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Home » The Famous Blog » 3 Ordinary Blogging Tactics To Grow Your Audience

3 Ordinary Blogging Tactics To Grow Your Audience

November 14, 2010 - Last Modified: November 14, 2010 by Mike Nguyen

Blog Audience

We often ask “How can I attract more traffic to my blog?” without giving enough thoughts on “How can I grow the number of audiences on my blog bigger?”

We’re searching for ways, day and night, to increase the traffic to our blog, from link building to forum posting, link selling and buying, without finding ways to increase our blog readership.

Does the traffic mean much more than our audience?

No, I personally believe that audience is equally important as traffic and while we are focusing on building our blog traffic, we should not forget about how to grow our blog audience.

That’s because sometimes, traffic comes and goes, unless you make some hook to transform them into readers and subscribers. For instance, I received more than 1500 visitors for the article about 22 ways to make money online. However, after 2 days, my blog traffic’s back to normal. No conversion is made, no increasing in subscribers. You may argue that’s because SU is not a target source of traffic. Then, how’s about target traffic through Google? I agree it has a bit more quality, but again, if you don’t create some hook to transform that target into your audience, your blog is pretty doomed.

Audience is different. They can be your RSS subscribers, they can be someone who visit your blog often. They can even be newcomers who hear about your blog through viral effect. They’re a part of your blog. They tweet and comment on your posts. They spread your blog out. In the long-term, audience contribute greater value to your blog than the traffic.

People who can become your audience come from 3 different sources:

  • People who you networking to. They can be friends or people whom you talk to in an event or conference, who show great interest in your blog and may become your audience prospects.
  • People who know you through viral effect. They are the people who hear about your blog through the core audience, so they decide to check your blog out to get more information.
  • People who are from search engines. If you offer much value to them, they may become your audience prospect as well.

And here are the 3 tactics I often see A-list bloggers apply to grow their audience much more bigger

Write great posts

You may see writing great posts as a top item in many list, but to what extend a post can be seen as a great post and how you could write one?

The definition about a great post vary from individual to individual but according to lots of bloggers, great post is post that has 2 or more following characteristics:

  • From 2000 words and up. This is the first condition of a great post. It doesn’t mean short post is considered not a good post, but because longer post tends to contain more in-depth information.
  • It’s deeply researched. You can tell which post is deeply researched before author write it from facts, figures and graphs given in the post. The well-researched post makes readers put more trust into the validity of the information.
  • Contains lots of examples. I really admire bloggers who write post that has a lot of examples. I don’t know where they take them but examples give much more clarity for the content as well as motivate readers. Examples from author’s experience is better because it somehow connects the author’s personal life with readers.

Here’re 2 questions that you can always ask yourself to know whether you have written a great post or not:

  • Will this post be helpful to my readers?
  • Will readers are willing to share it with other people?

If you can really answer these two questions after you write, your post has a good chance of becoming a great post.

Create a Small E-book, Guide, Manual, How-to and Offer It For Free

This tactic works well in most cases. You spend several days or so creating e-books about a passionate topic of you. Then, let other people download it for free.

It’s really odd if you require them to subscribe to your newsletter and download the e-book. I mean, there are plenty of chances you could invite them to subscribe to the newsletter. In addition, if they really like you, they will subscribe right away, which leads to higher conversion than when you force them to subscribe to.

And don’t forget to promote your e-book through friends and your network so you can grow more audience.

When Corbett at Thank Traffic blog offers his e-book, “18 months, 2 blogs, six figures“, for free, guess how many people he attracted? Over 7986 readers come to his blog over the past 5 days and among them, some may become his main audience. What he has achieved so far really motivates me into publishing my own manifesto soon.

Pay Attention To Offline Promotion

As I observed, most bloggers still don’t have a business card which they can trade to people who care about blogging in social media events or conferences.

It’s a very big mistake because as I learn in my e-commerce class, according to a research, offline promotion leads to 1/3 sales online. So, if we assume you hand out 1000 business cards to people, you have a good chance to attract at most 300 people to your blog.

In addition, business cards are easy to print and buy today for as low as 1 cent per card. You can go to VistaPrint or Print Place to print a whole box which contains about 250 card for you.

Any missing point?

Those are the three things I see most bloggers apply to grow their blog audience. Do you have your own way that you want to share with us? Please comment below..

