Now, before you can focus on the strategies that go into growing a blog, you of course need to start with starting a blog.
If you haven't done so yet, check out my tutorial on how to start a blog step by step, and come back here when you're ready to grow your blog. If you've already launched your blog and are ready to implement some proven strategies to grow your audience this year, then let's dive right in.
40 Ways to Grow a Blog Fast in 2023
One of the most common questions I get from readers who have just published their first blog post is, “Okay, now where is everyone?
I would like to tell you that to create a successful blog, all you need to do iswrite a good article or two, to relax and watch a flood of readers arrive, but the truth is that creating a blog is a little more nuanced than that: it takes time, repetition and a willingness to experiment.
Before we move on to analyzing my best methods for growing a blog, let's define what I mean by "growing a blog."
I'm not just talking about increasing the number of readers to your blog (increasing traffic). More importantly, growing a blog is also about growing your email list and helping you make money with your blog. For me, growing a successful blog encompasses each of the following:
- Increase traffic to your blog
- Grow your email list
- Increase your income
- Develop your influence and authority
Getting more readers for your writing is great, but I want you to have more than a cool blog that people check once and leave forever. I want you to have a blog that actively contributes to your financial independence and freedom.
That's why this guide to growing a blog covers every essential step in the blogging journey. The strategies I'm sharing with you today are the culmination of over 8 years of trial and error that have allowed my blog to reach a pretty decent milestone in side income. These are proven tactics that I still put into practice myself and cost little more than your time, work, and a dash of creativity.
Without further ado, let's discover the best strategies to grow a blog in 2023.
1. Create a well-researched editorial calendar
The backbone of all marketing strategy successful content management, and I can't stress this enough, is the editorial calendar.
As we all know by now, the fundamental pillar of any good strategy for Content marketing is your ability to produce high-quality content at a steady pace. Increasingly, this is what the major search engines (like Google) reward, so it's an important tenant to learn how to grow your blog.
For find your target audience (and get him to come to your blog), you need to be able to produce content that he finds interesting. To retain those readers, you need to be able to consistently create, grow, and publish that quality content.
While at first glance this seems relatively simple, even the best bloggers in the world often struggle to meet this seemingly innocuous requirement.
Too often, bloggers take a one-off approach to producing content. While this strategy may work for a while, it inevitably leads to problems and slows down blog development efforts, such as creative exhaustion and not knowing what blog post ideas pursue, the loss of sight of your overall content marketing strategy or missing deadlines and promotion opportunities.
Without an editorial calendar, you are never able to see beyond today and tomorrow. And how are you going to be able to develop a blog if you never have the opportunity to go beyond the short term?
A well-structured editorial calendar solves all of these problems by keeping your content organized, focused on your audience, and constantly flowing. Believe me when I say that your editorial calendar (or lack thereof) will be the only thing that will make or break your blog's ability to grow.
2. Collect email subscribers and engage them
Any online business lives or dies by the size and engagement of their email list.
If you already have readers but you don't make the effort to collect their email addresses, it will be difficult for you to grow your blog in the long term.
After your blog, your email list will be the most important asset in your marketing arsenal to grow your blog, in terms of traffic and revenue.
First of all, your email address list belongs to you. By building an email list of engaged subscribers, you can lessen the fear that Google or Facebook will one day change their algorithms and suddenly find themselves without an audience. It's one of the most sustainable ways to grow your blog and keep regular readers coming back.
Email is not only the best way to bring visitors and readers back to your blog, it's also your primary method of reaching and communicating with your audience on a personal level. Even something as simple as a newsletter that provides updates on your latest content and what you're working on, will go a long way in creating that sense of knowledge, appreciation and trust that your audience has towards you.
Start exploring different tactics to grow your email list, such as magnets, pop-ups, and content updates (don't worry, we'll get to that a bit later). Also, be sure to manage your email list with the right ones. blogging tools as ConvertKit .
