffic and up your game a bit, here are 6 tips to help you along the way…

1. Speak your mind. It’s easy to just be very bland and middle of the road, and that’s great if you don’t want to upset anyone or ever disagree with people. It’s boring though. If you fail to ever come down on one side of the fence or the other, it’s not fun to read. People love to read opinion pieces, even if they disagree with what you have to say. One of the most popular posts on my blog was one that really divided opinions among bloggers.

2. Refresh evergreen content – and promote it! Some posts are only relevant for about a week after you’ve written them. Others, for example recipes, tutorials, reviews and informative lists like this are evergreen – they won’t go out of date. Go back over your old posts and refresh them a bit. Perhaps add a graphic, check there are no updates to information, make sure they’re still relevant. And then share them on social media. This is great for taking part in #ArchiveDay on Twitter, but also posting to the #ArchiveDay Facebook group, and  onto your own Facebook page.

3. Be nosey  – if you’re struggling to come up with content for your blog, just be a bit more nosey. Unplug your iPod and listen to conversations on the train, on the bus, in the queue at Tesco. Read a newspaper or magazine you wouldn’t normally read, or have a conversation with someone you wouldn’t normally chat to. These are all great ways to broaden your horizons and find new topics to talk about on your blog.

4. Look at what others are doing  – and respond, but don’t copy! It’s fine to write a blog post on the same topic as a fellow blogger – but don’t just reword what they are saying. If you can’t add something new to the conversation, question whether it’s really worth posting at all on that topic. People don’t want to read ten versions of the same blog post; they want to read different views and opinions!

5. Write as much as possible – I am a firm believer in the ten thousand hours theory – which states that it takes ten thousand hours of practise at any given thing in order to become an expert. I’m not suggesting you set a clock and spend a full ten thousand hours writing – but the more you write, the closer you will get to becoming an expert, therefore better writer.

6. Be sociable! Ok, this one is not strictly about your blog – but there’s little point in writing a cracking post, hitting “publish” and then just sitting back with your feet back. Sharing links to your blog posts on social media is marginally better, but neither is great for getting lots of traffic and engagement. Chat and engage with people. Share links to other sites and blogs, photos from your daily life, little videos or random ponderings. People love to see there is a real person behind the “brand” – so let them see you!

Do you have any other top tips to add to my list? If you’ve grown your blog lately, how did you go about it?