How can I grow my blog quickly?
This is the question that most blog and website owners have on their minds. Whether you work as a blog writer, or just looking to grow your personal blog.
When someone talks about growing a blog, the first thing that comes to almost everyone’s mind is; DOING SOME MAGIC SEO TECHNIQUES.
No doubt, SEO is absolutely important when it comes to growing your blog. The higher traffic you get, the more people you can reach with your content, the more brand sponsorship you can get, etc.
The benefits of blogging are enormous. Especially as a freelancer, it helps you move your business from the position of merely completing tasks to a full-blown business.
You know, people just tend to generally take you more seriously when you have a good online presence and a strong opinion in a niche.
Growing a blog involves a lot of work, let no one deceive you. The truth is that you will get a good result when you channel your work aright.
In this article, I will be sharing with you secrets no one tells you about growing a successful blog.
1. CONTENT IS A BIG DEAL – PUT IN THE EFFORT
I chose to share this secret as the number one secret because it is really important. At the same time, I feel like it is quite underrated.
The truth is that if I were to just talk about one secret to blogging success, then it would simply be CONTENT. There is actually no blog without content. The content that you have on your blog is what will keep your audience engaged, it is what will make them keep coming back.
Forget about any short-cut to creating content. If you want to build a successful brand with your blog that would attract businesses, then creating valuable content is the way.
Creating great content for your blog doesn’t just happen by chance, there are some things you need to do. To make that happen, you need to:
a. Understand your audience and niche
The first step to getting your blog content right is by first understanding your audience and narrowing down your content to the need of your audience.
Once you have a clear understanding of who your audience is, then it is easy for you to satisfy them with the kind of content that you create.
This is basically what niching is all about.
Some new bloggers already get frustrated at the mention of niching. Whether you like it or not, you will have to niche (consciously or unconsciously).
This is because you will definitely write the kind of content that some groups of people will find useful. I think it is better for you to just be intentional about it from the scratch.
The truth is that you cannot be talking to everyone.
When you try to talk to everyone, you will end up talking to no one. I remember when I started writing blog content, I did not quite understand the audience I was writing for.
Because I did not understand the audience to a good extent, I struggled to put myself in their shoes to think of the kind of articles that they would find useful.
I hated creating topic lists, but when I got to understand the audience I noticed that I created content that they found more useful.
Example;
My audience was basically job seekers. When I had not understood them well, I created content like;
“Top 10 career in 2018”
This kind of content is not bad so to say, but it did not meet my target audience’s pain point. It is simply not the solution that they need.
When I got to understand my audience better, I created content like this;
“Top 100 Interview Questions and Answers to help You pass Your Job Interview in 2022”
This appealed more to my audience, as the article was ranking on google’s first page for the target keyword.
The article also had more views, comments, shares, etc. It just shows that my readers could connect with it better than the previous one because it is offering a solution to their problem;
PASSING A JOB INTERVIEW IN 2022.
Although, it might take you a while to discover your perfect niche. You can move from general to specific.
If you are about to start a blog, You should at least know the large audience you want to talk to.
For example, if you are interested in food. You can start a food blog, and generally talk about different kinds of food, etc. As you continue to write, you will discover your strength and what your audience appreciates the most.
For instance, you can niche and blog about African food recipes. The most important thing is that you have a big picture.
b. Write for your readers – they are the reasons you blog
If you want to build a successful blog, then you should understand that it is all about your readers and not you.
This may sound selfish, but it is how humans are wired. Everyone is interested in something that will benefit them. Never forget.
Your readers also think like this. If your content is not about educating them, informing them, or entertaining them, then they are not interested.
This is the mistake that you may be making. I also made this mistake at the beginning of my career in a recruitment company.
When I started writing for the company’s blog I wrote articles that I found interesting. I wrote topics like; “Career options for introverts”
I found this interesting, but it was not meeting the urgent needs of my audience. It is not the solution that they are looking for.
When I took myself out of the picture, I started writing articles that my readers will read and then lead them to take an action. Articles like;
“CV templates for all job fields (easy to download and edit MS Word CV templates)”
This article got thousands of views, comments, shares, etc. This article led me to create an online CV course to better meet the needs of my audience.
The truth is that your readers will come back when they believe that you have something useful for them.
If you truly want to grow your blog, then provide content that your readers will find beneficial.
c. Give out your Knowledge/Secret information
This is one of the biggest blogging secrets that no one tells you. This is one strategy that top bloggers use to gain loyalty from their readers.
I understand that it could be tempting for you to hoard information especially when you have discovered something that is working. I know.
The thing is that the more you give, you more you get. That is basically how it works.
The truth is that when people search on the internet, they are basically looking for the best answers to their questions.
When you give out secrets that you know your audience will find useful, they will love you for your openness and will definitely come back for more.
Asides from gaining the loyalty of your readers, giving out secrets on your blog have a way of improving your blog’s CTR.
