Subscribe to the NetworkHow to Get People to Your Blog
Josh on September 10th, 2009
My friend and just-finished HSM intern for 2 years Josh Pease just started blogging again.
He used to use MySpace for blogging what seems like eons ago and he has always had some really great stuff to say. He’s working hard post-internship to become a writer and youth ministry speaker, and our recent conversations rambled on the subject of building a blog audience. Here’s what I told him, and thought it might be helpful for you, too:
- Write stuff worth linking to – great content will draw people in once and a history of great content will keep people coming back.
- Post other people’s stuff that fits your niche, but play nice and spread links around.
- Exclusive content is huge – if you’ve got a video or are finding and collecting stuff to save people time, they’ll come back to see what’s new because you’re helped them eliminate a step.
- Participate in conversations on your blogs.
- Participate in conversations on other blogs.
- Find a niche and a voice and stay in that sweet spot.
- The more posts (variety helps, and staying the same helps), the more words Google picks up on.
- Leverage Twitter, because ReTweets can be big.
- Work hard to get links from the authorities in your field/niche, without being a stalker.
- Be yourself, leverage your personality.
- Google really likes consistent updates over the long term. Drip, drip, drip and you eventually fill a pool.
- Write up stuff for other sites in exchange for links and bylines.
Oh, check out Josh’s blog … I told him I would mention it.
JG
Thanks for the tips. I’ve just started my own blog (newbieyouthministry.wordpress.com, shameless plug) and I’ve been looking for ways to get some views. One newbie tip I learned after the fact, don’t give yourself a “thumbs up” on StumbleUpon until you have plenty of good content. I gave myself a thumbs up and only had one or two posts. I had 64 views that day and nothing to really show them. D’oh.