Blogging to attract an audience.. is not easy.  Especially if you want to make some income blogging!  I only started blogging at the end of Jan & I successfully say that now in October, I have over 10,000 views on my blog!  And I only hit 3,000 views not too ago!  Are you an up & coming blogger?  Let me give you some tips on what has worked for me:

1) Connect your blog with all your social media accounts.  And I mean ALL.  I blog on wordpress.com, & luckily for me it allows me to connect my account with my Facebook, Twitter, & Google plus accounts.  So every time I make a post, it automatically posts it on my walls for me.  And DEFINITELY use Google Plus.  It has similarities with Facebook, & I have gotten traffic from there.  Also Linkedin!  Even if you don’t actively use all your accounts, regularly post on there, for it will always bring it back to your blog.  I don’t recommend using blogger.com, for it is a Google based blog, & you have to wait 6 months of blogging to apply for Google adsense (in order to make any money off your blog).

2) Make ALL your tweets / posts public.  I didn’t realize this but on Twitter you can choose to make your tweets private / public, but to drive traffic to your blog, it’s better to make them public.  Same thing with Google plus; WordPress automatically posts on Google plus for me, but I didn’t realize that it makes my posts private.  Repost your links as public, so that more people can see your articles.

3) Join groups / communities on Facebook and Google plus related to your field / industry.  I blog about fashion, so I’ve joined a lot of fashion & beauty related groups on both sites.  And some of these groups are really big!  They can range from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of people!  When you post on their wall, you just shared your link with i.e. 300,000 people!  And that will drive traffic to your blog!

4) Post more frequently.  Ideally you should be posting bare minimum once a week.  The more often you post, the more traffic you can get.  You can write about silly, comical things, or post simply dedicated to photos, with some description.  But also make sure it is well written.  There is always an issue also of quality, if you have a lot of typos, mistakes, people will be turned off by that.  If anything they will get the impression that you don’t know what you’re talking about.  People like quantity, but quality is important, too.

5) Keep your blog updated.  This is also related to posting more frequently.  Go back to older posts, & update information, links or pictures, if you have to.  If I come across a blog, & I see they haven’t written anything in 2 years, to me this is a blog that’s gone stale.  And not interesting to read, either.

6) Use Stumbleupon.com.  It’s a wonderful website, where you can sign up for membership, it’s free, & you can just drop in the links to the articles of your website, & they can bring traffic to your website for you.  It’s a website that’s geared toward the sharing of articles!

7) Have a business card & go to industry related events.  Having a business card is a big thing nowadays: everyone has one & the great thing is that there are many website that send you business cards for FREE.  You’re a blogger, but if you want traffic you have to look & act professional.  You are the face of your blog.  If you want to make money off your blog, you have to think of it as a brand.  And you must play the part to sell your brand.  Lanyrd.com and meetup.com are great sources for meeting up with people in your field / industry.  And definitely be ready to pass out business cards!  There is online promoting, but you will get more return traffic & recommendations from people you meet face to face.  And be ready to explain to people the purpose of your blog.  i.e. if you have a food blog, tell people why they should take a look, & what you have to offer (that’s different than everybody else).  Tip: Be sure to go to events that related to your field / area, only with the intention of meeting new people.  People will be offended if you are there for the wrong reasons.  i.e. don’t show up to a language exchange group looking for a hot date.

8) Have a gift giveaway!  It doesn’t have to be anything big, or expensive, and you can write things like, ‘you can be eligible for the gift giveaway if you follow my blog!’  And I’ve gotten lots of followers that way!

9) Make sure you have a great design / layout.  Nobody likes seeing messy websites.  Or ones that look like they were made 20 years ago.  Usually big bloggers that draw in big numbers, have really, really professional looking websites.  It’s all about making it look good & tweaking it when necessary.

10) Listen, get to know your audience & watch your numbers.  Nobody wants to completely cater to an audience, but you will have to do that sometimes.  Sometimes you have to write about things that people want to hear, vs. what you think they should read.  Or take something you write; & put a different spin on it.  And most importantly watch your numbers & statistics.  There were times I would write something special & I thought it would be a big hit, & it wasn’t.  Other times I wrote about silly things & that got me big numbers.  You can’t always predict these things, but just bear in mind that usually people don’t want to be lectured at.  Think about the articles that got you the big numbers: most likely these are things that people want to see / hear.

11) Have appealing titles and photos.  Whenever I share a post from my blog on social media (on Facebook, Google plus, or wherever) the FIRST thing people see is the title & accompanying photo.  And honestly THIS is what will draw them in.  Have eye catching titles AND photos.  There were times I had articles that didn’t get much traffic; I then reworded the the title, changed the featured picture, reshared it on social media, & it garnered more attention.  This also goes back to tweaking & appealing to what people what to hear.

12) Submit an article to the Huffington post.  This is hard.  Lots of people send in articles to the Huffington post only to hear nothing.  Trying to write for them is like trying to win the lottery.  BUT if you are the one of the lucky few that gets in, they CAN bring you a lot of traffic.  Hey, you just got featured in a magazine!

There!  I’ve given you lots of tips on growing your blog!  And above all, if you want earn income as a blogger, you have to be patient.  Think of your blog as a plant.  You have to feed it, nurture it, & wait for it to grow.  And you must learn how to walk before you can run.  And you must learn how to run before you can fly!