For those of us who are hoping to turn our blog world into something more than a monthly cappucino, we’re going to need to get more readers!

Here are 10 Proven Strategies to Get More Readers

1. Write Well, Write Often

I admit, I get pouty when I make the effort to visit a blog and see the same ol, same ol’.   Remember to keep your blog current.   Some advertisers require 2-3 posts per week. Use the Schedule Publishing Tool in WordPress, and an editorial calendar if you find that helps.

2. Write a few Articles!

I’m not talking the regular post, I’m talking something in the unique niche that you’ve chosen. With a few well written articles each month, you can guest post or submit them to article directories. There are those that provide free advertising on a quid pro quo basis, and you’ll get more readers who are already interested in your niche.

3. Social Networking

Oh my goodness! The difference is unimaginable!! Two that I use are Facebook, and Twitter.   When I started on Twitter, my readership jumped over 50% and stayed up.  Now it seems Facebook is my forte – see you there!

It is great fun to see other bloggers in your niche.   Also, the more interesting you are, and the more transparent, the more people will like you and want to read your blog. Some people just shine in this arena! I suggest Twitter Tools and WordBook plugins to integrate those two social networks and ultimately get more readers.

4. Viral Marketing

This is fun! I just started this last year – I got business cards. At the time, they were more like mom-cards. Have you seen the cute designs out there? You’ll be amazed at the opportunities you have to spread the word about your blog. Give the cards to friends, family and even strangers.

5. Use RSS Feeds

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted. You will have feeds – several of them actually – automatically produced for you by the WordPress engine.   I suggest using FD Feedburner plugin, in combination with a Feedburner account making it easier for your readers to subscribe.

6. Submit Blog to Search Engines

WordPress blogs are automatically a big hit with Google.   And our custom designs since this Summer have been formed on the Genesis Framework allowing for the best SEO-friendly themes out there.  And already built into WordPress is the Ping-O-Matic pinging service. You may add to that service under Settings – reading if you wish, but it isn’t necessary. Just because your blog is crawled by google, doesn’t mean that it is loved by google though. You’ll have to do a little more work for that!

For starters, I recommend the Google XML Sitemap plugin to help the google bots crawl your blog for new content.  Then check out the SEO Basics conversation here, and Search Engine Finesse Series here.

7. Joining Forums

As a blogger you are building an online reputation. The easiest way to do this is to become a member of forums, bulletin boards, or ad websites that feature other bloggers in your niche. On my Strawberries blog, nearly ALL the traffic is actually from the Foodbuzz network – which also happens to pay me for running their ads! If you do join forums or bulletin boards, don’t forget to add a link to your signature  - you never know where you’ll get more readers.

8. Visit other blogs

Nearly every blogger out there started with only a handful of readers.  And nearly every one of those will tell you that the fastest way to grow readership is to find blogs to follow and comment on them.  Get to know fellow commenters and open the conversation.

Show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs. It is a kindness that shows others you are not just out to advertise your blog alone. And every little bit of conversation that you develop increases the chances of you developing great friendships, and wider readership.

9. SEO Marketing

Whatever you write, use relevant keywords.  If you’re writing about knitting, don’t avoid the word knitting in the article!  We should be using the keywords in our articles between 3% and 10% for maximum find-ability by the search engines.  Use title tags including your keywords for your links, and always use alt and title tags for your images.  When commenting, emailing, or leaving your link anywhere, always use the same format – either with or without the www.  The point is to be consistent.  Use the Google Webmaster tools to specify your preferred link, and then use google analytics to uses of the alternate one so you can correct the discrepancy.   See point #6 above for good resources into the SEO game.

10. Social Bookmarking

I know some popular bloggers that get a lot of traffic, and find a lot of use for stumble upon and technorati. They are the go – to locations to find any relevant links on ANY topic! So register your blog – they’re FREE!

The most important thing (in my opinion) is to love what you do. If you love it, you will research it, take pride in what you write, and keep it fresh and alive. When you are a real person, behind a real blog, providing relevant information it’s Blog Magic!

