Get traffic and make your blog popular: 10 ways to get noticed as a new blogger

Want to make your blog popular? To get found and ranked high in Google Search? To get traffic to your blog? Read on to learn ways to get noticed as a new blogger.10 ways to get noticed as a new blogger

Starting a new blog isn’t always an easy thing.

I mean installing everything and making available your new blog on the internet may be easy, but we all know that that’s only a tiny part of what makes a blog grow to be successful.

 Note: This post may contain affiliate links. When you click on something I recommend and purchase it, I will receive a commission for the sale – at no extra cost to you. 

You want your blog to be noticed, right? Most people do! Not all people? Yep, not everybody.

There are those who talk about the big things they want to do with their blogs, the number of unique visitors they want to get from search engines, how many of those they want to turn into email subscribers, how many they want to click on their ads to make some income, how many page views they want every single day…

Then there are those who don’t only dream. They do. They take the necessary steps to make those dreams come true.

I believe you are one of those people, or at least, you are going to try for the sake of your blog and the people coming to it.

So, how do you get noticed as a new blogger?

 NOTE: For more ideas to help you find opportunities to get your blog noticed and ranked high on search engines, read the blog post Why Blog? 30 Reasons to Start a Blog

10. Do a top 50 – 101 list of some great blogs in your niche

The bloggers who run the other blogs in your niche may be your competitors; individuals after the same people you are after.

You can choose to look at them differently – as people doing the same thing you are already doing or want to do.

And what’s that? Solving problems for the readers who come to their sites.

Meaning? They share in one of your big goals – the goal to provide information that the readers like, find useful, helpful – in short, information that satisfies the curiosity or needs of the readers.

They are your friends, not your enemies.

Some of them will welcome you and spare you some time.

Some may see you as someone out there ready to eat their lunch.

I am sure the majority will be glad to share your posts with their readers once they notice the link coming from your top 50 – 101 blog post.

After all, there is room for everybody –  and most readers often look for the answers to the same questions on different blogs.

As Marcus Sheridan points out, your experiences, perspective and attitude can go a long way in helping you say the same thing that has been said a million times in a way your readers resonate with.

Write the post and link to the blogs. Then email each blogger you mention in your post with a link to the published post on your blog just in case they don’t get to see the post.

9. Comment on other blogs

What I like to do is this: Write an article and publish it on my blog, then visit any search engine and search for the title of the blog post I have just published.

Once I do this, I visit some of the sites listed. I obviously read the posts then leave a comment but I don’t link to my site’s homepage in the comment’s URL field.

I add a link to the similar post published on my site.

The comment must be good, of course.

To give you an example, I created a child theme for the Twenty Thirteen WordPress theme.

I wrote a post about the Twenty Thirteen child theme and published it on my blog with instructions on how to get it (hint: one has to subscribe to my email list to get access to the download link).

Guess what I did next? I searched for my blog post’s title on Google and found some blogs mentioning 2013 child themes.

I commented on a few and obviously mentioned the child theme I created, linking back to the post that talked about the theme on my blog.

See also  Cindy Buccieri: An interview on how to start a blog and grow it into a success - get the tips

There are days when these comments bring me no traffic.

But there are days when they do – which is a good thing.

Some things you should know when commenting on other blogs:

  • Be among the first people to leave a comment on a published post
  • Be a regular commenter on the blogs you like
  • Take note of bloggers who respond to comments and regularly comment on their sites
  • Mention, in the comments, something the blogger may have left out of their post that could be useful to other readers
  • Check if your comments have any replies and respond to the commenters if necessary

8. Link out

When writing an article, you might find another article published by another blogger that your readers can benefit from.

So, what you do is you link to it from your article.

This serves three purposes:

  1. Your readers are directed to more useful resources by you. This can help with your credibility. It shows that you are not scared of sending readers to another blog if that’s the right thing to do. It saves your readers time…and if you are worried, they’ll forget you and never come back to your site, remember that as long as you continue putting out useful posts on a regular basis, they’ll remember you and your blog – and they will come back.
  2. The bloggers you link to get new readers. They appreciate you noticing how useful their posts are to your readers. That’s why you are linking to them in the first place, right? Don’t expect them to link back to you or say thank you, but rest assured that some will write you an email saying thank you and asking you a question or two. Some may link back to you and send their readers your way. You just never know. Remember to send emails to the bloggers you link to, telling them how thankful you are for their resource. Also share, in the emails, your reasons for linking out to them.
  3. When you start doing this from the early days, you’ll tend to want to give your readers the best of the best even if that means directing them to another resource outside your blog, interviewing someone and publishing the email interview or podcast on your blog. You don’t become an impediment to your readers achieving their goals. You become the person who makes the process smooth, easy and memorable. People like that.

