Drawing visitors is one thing; keeping them coming back consistently is quite another.
The better the community you build, the less work you’ll have to do in the long run.
Not only will people keep coming back, but they’ll also become evangelists and you’ll get free advertising. The following are a just a few ways to build community on your blog:
Unite: Create stated values, purposes, and goals and a coherent philosophy and make them visible and accessible on your site. In other words, give people something to unite behind, or against. Give them a cause, something to believe in.
Exclusive Newsletter: People love the feeling of being on the “inside.” Exclusivity means special privileges and a feeling of belonging. An exclusive newsletter has been my primary
Contests, Promotions, & Giveaways: One simple contest on my site brought in 119 new subscribers in one week. People love contests, trivia, and freebies. Make them fun and interactive. Most importantly, make them effective—ensure that they actually promote your core goals.
Ask Questions: Finish posts with a question to encourage participation. Don’t just talk to people; discuss with them. Make it clear that you welcome feedback added insights, and disagreement. Don’t feel threatened by disagreement—feel flattered that people think your content is important enough to take the time and effort to comment.
Respond to Comments: Make people feel welcome by responding to comments and interacting with your readers. Show them that you respect them and their insights by taking time with them. Be a member of the community, not just an aloof leader. Be patient and respectful with disagreements, and show appreciation for compliments.
Add a Forum: This isn’t the right choice for every blog, but it may be right for yours. Give community members an outlet for discussion other than commenting on blog posts. This article will help you integrate a forum to your Wordpress blog.
Solicit Articles From Community Members: Sharing your platform with community members is an act of generosity, respect, and trust. It doesn’t mean that you’re obligated to publish every submitted article, but it can be an excellent way to encourage participation and secure loyalty.
Promote
Offline Publicity: Press releases, interviews, speaking engagements, and news coverage can boost your site traffic significantly. My friend Randy Hinton, for example, organized a political rally at the Utah State Capitol shortly after launching his site, Pyrolitical.
The major local news outlets covered the story and his site traffic spiked.
Online Publicity: Submit your content to content promotion and bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Furl, Newsvine,
and Squidoo. Also leverage social media, such as your Facebook and other social media profiles, to actively promote your blog.
Merchandise: Bumper stickers, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and other similar merchandise help to spread the word, create brand recognition, and drive traffic.
Advertise: If you’ve got the budget, pay for banner ads, advertise with Google Adwords, and use text link ads. Choose the right sites to advertise on and become an expert on Persuasion Architecture and Landing Page Optimization to make sure that your advertising dollars aren’t wasted.
Guest Blog: If your content is of high enough quality, even A-list bloggers welcome the opportunity to post it on their blog. The first step, however, is to make friends with such
Once you’re on their radar, offer them an article or two. Make sure that it’s relevant to their blog and audience, and don’t publish it in any other venue, including your own blog. Give them exclusive rights. The idea is to “piggy-back” the traffic of popular blogs, rather than creating your own traffic organically. Here’s a great series on the pros and cons and how to do it effectively.
Article Directory Marketing: This is a huge topic and one paragraph won’t do it justice. But you should know that this is a potentially huge source of traffic. Article directories, such as Ezine Articles and GoArticles, are clearinghouses for articles from experts on every topic imaginable. You give them free content and anyone can come to their site and re-publish that content on any website.
What you get out of it is backlinks, which are built into your articles. Assuming your content is relevant and written well, these articles can explode and spread exponentially. For example, here’s an article I wrote for a client. At the time of writing this, the article appears on 277 pages on a Google search.
Like anything, this requires work and dedication. Those who make it work swear by it, and it’s worked well for me.
Here are a couple more examples:
What People REALLY Want—And How To Give it to Them
The Top 5 Reasons Why You Should NOT Invest Your Home Equity
Here are a few resources to learn more about Article Directory Marketing:
The Article Marketing Blueprint by Matt Callen Simply PLR
Submit Your Article
Article Directory Marketing Blog
Conclusion
Marketing your blog must be an active and consistent process. It takes time, effort, and knowledge. It’s not something you can leave to chance. Focus the majority of your efforts on creating real value for others. Create world-class content at least bi-weekly, and daily if possible. Be patient as you grow your content. Optimize all technical aspects of your blog, such as Search Engine Optimization. Make friends both online and offline. Build a sense of community on your blog, then promote the heck out of it.
Additional Resources:
How To Market Your Blog by Tony Hung
5 Uncommon Ways To Market Your Blog by Neil Patel 25 Tips For Marketing Your Blog by Lee Odden
8 Tips To More Effective Blogging by Aaron Wall
Top Bloggers Reveal How To Build Traffic Off-Blog Without Spending A Dime by Jonathan Fields
Chris Garrett’s Blog Kinetic Knowledge Blog