3. Develop a content ecosystem for your blog
While your blog shouldn't strive to be everything to everyone at once, it should be a place where your target audience can count as the ultimate authority on a specific subject. And to achieve that, you need to create a content ecosystem in order to really grow your blog.
Everything you post on your blog should link to another article you've previously published, creating a network of related content that meets your readers' needs and their most pressing questions.
From a practical point of view, this means that instead of sending your readers to an external site each time you want to link to a more complete resource on a subject, you can direct them to another article in your blog.
So as soon as someone finds an item of your content, all they need to do is click on most of the links in your article and they will continue to stay on your blog and in your sphere of influence – which is why it this is an excellent basic strategy for developing a blog.
To achieve this, you need to adopt a star model for your content.
The “star” model is essentially a visual graph of your content ecosystem.
At the center – or hub – you have your content pillars. These are your authority articles, your permanent content, the mega in-depth guides that cover your main topics. On this blog, there are authority articles on topics that cover every major segment of what my audience learns, like how to start a blog, etc ...
From there, you create your “spokes,” i.e. pieces of content designed to drive more traffic to your main guides.
Every time you post new content, whether on your own blog or on someone else's as part of a guest post, you want to create links and strengthen the authority of your central guides. Not only will this help your blog grow in the long run, but it will dramatically improve your blog's SEO and help you better understand how all of your content fits together within your content ecosystem.
4. Optimize your on-site SEO
In today's fast-paced environment, any blogger worth their salt should at least know how to optimize a blog post for SEO.
Before you even start writing a new blog post, do basic keyword research to adhere to smart SEO strategies and determine which keywords to target. To do this, you can use a number of keyword research tools, including Ahrefs, SEMRush, Twinword Ideas and Google Keyword Planner.
From there, just adhere to SEO best practices and make sure to include your keywords in your blog titles, URLs, image file names, etc.
To help you, do not forget to consult Yoast SEO if you run a WordPress blog.
This is one of the most useful WordPress plugins that helps you optimize blog post SEO by testing your page for you and giving you suggestions on how you can improve your SEO – this which will help you grow your blog significantly.
5. Target long-tail keywords
One way to increase your Domain Authority and start driving more organic search traffic to your blog, is to focus on long-range keywords, especially if you're just starting out.
While short keywords may seem brilliant with their promise of hundreds of thousands of monthly searches, don't be fooled into researching them from the get-go. I can guarantee you that there are thousands, if not millions, of other blogs trying to rank for the same keywords, and a good portion of them probably have much higher domain authority than your blog.
Here is an example to illustrate the difference between high volume keywords and long tail keywords:
- High volume keyword: email marketing
- Long-tail keywords: email marketing for food bloggers or email marketing for startups.
Instead of chasing after the most competitive search terms, focus on long-tail keywords that are more niche-specific… So instead of writing a review of free blogging sites or writing a series of reviews on Bluehost (with lots of competition), you could start by targeting more specialized search terms like “free portfolio websites for photographers” if of course a segment of your audience includes photographers.
These are keywords, or expressions, which generally include three or more words. If long-tail keywords have lower search volume, they more than make up for it in the ROI they can bring you in your efforts to grow your blog.
6. Know where your audience spends time online
Let's take a moment to think about the best places where you can promote your content (and therefore grow your blog).
A common mistake I see with new bloggers is taking a “spray and pray” approach to social promotion. They promote their new blog posts on every social media platform they can think of. This type of approach is very inefficient, as it is a huge waste of time and resources, and you will likely only get a disappointing return on investment, at best.
Put yourself in your audience's shoes.
Think about the sites they like to visit, the types of forums they might participate in, and the social media platforms they are most likely to use. For example, if your blog is very business-oriented, LinkedIn might be your best bet, while if you have a mom blog, Pinterest is probably the platform for you.