You know that everyone clicks on the first result in Google’s SERPs. People will still click on later results or even click and scroll through pages 2, 3, 4, or even more if they have not gotten the answer they need.
If you are in the hair or wig niche, you can give out your secrets about finding a good hair vendor, or about how you spend less and make more profit on your wigs.
For example;
on my YouTube channel, I uploaded a video about hair/wig business that you can start with N100, 000 or $200.
I have never heard anyone talk about the tips that I shared. These are tips that I discovered myself during my experience.
Giving out secrets on your blog is a great way to provide your audience with valuable content that they will absolutely find useful.
2. EVALUATE YOUR CONTENT – TAKE AN OBJECTIVE LOOK AT YOUR BLOG
It can be really tiring if you have been blogging for a while, but not making the progress that you would love to see.
I understand the frustration of putting in the work, but not getting the desired result. If you have been doing something that is not working for a while, then you obviously need to take a step back.
Taking an honest look at your blog will help you plan better for the future.
a. Be objective and open to change
If you sincerely want to grow your blog, then you must be open to change.
When I started writing for blogs, I was just writing and my ideas and topics were all scattered, unlike now that I like to build topic clusters around my pillar contents.
When I noticed that my content ideas were scattered and not intentional, I discovered that I found it difficult to add useful internal links to my articles.
I had to objectively take a look at the blog that I was working on and find out the kind of content that would work best.
When I did that, I noticed that I began to create more valuable content.
If you think that it would be challenging for you to objectively take a look at your blog, you can reach out to an experienced person for help.
There are tools that can also guide you. Google search console and analytics can give you an idea of the kind of content that your readers will love.
b. Try new content ideas around your niche
When it comes to blogging, you can’t say for sure that something will or will not work if you don’t try.
If you are not getting the result from your blog, then it does not hurt for you to try something new. Trying something new may guide you on the path to growing your blog.
When I started writing, I got used to writing the “5 tips” kind of article. Later, I discovered that I was not getting the kind of result that I needed for the kind of article that I was writing.
Then, I decided to write about research and useful industry statistics. I noticed that my readers were interested in industry trends. This kind of article helps to increase backlinks.
c. Revamp old articles
I really do not encourage deleting an old post, except it is unavoidable. If you are trying to rebrand or switch niche, then that is fine.
But if you just feel like the content that you have on your blog is not good enough, then you can easily revamp it.
You can go back to add more words, and images, and improve the general SEO of your old article to just make them better. Revamping your old low-performing blog posts will help your content to reflect the recent status of your blog.
3. UNDERSTAND THE ROLE THAT SEO PLAYS
When new bloggers hear about SEO, they get scared because they feel like they do not have the skills needed to write SEO content.
Even if you write amazing content, the essence of the content is defeated when no one gets to see it. I know that content is king, but you want to write the content that will get seen.
You want your articles to show up on result pages when people search for related answers right? The best way to achieve it is by writing SEO-friendly content.
How can you write SEO-friendly content?
When you talk about SEO, there is on-page and off-page SEO. As a blogger, you can first concentrate on your on-page SEO before moving to off-page/technical SEO.
You can work on your on-page SEO by doing the following:
a. Use target keywords in the first 100 words of your articles.
b. Use H1 tag for your titles.
c. Using H2 tags for your sub-headings.
d. Use target keywords throughout your article.
e. Using outbound links in your articles.
f. Optimizing your title tag for SEO.
g. Create keyword infused meta-description for your images.
h. Use internal links in your articles.
i. Write unique and valuable content.
Check out my detailed article on on-page SEO: My Strategies to Ranking my articles on Google’s first page.
3. UNDERSTAND THE MARKETING CHANNEL THAT WILL WORK FOR YOU
When it comes to growing a blog, especially a new one, you may consider promoting your blog on social media.
Before you start getting so much organic traffic, you may want to give your blog a boost on social media. The secret that you have to understand especially as a new blog owner is that there is a social media platform for everyone.
The social media platform that might work for a beauty or fashion brand may not quite work for an expert knowledge blog.
For example; if you blog about hair and have an e-commerce integration on your website for people to make direct purchases, then Instagram might work for you.
Why?
Instagram only allows you to add one link in your bio, unlike other platforms. This link can be the link to your website because people will need to visit the website to make a purchase.
On the other hand, if you own an expert knowledge blog (if you blog about blogging), then other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. may work better for you.
In my own case, when I used to write for a job board and recruitment company. The best platform I share the blog content was LinkedIn.
Why LinkedIn?
I focused more on LinkedIn and Facebook. Especially LinkedIn because that is where the largest percentage of the audience is since it is a job board/recruitment company.
Just take a look at the kind of content that you create and your audience to discover the social media platform that will work best for you.
These are the three (3) secrets to growing a successful blog that no one tells you about. Before you think of doing better with your blog, make sure to just start.
Start now!
It is only when you start writing content that you can discover what works and what does not work.
These secrets are sure to help you grow your blog. Try it out, and let me know what you think?