I’ll do the research.  I’ll read up on the best sites.  I’ll read the Webmaster documentation straight from the horses mouth.  And I’ll present to you digestible bits.  If you have trouble actually applying these bits to your website, lets help each other in the comment section of each topic.  Lets avoid publishing yet another article on SEO for beginners, rather I hope to help you digest & apply the information that is already out there.

Last week my 9 year old daughter was complaining about how slow the desktop computer is.  And I am in complete agreement – the thing is a dinosaur.   It really hit me, that I was talking about an old computer that is only 4 years old!  Do you remember the TRS80?  Now that is old!  That thing was not even windows-based; we had a big black screen from which we could type commands like run, open, close.

Today computers are common-place.  Netbooks were on sale last week for under $300.  Then consider that last October, there were on average, 3,133,333 searches per day[1. ComScore.com] on Google.   My point is that I know there are people who want to read what you have written, or purchase what you are selling, but the question is – can they find you?? Unfortunately great content is no longer enough to get your site in google search results.  Our sites need to be “search engine optimized” or SEO.

So, after much angst, I have decided it is time. Yes ma’am, it’s time we learn a few things about Google and getting our sites ‘listed’, don’t you think?  First, we’ll go over the easy stuff – installing a plugin or two.  And then each week, I’ll present some new bits that I’ve learned in plain English, along with step-by-step tutorials for optimizing our sites for search engines.

I’m so excited about this!  I know that I write great content – and I know there are lots of bloggers who want to read this sort of thing!  How about you?  Do you have your niche defined?  Are you a good writer?  Do you have content to share with others?  Would anyone be glad they visited your site?  If so, we have some work to do!!  Why don’t you join me next week, when we start with the basics of search engine optimization, and I will help you install some plugins?

Google was initially about measuring how popular the website is – the more popular – the higher the ranking. They develop an algorithm for this. This algorithm changed 400 times (says a reader in above site’s comments)last year. They are trying(very hard) to find the relevant sites for their users. The problem is that website owners have been working harder and harder to grab the attention of google (not readers) – and if this ‘popularity’ isn’t authentic, it corrupts the search results. All too often, we no longer find the most popular sites on google, we find the ones that are best at tricking the algorithm. So, I ask you, should we join the fight by trying to be better algorithm masters? Or is there an option that is equally good at marketing our websites?

First, one could argue that “SEO marketing” is a fleeting phase. In the abundance of websites, surely we will find a better way of searching, than a random search in an engine that we don’t know! And that is why social media is catching up to google in the internet marketing race. Social media is about the relationships, and is there anything in all of commercial history that markets better than word of mouth? (Perhaps the birth of the printing press… whatever.) I can easily see Social Media – and probably local social media, and real life meet ups becoming the marketing trend of the future.

This whole relationship thing, is precisely why this site has grown very little this fall. I’ve been working on the few clients that we have, instead of getting out there to meet people, and let them know that I’m here, and available to help! Nearly daily, I get emails of the nature, “I got your name from so-and-so, can you help me with ….?” Imagine if I actually got out there on twitter? I feel a marketing plan coming on…

There are two things that are a must for any website, regardless of marketing plans.
1. Is your site designed well, with clean HTML that all search engines, links, and browsers can recognize? Is it accessible to the mobile users, voice browsers, and sight impaired? This takes a good developer, which is undoubtedly more expensive than most. (More to come on this later…)

2. Once you get a reader to your site, will they stay? Will they read? Recognize the branding? Or make a purchase? The whole idea is to develop content for the readers, not the robots. My thinking is that if we write our content for robots, aren’t we contributing to the over-population of the internet? And making it even harder for potential readers to find us? I’ve always believed this, but haven’t had the proof to promote content over SEO for effectiveness.

This is where I encourage you to read that article at the beginning of this post.  It is a rather argumentative position (kind of funny actually), but makes some good points. And the conversation below the post is equally entertaining and informative.

Enjoy this link!

There is a lot of information to sift through to find the good stuff on SEO. For example, you want to use “keywords” to help the search engines know what your pages are about. But you can’t use too many keywords or your site will loose credibility. You want links coming into your site, but not too many. How much is too much? And how do you stay on top of these things?

This website is a great start: copyblogger’s SEO Article Series.

We heart your site, Mr. Copyblogger!