Don't waste your time sharing content with an audience that doesn't care. Instead, make your target audience finds you more easily, by finding a way to bring your content directly in front of it.
7. Use paid advertising to experiment
While we all agree on growing your blog traffic in the most organic way possible, I can't deny the power of paid advertising as a way to experiment and learn.
If you're lucky, you might even be able to set up a paid acquisition process that will help increase your blog's overall visibility and conversion rates.
If you want to promote a page with a particularly high conversion rate, take advantage of a Facebook ad campaign, Pinterest promotion, or Google AdWords to drive your target audience to that page and see which channels are converting the best.
8. Leverage Pinterest
Pinterest has quickly become the secret weapon for bloggers looking to grow their blog.
Often mistakenly thought of as a place for middle-aged housewives to share their latest recipes and DIY projects, once you get beyond the surface you'll be surprised at how much Pinterest can help grow your home. your blog.
Pinterest outperforms its other social media cousins in its ability to generate better ROI, with research finding that Pinterest marketing drives 380% more sales than the average digital marketing campaign.
As if that weren't enough, the average Pinterest post is also 100 times more shareable than your average tweet, and according to Tailwind(in English), the average life of a pin is at least a week, while content on Facebook only lasts 80 minutes.
Leverage Pinterest by creating eye-catching images of your posts, and sharing them on relevant boards and groups to grow your blog.
Just see how Kim Garst, Social Media Marketing Specialist, uses his Pinterest board to share his latest articles and develop your blog in a visually appealing way.
9. Increase traffic through your email marketing
While most bloggers are already aware of the power of email marketing and the importance of concluding marketing messages with a strong call to action, chances are you're still missing out on a important part in driving traffic to your blog.
Your electronic signature.
Remember to use your email signature as a quick, basic way to share your contact information.
Instead, start using your business email signature as a way to actively grow your blog and promote your latest content. Whether you're emailing a client or a potential prospect, including a link to your blog posts is a great way to build brand awareness and show off your knowledge and expertise.
You can even take it a step further by creating a strong CTA for your top performing content to drive direct conversions.
10. Find the right websites to post articles on
One of the best ways to quickly grow your blog by improving your Domain Authority (and Influence) level is to guest blogging on other people's sites.
The advantage of guest blogging is that it allows you to share your expertise with a pre-existing community of engaged readers, while establishing your authority with your target audience.
Try to think of your guest posts as samples of your own blog content. By regularly posting quality articles on a variety of other authoritative sites, you will be able to grab the attention of your target audience and make them want to know more.
The key to effective guest blogging, however, is making sure you find the right places to post. There's no point posting on sites that none of your target readers would think to visit: it doesn't really help your blog grow.
Start by creating a list of sites your audience trusts and see if you can get in touch with their publisher. If you're brand new to the world of blogging, start by reaching out to other bloggers. niche you are blogging about, which are a bit more established – don't immediately rush to ask to write for sites like Forbes, Inc and Entrepreneur.
It might take you a little while to get some attention and you'll definitely get no shortage of rejections, but if you send solid cold emails, if you take the time to write an outline for a blog post that caters to their readers, so as your network and portfolio grows, you'll find it easier and easier to write for bigger and better blogs.
11. Treat Quora as a goldmine of new readers
Quora is a question and answer forum that allows anyone to answer questions on a wide variety of topics and users. Unlike his cousin Yahoo Answers, somewhat distorted, Quora has a highly moderated community that generally provides questions and answers of a much higher quality than other similar sites.
One tactic I've used successfully to grow my blog is to find genuine questions that are relevant to my niche (blogging) and spend significant time providing in-depth answers to those people.
In my response, I usually add a call to action to a relevant blog post I've published in the past, which is a great strategy for growing your blog with incremental referral traffic as you go. as you build your reputation.
By continuously posting well-researched answers on Quora, I was able to build my authority in my niche, as well as the authority of my blog.
