You’re Blogging. Anyone Listening? Five Tips to Build Your Blog’s Traffic.

You’ve made the commitment to blogging. You’ve even put it on your calendar and have become a blog-writing machine. One blog post a day. No topic is off limits. All of a sudden, you lift your head up and wonder why your readership is so low and, holy cow, why no one has commented on one of your posts in weeks.

You’ve got a choice to make here: Get discouraged or regroup. If you choose to regroup (as I hope you will), here are a few tips that might help you increase traffic to your blog and expand your audience:

1. Learn everything you can about your audience. This will help you understand exactly what the people you’re writing for are interested in learning.  Oh, what’s that? Your audience is everyone? Really? Everyone? It’s time to have a brainstorming session with a small group of trusted advisors, narrow your scope, and tailor your message to your audience.
2. Be relevant. This means you have to ask yourself the tough questions about the content of your blog: Who Cares? So What? If your blog post doesn’t provide value to your audience, it’s back to the drawing board – or blogging board – for you. Delete, and begin anew. Nothing to say? Save your writing for another day. Otherwise, you may very well have a snoozer of a blog post.
3. Be remarkable.  Ho-hum has got to go. When you sit down to write your blog, think about blogs that you look forward to reading. You know the ones I’m talking about, the blogs you immediately read when that email notification arrives in your inbox. Here are a few of my favorites:
   Content Marketing Institute
   flyte new media
   Christopher S. Penn
   UnMarketing
   
4. Be social. Write your blog in a conversational tone to encourage reader comments and shares. That means it’s okay to use contractions and informal language. After all, you’ve done the research, and you’ve become friends with your audience. Your blog shouldn’t read like a stuffy speech to a group of strangers.  (If you’ve got a stuffy speech for a group of strangers, re-write it as though you’ve already made friends with this group.)
5. Avoid acronyms at all costs. This is a logical next step to being social. Acronyms and corporate speak are exclusive, rather than inclusive. If you want to expand your influence, your words should be welcoming to, and readily understood by, anyone who wanders through your blog’s pages.

Good luck in your blogging adventures. Got any favorites of your own? Post below and we’ll check them out.