7. Start on a proper foundation

Be the person who learns and implements.

Master the basics of blogging. Know the few things you do that bring you closer to your blogging goals every single day.

That goal could be getting a few thousands more coming to your blog and subscribing to your email list.

It could be making a certain amount with your blog.

So, instead of playing with plugins and themes, dashing from Facebook, Twitter to the social network that’s getting a lot of buzz lately in the name of being busy building a successful blog, setup and configure the plugins and themes the right way then focus on the things that matter most.

Like what? Creating new content and publishing new posts to your blog on a regular basis or reaching out to other bloggers, businesses, leaders and allowing other individuals who can provide your readers with useful content to contribute posts to your blog.

If you need a place where you can find all you need to get started as a blogger, with a step by step instruction, get this How to Start a Successful Blog online course or buy the 100-page ebook with a similar title here.

As a blogger, there will be things baying for your attention that shouldn’t.

Deal with them right away then channel your energy on the things that will propel your blog to the elusive next level as Darren Rowse of Problogger likes to call it.

Have a blog mission.

Do your keyword research properly.

Decide if you want to start a niche site or have a multi-niche blog.

Decide how many times you want to publish new blog posts a week and what you’ll do to adhere to your set schedule.

Russ Henneberry of the DigitalMarketer blog wrote a great post on how to find writers for your blog.

Read it.

6. Introduce yourself to other blog owners

While linking out to other blogs and commenting on different sites on a regular basis can be a great way to introduce yourself to other bloggers, you can go an extra mile:

  • By visiting sites you like and sending the blogger an email. Some bloggers share their email address on their blog (on the sidebars or contact me page). If you can’t get the email, use their contact form
  • By calling them and chatting via Skype or leaving them a voicemail, for example
  • Telling them about a product or service you want to give to their readers. How do you do this? First, you can give them a few copies (licenses) to software they and their readers can find useful. What you are doing here is giving them a special deal, expecting nothing back in return but just the chance to know more about another blogger and a potential friend. No bugging them. No thinking they owe you anything. If you have a coupon, an addon or some awesome discount, let them know about it.
See also  Marcus Sheridan of TheSalesLion.com: An interview on content marketing and how to start a successful blog

5. Interview others

As a new blogger, who wants more people to find their blog, visit it, read posts, share some and come back to the site regularly, getting people to do interviews with you can be difficult but not impossible.

As someone who has sent interview questions via email a few times before, I can say that it is not easy.

Some will take you on your offer and do them.

Some will tell you how busy and pressed for time they are, and that you will have to plan to do the interview at a future date.

Here are a few things you should know:

It is easy for some people to do audio interviews (say if you also have a podcast) than receive questions via email and take their time to write out in-depth answers to each question you send them, before emailing them back to you.Get traffic and make your blog popular: 10 ways to get noticed as a new blogger

If you tell someone that the reason you want to interview them is so that they can share their knowledge with your readers, they are more likely to accept your offer on the interview.

Yes, it is a joy to interview some of the busy and popular people you admire, but your interviews are, as you already know, not for showing off.

The questions should be tailored to benefit the people coming to your blog.

Be specific about how their knowledge will benefit your readers even if your questions already provide a hint to this because guess what, you’ll have to first send them an email (or call them) asking them if they are willing to do the interview.

If they answer in the affirmative or you get a may be, that’s when you’ll provide them with more details and let them know about the questions you’d like them to answer.

I have done some interviews via email myself. You can read them below to learn how I framed the questions:

  1. Marcus Sheridan on how to start a successful blog: More than 11 tips you can start using now
  2. Benny Hsu of Getbusylivingblog.com: An interview on how to start a blog and grow traffic with guest posting
  3. How to start a blog and grow it into a success – tips by Cindy Buccieri
  4. Rob Cubbon: An interview on how to start a blog and make it successful
  5. Matt Smith of Onlineincometeacher.com: An interview on how to start a blog, promote it and make it successful

How do you get the busy and popular personalities to take you on your offer for an interview?

Interact with them, via their site’s comments section for example.

Get to know them. Let them get to know you.

As I mentioned above, comment on their blogs, introduce yourself via email etc.

You can also subscribe to their blogs via email and reply to them whenever they send an email to your inbox.

They are more likely to read these emails anyway, however busy they are.

You know how most bloggers treat their email subscribers a little more differently than they do the readers who just leave comments or contact them via their blog’s contact page?

I am not saying that they pay little attention to the others, but I have noticed in more occasions than I can count on both hands that it is easier to get a reply from some popular bloggers if you sign up to their email list and reply to an email they send you than it is if you just blast an email to them via their contact form.