12. Compile impactful expert summaries
To easily create quality content, build a network of influencers, and grow your blog while building your credibility and expertise, there's nothing like compiling expert review articles.
With a review article, you are essentially crowdsourcing an article from a variety of influencers in your industry. By simply associating your name with other authorities and influencers in your blog niche, you signal to your audience that you also have similar levels of expertise.
While you can often compile an article using existing quotes found online, I like to send as many one-to-one emails as possible to key influencers when writing a roundup article, to include unseen advice that not found elsewhere.
Not only does this give your post extra credibility, but if you manage to get one of those influencers to share the post after it's published, it's a great way to grow your blog.
As another tactic to grow your blog, you can also let people know that you would like to participate in other bloggers' roundups. Dive into your network. Find social groups with other bloggers and actively share your advice when others have questions.
With this approach, instead of working on a 5 word article, you can write a short (but still valuable) answer and get mentioned alongside other big names in your niche.
13. Co-host webinars
Another way to grow your blog by connecting with an engaged audience and demonstrating your expertise is to co-host a webinar with a well-known brand, more established blogger, or company in your industry.
Many brands and bloggers are currently hosting webinars as part of their content marketing strategy, and most of them are always looking for creative ways to bring more value to their audience by inviting an expert to share valuable knowledge.
14. Being interviewed on podcasts
This is a tactic that I have been using for several years to develop my blog and that has always brought me good results.
Even if you don't have your own podcast (like me), that doesn't mean you can't take advantage of the growing popularity of podcasts and the need for podcast hosts to have interesting guests.
There are more and more shows springing up every day, and all of them are eager to deliver unique and valuable content to their audience. This means for you that there are a virtually endless number of opportunities to be interviewed by a podcast, provided, of course, you have something interesting to say.
But don't wait for podcasts to notice you and your story. Get a head start on this blog-building strategy by reaching out to a handful of podcast hosts each week to see who would be interested in you appearing on their show.
15. Launch a Virtual Summit
While nothing beats the ability to connect and communicate with people face-to-face, that doesn't mean you can't achieve similar results (and grow your blog along the way) through video interviews. .
Virtual summits are fast becoming one of the most popular ways for influencers to network with other influencers in their space and get their brand in front of an engaged audience.
While hosting a virtual summit is a lot of work, it's a tactic that can pay off hugely due to the number of leads and exposure it can bring you.
16. Notify every person (and brand) you mention on your blog
One way to dramatically increase your chances of getting your content distributed is to mention as many influencers as possible in your blog content. This is one of the most effective and inexpensive strategies I've used to grow my blog for free over the years – it takes nothing more than your time.
Mention can range from including a quote from an influencer, to using their story as a case study, to linking to one of their articles as an additional resource. The goal is to establish a meaningful relationship by first providing value (in the form of a link).
As long as the link is contextual and you have a good reason to mention it, you have a great excuse to email the influencer and ask if your post can be shared with their audience. Don't forget to make it as easy as possible for them to share (by providing them with an easy copy or a link to an existing article that they can share again).
Plus, even if they don't end up sharing your content, this is a great opportunity for you to connect with influencers, get known to them, and lay the groundwork for what might grow into a bigger relationship over time.
17. Create highly shareable images
One of the basic principles for making your content as shareable as possible (and thus increase the traffic of your blog) is to include shareable images in your blog post. By a quirk of human psychology, we humans are primarily visual creatures who are far more likely to react to images and videos than to mere bits of text.
Use tools like Visme et Canva to create social media-ready images of your blog content.
This is what I regularly do for all my articles, guides, courses and podcast episodes to make them more eye-catching and therefore more likely to get people to click when they see my content shared elsewhere online. .
Give your blog development strategy a boost by creating graphics specific to the support sections of your blog posts. It can be a simple graphic that visually represents a fact or statistic you just mentioned, or for the more artistic you can even design a mini cartoon or comic, ideally something that fits the story. aesthetics of your existing blog layout.