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Filed Under: Blogging, How To Blog

About Mike Nguyen

Follow @eblogcamp

My name is Mike and I'm the owner of eBlogCamp, which dedicates to help fellow bloggers succeed in increasing traffic, building backlinks and making profitable amount of money from blog. Besides blogging, I also love cooking and I'm a pretty good cook myself. Visit me at my blog eBlogCamp.com and learn great deal about blogging with each other.

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{ 49 Responses }

  1. Mark says:
    Wow. 2000 words. Now that is a long post. Most of mine are about 300-400 words. Personally, being that I am a man of few words, I believe that if it can be said with less, say it with less, but that's just me. I don't think I have ever read all the way through a 2000 word post. But you are correct. Generally speaking longer post are more authoritative and that is important for the success of any blog...long term. Nice post Mike, cám ơn bạn. Mark
  2. Lalit says:
    Thanks for the share!! I hope this will help novice Bloggers like me :)
  3. Renewable Ray says:
    I knew an eBook was in my future, think I'll take you up on that suggestion and get to work.
    • Mike says:
      It's like every one is making an e-book now! That's awesone! Good luck with your e-book, mate :)
  4. Arslan says:
    really nice and informative post, Thank You, i have a poetry blog so should i make an e-book regarding my poetry with my blog link in it? Thank You!
  5. Arslan says:
    Thank you for this post, it was quite helpful, I have a poetry blog(please can u give me an idea on the e-book?), so should i make an e-book with my poetry in it...? Your reply will be really appreciated Thank You.....
    • Mike says:
      About making an e-book, I think you should figure out what people are struggling with, so your e-book can assist readers in solving their problem. For example, several people may not know how many types of poetry there are? How to write one? Just to give you some idea :) Good luck with your ebook!
      • Arslan says:
        Thank You! those are some excellent ideas themselves...i shall think more on it....
  6. Tinh says:
    Great points and I am planning to do the #3 as requested by my readers. Thanks
    • Mike says:
      Cool, Tinh! I hope you can do one in affiliate marketing, with coupon sites and cj.com. That will be awesome :)
  7. Karen Cruz says:
    Hi Mike, I swear I'm not stalking you, just in a very hungry for knowledge mood today ;) I haven't really discovered a way yet for doing some offline promotion, but then again I never really thought about. Because my site is online, I have only focus on promoting online. Most of my audience does come from commenting on other blogs as well as networking in blog communities and forums. I found that supporting others in fact gains support. Great tips you ave given.
    • Mike says:
      Thanks for the comment, Karen. I'm glad that I could help you out with several issues recently. Speaking about offline promotion for your niche, I have thought about several ideas that you may apply them: contact newspaper in your university and post a poetry with your blog link (I noticed in my university paper they have a column for poetry), post a poetry in library and participating in poetry club. Just several ways I see people are doing in my campus. These ways really caught my attention so I just want to let you know :) Cheers! :)
  8. Jeevan Jacob John says:
    You may consider this as an ordinary list, but the way you have addressed them is surely extra ordinary. The comparison between Audience and Traffic is really good (I never thought about it). Writing Great Post is an important step ! I agree. I also love that you talked about examples (I love reading articles that contain examples). (I will surely try to ask those questions from now on). I am working on a E-book right now (Well I was, I want to finish it and release it to the public). I have a question for you : Does it really matter how many pages of content we have in our E-book ? Offline promotion. For me its about telling other people - word of the mouth. Your article really helps newbie bloggers like me. Thanks ! Anyway, Great Article Mike !
    • Mike says:
      The length of an e-book should not be a matter. But it also should not be too short. My prefer length is 40 - 60 pages to one report or ebook which is release free. The most important point in an ebook is, you go straight to the point and address your personal experience. Think about it! How many times you get bored reading at guide fo SEO and blogging that have been existed in the market for years? Surely you are bored enough, right? So, give readers something fresh, something from your own unique view. They want to hear your opinions! They want to hear your inner voices! Moon over Experimental in Passive Income released a free ebook recently that I think it served as a good guide for all of us. Check it out :)
  9. TJ McDowell says:
    So, as far as the 2000 word blog post, I've actually heard arguments from other pro bloggers that around 400 is optimal. How did you come up with your number? Are you doing something completely differently than a blogger who writes with 400 word posts?
    • Mike says:
