There are a variety of ways that you can work to build a readership for your blog. One aspect of blogging is attracting new readers to your blog, but an equally important one is retaining those readers, so that they become regular readers of your posts. One of the best ways you can do this is to share the stories of your life in addition to the information or subject you are blogging about. For example if you are writing a food or cooking blog you can add in the details of the funny things that happened while you made the recipe or your children’s reaction to the food. These additional details are what capture your readers’ attention and keep them coming back for more. The difficult part is finding the perfect balance of detail and personal stories.
Look for Humorous Facts to Share
Some of the most popular blogs include the humorous outlook of the writer. As you go through your day look for items that stand out as unusual or funny and make a note of it. They can work into today’s post or a future post. Another idea is to look at a typical situation and try to find things that are funny about it. Sometimes when you are the most angry or frustrated, you can look back and find the most humor in the situation. For example a trip to the grocery store with little ones in tow can be a harrowing experience while you are going through it, but looking back at it, you may be able to pull out the funny moments to share with your readers.
Look for Analogies
Personal experiences also allow you to make analogies about the topic you are writing. You can take the story of your recent hike or 5k run and compare it to working hard on your art project or writing project. As you blog regularly you will begin to recognize the different ways that you can draw analogies from the things you observe in the world around you. You do not want to stretch too hard to make an analogy, but these are a great way to work some of your personal life into your blog topic and to hold your reader’s interest.
Watch the Bragging and Boasting
When you are working some personal aspects into your blog, you want to be careful about the tone of your blog posts. Although personal stories can attract and hold you readers’ interests, you may find that the bragging will drive those same readers away. This is why humor is so important to a successful blog, especially one that includes personal experiences. You can share how wonderful your life is, but be sure to acknowledge the crazy and bad moments as well.
Remember, You’re Telling a Story
Even if you are blogging about cooking or personal finances, you are also telling a story to your readers. Adding the personal touches and photos to the posts that fit will help to attract and hold your reader’s attention. Although you may not be able to fit this into every blog post, you should try to have at least one post a week that utilizes these techniques to hold your readers’ interest.
By Guest Author –Carlina Yepinski is the primary researcher and writer for networkmonitoring.org. Her most recent accomplishments includes graduating from Kentucky State with a degree in communications and computer science. Her current focus for the site involves system monitoring tools and network scanners.