Not only will using high-quality images in your blog content make your post more readable by breaking up large chunks of text, but it will also make it much more interesting to read and much more likely to be shared.
18. Make it easy to share your blog content
The more effort someone has to make to share your content, the less likely they are to do so.
It may seem obvious, but many blogs don't seem to understand this and are therefore missing out on crucial opportunities. If you want to grow your blog, make sharing your content as simple and easy as possible for your readers.
Take advantage of tools like AddThis et ClickToTweet, which allow you to prepare tweets for your audience. They just have to click on the text to automatically share your article.
Other simple things you can do to increase the shareability of your content and grow your blog, are to include social media sharing buttons in your content and suggest hashtags for your audience to use.
19. Target the most active readers and sharers
There are influencers with millions of followers who haven't created a single word of original content.
But they have managed to gather a large number of followers because the latter can always count on them to share the latest and greatest content in their niche. These influential aggregators represent a huge opportunity to exploit to grow your blog.
One of my favorite tactics for getting my content out there is to identify these influencers and (nicely) ask them to share one of my blog posts that might be relevant to their audience.
With a tool like Buzzsumo, I can find users on Twitter who have both a large number of followers and an audience likely to retweet the content (thus discovering even more people).
From there, all I have to do is send them a tweet or a quick email letting them know that I think they'll enjoy my latest blog post, give them a compelling (authentic) reason to do so, and let them decide if they can share it with their community.
20. Diversify the distribution media for your content
Believe it or not, not everyone consumes content in exactly the same way.
Some people like to read long articles, while others prefer to watch a video or listen to a podcast. The good news is that you don't have to invent a whole new topic, or even create more content, to take advantage of these different types of content as a way to grow your blog.
As the name suggests, diversifying your content delivery is all about taking a single blog post and reworking it so that the same information can be expressed in a different way.
For example, if you've already written an in-depth article on a given topic, consider turning it into a pre-recorded webinar, embeddable video, or podcast episode. Or, if your article contains a lot of facts and figures, like my guide to how to create a blog, it could be turned into an infographic.
One very important thing to keep in mind before you start diversifying your content is to consider who your ideal customer profile is. There's no point turning your blog post into mini Instagram posts if your audience doesn't even use Instagram. On the other hand, if he uses Instagram, think of creative ways to use Instagram's automation tools to improve your results on the platform without investing too much time in experimentation and learning.
Take the time to think about the type of content your audience likes to consume, and focus your efforts on those specific types of content that have a chance of helping your blog grow.
21. Use Slideshare, a powerful source of traffic
For those of you who don't know, Slideshare is a presentation sharing platform (now owned by LinkedIn) that also happens to be a extremely powerful traffic source.
When it comes to multiplying and repurposing your content, Slideshare is an easy way to lengthen the lifecycle of your blog posts and increase the exposure you are able to get on a post – you just need to use a presentation creation tool to create a more visually appealing slideshow-style representation of your content and post it to Slideshare.
While this tactic might not be as effective for bloggers whose audiences don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, this same principle of turning your blog post into a simple PowerPoint presentation is still applicable to any blogger, no matter what. or the niche in which it evolves.
Sharing your slideshow on social networks like Pinterest, Instagram as an Instagram story, or on Twitter can be an equally effective tool to grow your blog – if your audience is active on those social networks
22. Join active communities in your blogging niche
No blog exists in a vacuum. If you have choose a niche on which your blog has some popularity, then you're really in luck.
Whereas one can have the romantic idea of managing alone to learn how to develop your blog without ever needing the help of others, the reality is that there are literally thousands, if not millions, of blogging communities filled with other bloggers who are more than happy to share your content with their own audience.
Some of the blogging communities to join include GrowthHackers, Product Hunt, Triberr, BlogEngage et DoSplash.
Depending on your niche, some communities will work better than others, but rest assured that in any of these blogging communities, you won't miss out on opportunities to network, build relationships, and grow your blog. through amplified content sharing.