      You can consider it as "reinvent the wheel" or try to stand out from the crowd. I think short posts are .. short and sweet. They don't take up much time to read and consume. However, I have seen quite enough short posts in my life. So, instead of writing short posts, you can, sometimes, create a very long post that contains a great depth of information for your readers to act as a link bait post. Of course, long posts will take you up longer to write. I wrote several long posts on my blog already and one of them attracted over 2000 visitors in this month, getting stumbled a lot of times, so I think they were totally worth my efforts :)
  10. Lauren Ashley Miller says:
    Great post! I would add in including your blog url to your email signature - this has helped me get new work, as my blog is another way to promote my SM consulting/web design business. Also, commenting on other, more successful blogs can get you noticed, which means more traffic, when your comments are intelligent and insightful.
    • Mike says:
      What's the email client you're using Lauren? If you are using Mozilla Thunderbird, there are some very nice email signature templates that you can use online. Try them :)
  11. Pete says:
    Hi Mike, Offline promotion works really well, business cards are for sure the first step. Add a T-shirt with your URL and some graphics, or whatever you like. Just make sure it is clear, then wear it to the next event/seminar you go to. Trust me you will cause a buzz, people will ask you who you are, and where did you get that T-shirt. Have a few extras made, in various sizes, so you can give them out. Pete
    • Mike says:
      I'm sure the T-shirt will be very helpful in event like Blog World Expo which just happened not a long time ago. Did you watch several keynotes of speakers in that event, Pete? Oh, I love every minute out of it :)
  12. Peter from Blogging Mechanics says:
    Very good article. I think that the most important thing is whether people can learn something that they can apply immediately in their business. If the blog is constantly publishing good content that is not general, well-known tricks, but can give some advanced information that can really help, then the readership and the audience will follow.
  13. Karan says:
    I always make sure that I include real life experiences into my blog posts and thus helping my readers learn from my experiences.
  14. Alex says:
    Hey there Mike, I agree with Lisa, treating your readers/commenters like human beings and not thinking of them like cash spewing machines will certainly increase your audience and subscribers. Giving freebies can have some effect but I think it's kind of cheating, and some will only come for the prizes. Best friends are those you gain not those you buy. And it goes without saying that writing great posts will bring you more people because if the viral effect . Have a nice one Mike!
    • Mike says:
      Thank you Alex. Glad that I did not make lots of mistakes in treating people so far. I have made several good friends online and I feel blogging is so great. How's about you,mate? You have a good one, too, Alex :)
  15. Henway says:
    I dun think having traffic that doesn't convert to an audience is that bad.. as long as it converts to SOMETHING, such as a sale, or a lead. If it's just someone who comes along and reads your content, and stops visiting your blog, then yes, it's pretty much useless.
  16. Isabel Rodrigues - Pro Blogger Journey says:
    Thanks for sharing this wonderful post. I have often neglected offline promotions. You can call me lazy for that. But yes I believe its a very effective way to grow your audience afterall marketing in any form is valuable :D
    • Mike says:
      You shouldn't be lazy Isabel :) Just take a small step at a time. Sites like Themesforest offers lot of choices in business card designs. VistaPrinting also offers you to make business cards for free. Or you can create for you a challenge in offline promoting and see if you're up to that challenge 1 month later. I believe it can help to create several motivations for you today. Good luck :)
  17. Mani Viswanathan says:
    It's very important to do offline promotions. They don't give any SEO Juice, but create a good impression for you & your blog. Though many bloggers including me fail to do it :P (Being pretty frank)
  18. Abhimanyu Singhal says:
    Nice tips. I believe that replying to comments (on your site), guest blogging and social networking are some other ways too..
  19. Dana says:
    Grow the audience -- or I can said as visitors capturing -- is very important to make a blog become success. And thanks that you share how to do it rightly. I think the freebies offering is a great strategy for it.
    • Mike says:
      One of the thing I have missed during the launch of my blog is I don't have the freebies to offer to my readers and increase the number of the subscribers. But, I'm working for one. Thanks for the comment, Dana :)
  20. Patricia says:
    Hi Mike That was a really comprehensive list. I have found I have grown my audience by commenting on other blogs, RT posts with a comment and answering my readers questions promptly. By interacting with other bloggers it builds community and it definitely helps with spreading the word about my small niche blog. I have started using business cards off-line. Plenty of social occasions to hand them out. Then this morning while I was out with a friend in a cafe I had a woman approach me who recognised me from my photo on my blog!!! She visits my blog and then introduced her friend to me. Often off-line if someone is in business or wants to know about the products I am now selling; they will first ask if I have a business card. Now carry some in my bag for just such an occasion. :-) Patricia Perth Australia
