BloggingCoach.com

Two of the primary goals for many bloggers are getting more traffic to their blog and building a larger readership base. The two go hand-in-hand. Ideally, you would like to attract more readers to your blog, and then get them to keep coming back, or at least subscribe to your feed. Here are a few ways to attract and keep readers.

1. Keyword Research – The Google Keyword Research tool and Wordtracker’s Free Keyword tool are great places to start for finding keywords that your visitors typing into Google. Blogs are great for targeting long-tail keywords that generate some traffic. If each article you write targets a different long-tail phrase, you can rank well for less competitive keywords and start building up traffic to your website.
2. Target Market Research – Like keyword research, understanding what your target audience expects on your blog is key to building readership and developing a core following of repeat readers. What types of content do your readers want to learn? Keep your blog focused around related topics and try not to stray too off-topic. If you aren’t sure if your readers would be interested in a particular topic, ask them.
3. Update Your Blog – If you want to rank well in search engines and build a loyal reader base, you must update your blog regularly. That doesn’t mean you have to update it daily, but ideally, you should update it at least once or twice a week at most. If you are shooting to make money with advertising revenue, often you must update your site several times a day to generate enough pageviews for decent payouts. Think about how your blog enhances your target market’s life – what can you provide that other sites don’t? Entertain them and keep things interesting, and readers will stick around.
4. Engage Readers – Whenever someone leaves a comment, adds a post to your discussion forum or sends you an email, try to respond. While this isn’t always possible, in the beginning stages of your blog, it adds credibility and that “personal” touch.
5. Join the Blogosphere Conversation - Initially, you should be spending at least a third of your blogging time reading and leaving comments on other blogs in your niche. By building relationships with key bloggers, you can fast track your blog’s success and generate considerable traffic in the process.
6. Use Social Media – Start building relationships and promoting your blog’s content on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, and others. Many bloggers also have social media accounts and are easy to connect with through social media, so if your email isn’t getting a response, try Twitter.

Above all else, recognize that it takes time to build a popular blog. It takes time to build up a critical mass of great posts, to build relationships with other bloggers in your niche, and to create an active readership base. Be patient and persistent, and eventually your results will pay off.