23. Make sure your blog content is readable
If you've ever seen Disney's Aladdin, you're probably familiar with the phrase "a diamond in the rough."
The romantic idea of making the effort to look beyond the surface and find a diamond below is certainly exciting. But, in today's world where the average human attention span is, quite literally, shorter than a goldfish, you need to shine from the start if you want to grow your blog.
Ultimately, the value of the information in your blog doesn't matter if no one bothers to read it.
Take a step back from your blog and try to put yourself in your reader's shoes. Objectively ask yourself questions like whether your blog design isn't too cluttered, whether you might use images or videos to separate the text, or whether your writing style doesn't seem too complicated.
24. Monitor social media for mentions of your blog
The “social” aspect of social media is one that many bloggers overlook when they start learning how to scale their blog.
Social media is not only a place where you can promote your blog content, it is also a space where you can interact and communicate with your readers in an informal and personal way. Ultimately, the strength of your relationship with your readers will often determine the likelihood of them inviting new readers to view your content.
The trick to playing an active role in this conversation is social media monitoring.
Use tools like Mention et buffer reply to be notified as soon as someone mentions your brand (or the name of your blog) online. You can use social media monitoring to do everything from sending a personal thank you message each time someone shares your content without asking, to getting insight into what your readers like. , or even as a way to fix customer service issues before they escalate – which turns out to be a very useful way to grow a blog over time.
25. Create a community on Twitter
With over 126 million daily active users and 5 tweets posted every second, Twitter is arguably one (if not the) best social media platform for engaging with your audience and growing your blog readership.
You can engage with your readers on Twitter by regularly replying to all tweets that mention you and your blog, as well as starting your own public conversations with your readers.
For example, starting a discussion with a hashtag can be a great way to center a conversation around a specific theme or topic with your readers, while making anyone who participates in that discussion feel like they're part of it. your community – and having the ability to invite others into the discussion.
26. Give back to your blog readers (and make money doing it)
More than just a way to make money as a blogger, affiliate marketing also offers bloggers a unique opportunity to nurture that sense of trust and loyalty with your audience.
When it comes to learning how to grow a blog by providing value to your audience, one of the most helpful things you can do is direct them to products and services that you know will will love it.
Every time a reader takes your advice and has a positive experience with a product you've promoted on your blog, they'll feel rewarded and grateful for trusting you. It's not much, but it goes a long way to developing the relationship you have with your readers.
For me, not only is affiliate marketing a big part of my blog's income, but it also gives me the opportunity to give back to my community. Through affiliate marketing, I can show how attentive I am to the needs and challenges of my audience, and I can reward their loyalty with discounted offers on products that I know , will be useful to him, while increasing my own passive income.
27. Give online courses to your blog readers
Most articles explain that online courses are a great way to generate passive income, but one essential element that we often overlook is its ability to deepen the relationship you have with your audience.
Right off the bat, teaching an online course immediately places you as an authority and an expert on what you are teaching. Every time someone signs up for your online course, they are actively acknowledging that they respect and trust your expertise, which is always a great foundation for building a relationship.
With an online course, you can delve deeper than you normally would into a particular subject and all of its intricacies.
Aside from one-on-one consulting, an online course is probably the most engaging and personal way to grow a blog and communicate your knowledge to your audience. By regularly engaging with your students, answering their questions, and sharing your tips, you can turn everyone who takes your course into a loyal fan.
28. Regularly Ask Your Blog Audience Questions
As I mentioned before, to grow a blog, you need to be able to consistently deliver value to your audience.
The only way to do that is to know who they are and what interests them.
In the last blog statistics, marketers often stress the importance of knowing the demographics of your audience. While this information is certainly helpful, knowing where your audience lives, their gender, or their level of education doesn't provide insight into what makes them tick.
The only way to find out more about your audience is to go straight to the source and ask them yourself.