    • Mike says:
      What a great example to show all of us here, Patricia :) That's exactly what I have been taught about; offline promotion will lead to online sales -- in this case, online interaction, online traffic and online friends. Thanks for commenting, Patricia.
    • Karan says:
      Seems that you're pretty popular! I wish somebody would recognize me too that way! hehe!
  21. Ardorm says:
    Nice article! I totally agree with you about the importance of the audience. I've been using autosurf for about two months in order to get traffic. Of course, non of the visitors were interested in my posts. A week ago I decided to stop wasting my time on traffic and I started gain slowly interested visitors through search engines, appropriate directories and so on. Right now, I do have a less number of visitors, however, they bring a greater benefit than "surf-visitors".
    • Mike says:
      Speaking of that, Ardorm, I also used "surf-traffic" before, of course, to another niche site which I am working on. The surf traffic sucks! It's totally a waste of money and waste of time. At the first day, the traffic looked pretty good. However, I found my bounce rate particularly and well, no one is interested in my site. So I changed the strategy. I know I have to target some key phrases on Google and optimize my site for. The result has not been showed yet and I am starting to get some rank on Google right now :)
      • Ardorm says:
        I am almost in the same situation. Of course, my results aren't as good as yours, however, it goes the same way. As soon as I started to pay attention at keywords and titles, I reached a certain result: I type "Inposts" in Google and my site is shown as the first one ;-P I really doubt I would get to the same level if I didn't stop using only "surfs"...
  22. Bill says:
    I'll throw in on the point about providing a free e-book download. Have had some huge success on a few blogs doing this. Took a few days to put together and, honestly, it was nothing special - basic and solid information on the topic with a few links back to the blog. As soon as it was put into play my email list started to grow right away...awesome way to grow your list and get readers back to the blog. Good point on the offline promotion..will look into that next. Thanks for the post!
    • Mike says:
      Thanks for the comment, Bill. I think the more time you put into the e-book, the more links and visitors you can attract. The first thing is always about content; I have seen many bloggers take PRL product and offer them to readers to opt-in. However, PLR products are often short in content and not unique; which can harm them more than doing any good. Secondly, I prefer the design will be stunning; first impression always count, you know. Awesome comment, Bill :)
  23. Ryan Biddulph says:
    Hi Mike, I believe you hit on key pointers here. Writing a great post is where it starts. Crafting usable content can create a viral post. Write something that your readers can use immediately. When your content is easily digested and applied your readers will come back for the next post because we all seek value, know-how and expertise from bloggers. I like to keep my posts short and sweet but sometimes go up to the 1500 word level. Ultimately, whatever works for you AND more importantly, your audience ;) Thanks for sharing your insight. Ryan
  24. The Bad Blogger says:
    Well... quality content is I believe one of the very best to create, attract and also boost credibility for any blog, but traffic some how don't... for the reason quality usually MOST of them aren't found on the first page of every search term... do they? I doesn't know any way other then the three you had listed... but I still vote for quality content... may be there's other way but as you already know... nowadays people want quality more then quantity... that's a fact !
    • Mike says:
      Creating quality content is hard; you need to be an expert in what you are writing about, that's the first thing, as credibility always lead to attention people have for you. Then, you need to know how to transmit the message, the content that you want to say to your readers. It's not only about words; it's about about tone, word using, etc. Lots of stuff. And I'm still on my journey to find my own formula to create a good content blog. Still hope I can find it :)
  25. Devesh - WordPress Hacks says:
    Great post Mike. These are awesome tactics to grow your blog audience. Thanks for sharing this awesome Post. Great work !!
  26. Lisa says:
    Great post Mike! One thing I find helpful in building an audience is engaging your readers. Stop selling them and talk to them. Respond to their comments, answer their questions and if someone comments your blog...take a few minutes and head over to their site to see what it's all about. I like how you differentiated between traffic and audience...I never looked at it that way before!
    • Mike says:
      I used to reply to every comment on my blog post but I think I'll switch to reply just the important now. Some comments, you know, they have a "relational" attitude where commentators just want to establish connection with you and appraise for your hard work. Other comments like question, critics and feedbacks are the one which I have to target to. They need to be addressed right away. Otherwise, it will be pretty bad for me :) But, I like your comment. Thank you for commenting, by the way :)

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