4. Give something away for free, something valuable

Unlike in tip 6 where I told you to give something premium to a blogger to share with his readers when introducing yourself, here, you simply create something that your readers and basically anyone can get for free.

You can create a video course and give it away (choosing to give it to them once they opt in to your email list or not) or a tutorial packaged as an ebook, an infographic, a plugin, a theme, a custom made product or service to solve a particular problem a number of people suffer.

You can create this yourself or hire a freelancer to help you.

Think about one specific problem your readers experience, create an in-depth guide on it and give it away for free.

3. Don’t mess your site

Have you tried going to a blog and found several 404 not found errors or 500 internal server errors?

See also  Business blogging: 4 reasons every business should start a blog even if it doesn’t make them money

These happen for different reasons.

One of those reasons?

It is easy to get in the mode where you just make changes to your new blog, clicking here, clicking there, adding this, deleting this, changing this and that, sometimes not even knowing what you are really doing – all sorts of changes that can mess your site so that when readers come to your site they don’t have a pleasant visit.

So they leave.

And search engines notices these little things you know, and might assume whatever content they served their searchers isn’t useful.

And this can contribute in your rankings dropping to the bottom of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

You don’t want that.

You want your blog posts ranked at the top of the SERPs.

When your blog is messed, it also denies you the chance to solve your readers’ problems and give them the opportunity to share your post with others.

See how a messed site can cause you a lot of pain?

Then there is the big problem that is frustration.

When your blog is messed, you can waste many hours trying to restore it to the status it was in before.

Which takes away time that could be used creating new content, promoting blog posts you have already published or interacting with your readers.

And this slows down your chances of getting more people, the right people, from finding your blog, reading the posts you have published, signing up to your email list and becoming regulars.

As shown in this blogging course, you can create a site to test different plugins, themes and make changes – a site different from your main blog – reducing the chances of you messing up your blog.

I highly recommend you creating one of these – just for the sake of having peace of mind and more time to dedicate to promoting your blog posts.

Also remember to choose a good web hosting company. All bloggers need a dependable hosting service.

2. Let people know about your blog

I have talked about emailing others, linking out to other bloggers and commenting on other blogs.

Most new bloggers stop here.

But we all know that telling a few of our friends, strangers, parents or siblings about our new blog doesn’t cut it.

You have to be active about getting the word out.

As much as you spend more time promoting your blog online, remember that people aren’t online all the time.

They have a life outside the net, too.

Whenever you have a chance (create them, as many as you can) give out brochures to promote your blog.

Come up with a contest on your blog and promote it offline as well.

If you are offering a service or a product, there are many people who could spare a minute to listen to you share how they can benefit from it (or benefit from helping you promote the product or service – think giving them a commission for their hard work getting you new clients).

Most new bloggers promote their blogs yes. But some actively involve themselves and others in getting the word out about why people should come to their blogs. Notice the difference?

1. Have enough useful content published on your blog

You just started, that’s why your blog has less than ten posts? I hear you.

Remember the more posts you have on your blog, the higher the chances that a person who visits your blog will stay a little longer having found a post that they deem worthy of their time.

Say, you are promoting a new blog, with very few posts, you may get people to come to your blog but they won’t stay long and may not even remember your site’s URL once they leave.

Notice how the blogs you visit and read have more than ten articles?

Some have articles in the tens, hundreds and thousands all linked together in a way that makes you click from one post to another, right?

I mean it is like the blog owner knows how to get you hooked to their content and get you to spend more of your time reading post after post.

You want that too, no?

As Patrick Meninga says, as a blogger it is good to publish quality articles to your blog, but that is not enough.

He also, from experience, advocates for quantity – something some popular bloggers are against.

But the guy built a successful blog – and there is truth in what he says.

Keep publishing new posts to your blog – can be text only, images, podcasts, videos, infographics or a mixture – you decide.

With more posts, you’ll also get more opportunities to turn more of your readers into email subscribers, then customers.

Then you can spend some of the money you make on Facebook advertising, banner ads and Google AdWords to attract more of the right people to your blog.

Ready to get your blog noticed? Share the challenges you are experiencing, the tips you are already using and new ideas you are going to implement to get more people to notice you – and the work you are doing.

Like this post?

Share it with others via the social networks and the messaging apps you use. And share your thoughts in the comments section below.

2 thoughts on “Get traffic and make your blog popular: 10 ways to get noticed as a new blogger”

    • Alright Laurence.

      You can start by doing interviews (emailing people in your niche) or getting some guest posts going – and linking back to your pillar posts using a variety of anchor texts.

      Let me know how it goes.

      Reply

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