Hi again!

This week's tips are all about building readership. After all, a blog is worth nothing if no one reads it, right?

We've seen that a blog is an awesome tool to establish yourself as a subject matter expert - which, in turn, is an excellent thing to be in order to sell a book on a given subject.

But the mere action of setting up a blog and writing articles is not enough to bring in readers.

A blog is no field of dreams: people won't come just because you built it - you need to find ways to pull readers in and keep them coming back for more.

Here are my favorite tips I found on that topic:

Tip 1 - Read other blogs and comment on other blogs

This is probably one of the most important of these tips. Commenting on other blogs is the first step in getting you known.

The "blogosphere" is actually a large network of individuals. Writing comments (interesting ones, if at all possible) is the best way to get people to notice you. Mention an article you wrote in your own blog in your comment if possible - but don't shamelessly plug away. A "plug" must always be pertinent.

Take this in consideration: links you place on other blogs' comments nowadays are usually ignored by modern search engines. The entire value of the link comes from the people who click on the link, read your blog and like it enough to come back.

This also means that you must comment on blog posts while they're hot! Discussions in blogs they update frequently don't necessarily last that long and you'll get more visibility from commenting on newer posts.

And this visibility is worth something only if its worth something to the reader. So don't spam. Be pertinent.

Tip 2 - React to other blogs on your own blog

Writing comments on other blogs is nice, but sometimes your comments can get so long that you might prefer to tackle the subject in one of your own posts.

This is a great thing to do! Just don't forget to comment on the original blog. Your comment should contain your basic idea before mentioning your post - otherwise it'll end up looking like an attempt to steer the discussion away from the original blog - which won't make you very popular.

Tip 2 - Engage your readers

Don't be afraid to ask your readers for their opinions when writing your posts. Stimulate your readers to write comments - their opinions are valuable! And if someone answers to your article by an article on his own blog, don't be afraid to go there and comment :)

Tip 3 - Allow comments on your blog and Respond to comments on your blog

You must have guessed by now that I think allowing comments is a good thing. In fact, I think It is a great thing - people commenting are part of your community. They get involved in your blog - they are your faithful readers and your potential customers.

Try to respond to comments as often as possible through your own public comments. This gives a great feeling to the community - it makes you tangible and accessible. Two things that go a great way in building trust with your readers (and potential customers).

Tip 5 - Configure your blog to help your burgeoning community

Besides allowing comments on your blog, make sure your blog:

  • Allows for your readers to subscribe to receive comment notifications by email. You won't have to rely on your readers remembering to manually come back to the post and check if someone answered their comment - this stimulates discussions in your comments like nothing else.
  • Allow them to be notified of your new posts by eMail. Not all blog engines do this out of the box, but some of your readers might prefer this familiar method to an RSS feed. You should try and provide as many methods for people to get notified of your updates as possible.
  • Offers an RSS feed. You might not be familiar with this, but a lot of bloggers are. An RSS feed is a file generated by your blog engine that is used by third party software to receive notification when new posts or comments are made available. Don't underestimate RSS feeds. As an added bonus, search engines likes them too! Its not just me!

All right, so these tips should help you in getting noticed by readers and bloggers through other blogs in your community. This will attract new readers to your blog and help keep them coming for more! Just don't expect your community to pop in overnight - this will take weeks of work.

If you have other neat tricks to bring traffic to your blogs or experiences to share, the comment section is only a few pixels away :P

Also, come by next week - we'll conclude this series of article with a look at tips to help you come up with content on a regular basis!