We’re all used to seeing post after post on how to grow your blogs readership. And while all these points are well and good if you blog about marketing, SEO, or design; are they really relevant to the niche bloggers amongst us?
A quick Google search will show you that there is a blog for pretty much everything. Whatever your weird, wonderful, or downright bizarre hobbies, there’s someone out there blogging about it. And these highly niche blogs all have a readership. So why are you finding it so difficult?
Niche Blogging Made Easy
If your business has a website, you should be blogging. It really is as simple as that. Google’s algorithms are weighting pages with quality content higher than those without. So if you’re not bringing something new to the party, you’re going to get the door slammed in your face.
Your competitors are managing to drive traffic to their blog. They’ve even got readers who engage with and share their posts. So why haven’t you? Blogging when you’re a niche business holds more challenges than if you post about celebrities, or sports stars. But if you have a customer base, you have an audience.
The trick to growing your readership remains the same. It’s the way you play that makes all the difference. Here we look at some simple but effective ways to grow your blogs readership, no matter what niche you are:
1. Know Your Readers
Before you can drive a regular readership to your niche blog, you need to know who they are. Writing for a specific audience is easier than you may think. You already know who your target customer is, so write for them. Bear in mind:
- What matters to them
- What they want to read about
- Why they visit your blog
- What they need to see to come back again
If you know who you want to read your blog, it is easier to write for them. Use the language that they will understand, and speak to them on their level. A solid readership won’t happen overnight. But by writing for your target audience you encourage shares and return visits.
2. Industry Authority
The key to growing the readership of any blog is to become an industry authority. Whether you sell saddles or sails for ships, someone out there is interested in what you’ve got to say. To grow your readership, you need to be a figurehead for the industry. You need to showcase your knowledge.
This means being on the ball. You need to be one the first people to post about certain industry goings on. But not only that, you need an opinion on it. By putting your own individual stamp on moments of importance, you will become recognised for your authority.
Your blog readership will grow because people will trust what you say. Whether you put a humours stamp on everything, or just have a unique outlook; you need to make yourself stand out. Readers will come to your blog because they’ll expect you to be posting about the things that matter to them.
3. Vary Your Content
Niche blogging can be boring. You can run out of topics to post about very quickly, and there is only so many times you can rework your posts. With the Penguin algorithm targeting duplicate content, you can’t afford to waste time rewriting your blog posts.
Instead find ways to rework your content. You could turn a ‘how to’ blog post into an infographic which can be shared on your blog and Pinterest account. Why not film a video tutorial instead of writing one down?
However you choose to do it, mixing up your content is a great way to grow your readership. Different types of content can be shared in multiple ways. The more exposure you can get for your content, the more traffic you can drive to your blog.
4. Interact With Your Audience
Building your niche readership doesn’t just take place on your blog. You should be driving traffic and encouraging engagement in loads of other ways. Use social media, forums, and Q&A sites to interact with your audience. The key though, is to be natural. Don’t spend all your time being self promotional. On forums especially, you will need to build up a lot of trust before people visit your blog.
Join in with Twitter chats and hashtags to see what your audience are talking about. If there’s a particularly hot topic, blog about it right away and share with this audience. As long as you have something worthwhile and different to say, you can drive traffic to your site.
You should also make a conscious effort to reply to your blog comments. If someone has taken the time to read your work and comment, reciprocate the favour. Strike up conversation, and thank them for engaging. The more personal you are, the more likely your readers will be to share your content in the future.
When you start blogging on any subject, it can feel like you’re talking to yourself for a while. But even niche bloggers can grow a substantial and meaningful audience. Growing your readership is important, but you need to attract the right readers. If you view your readers in terms of their quality over quantity, you will improve your success no end.
By Guest Author – This guest post has been supplied by Clare Evans of Bird & Co Equine, a specialist graphic design agency based in the UK. They run their own niche blog which can be found here, and you can find out what they can do for you by visiting their website.