By regularly asking questions of your audience – whether through a tweet or a customer survey – you'll be able to gain a more complete understanding of their pain points, the types of solutions he researches and the best way you can meet his challenges. This will give you valuable information about new possibilities for developing a blog that will benefit both you and your readers.
As a bonus, while regularly polling your audience is an effective way to keep them engaged, it also shows that you care about what they have to say and are ready to talk with them, not just them. to speak.
29. Make commenting as easy as possible on your blog
If you want your readers to come back regularly, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to engage with you – and that means making it easy for readers to comment on your blog posts. as easily as possible.
One of the most undervalued real estate on a website is the blog comments section. One of the reasons you chose to learn how to build a website was to connect with people, right?
Just like your email list, your blog's comments section is yours and you don't need to depend on other platforms to build a community around your brand. By creating a thriving comments section for each of your blog posts, you'll be able to converse, exchange ideas, and engage with your audience in a way that isn't possible through other means.
Another benefit of comments is that they give new readers immediate social proof that your article is worth reading. And it certainly doesn't hurt if your blog gets a little extra SEO boost every time someone mentions your target keywords in their comment.
Consider removing friction points, such as requiring readers to complete captchas or requiring them to register before they can comment. If you make it harder for spammers, you are definitely preventing your audience from engaging with you.
30. Add social proof to your blog
Human beings are naturally social creatures. When faced with the unknown, we usually look to others for guidance and confirmation before even attempting to make a decision.
In fact, our desire for social proof is so strong that it's been listed as one of the Six Great Principles of Persuasion.
With that in mind, one of the best ways to solidify your authority status in your niche is to include as much social proof as possible on your blog, which will also help you grow your blog significantly. .
You can start incorporating social proof into your blog by highlighting positive logos and testimonials from people you've worked with on your homepage, or by showing the number of subscribers to your blog or your email list.
31. Take advantage of chatbots
Chatbots are fast becoming the next secret weapon for blog growth.
While most people tend to think of chatbots as mere customer support tools, it turns out that chatbots and live chat solutions can do so much more when in the hands of creative people. , provided you've used one of the best website builders (like WordPress) that can accommodate these tools.
Imagine being able to personally greet every member of your audience as soon as they visit your website, or being able to host meetings and move people through your sales funnel completely automatically.
Watch how Acquire uses its own chatbot tool to attract visitors. Their AI chatbot starts the conversation with “👋 Welcome to Acquire! What brings you to our site? » You can talk to different Acquire teams by simply choosing the option. When you return to the platform, you can continue your conversation where you left off. The chatbot also directs you to resources that might be useful to you.
32. Make your blog newsletter shine
First of all, if you want to develop your blog and your email address list, you need to give your new subscribers a good reason to stick around. For this, it is essential to create a newsletter quality.
Don't think of your newsletter as just another way to let your audience know about your latest blog post, because it can be so much more than that. A well-designed email newsletter not only provides your audience with the latest news, updates, and content from your blog, but it also gives you the opportunity to communicate with your target audience in a very personal and engaging way.
Give people a reason to be excited every time they find an email from you in their inbox.
33. Place lead magnets everywhere
It's hard to find a more proven method than magnets for attracting email subscribers to grow a blog.
In case the term is unfamiliar to you, a lead magnet is a special piece of content that is only accessible after someone gives you their email address. By using magnets, you can quickly enrich your blog's email list with loyal readers and potential customers.
The most effective magnets are always those that solve a real problem encountered by the reader, clearly demonstrate the expertise and value of their creator, and promise a practical solution. As long as you meet these three conditions, your lead magnet can be anything, writing an e-book to the offer of a pre-recorded webinar.
Once you have your lead magnet, all you have to do is put it clearly in front of your readership. To do this, promote it on your own blog through pop-ups, banner ads and visual appeals in relevant articles, and share it regularly on your social media channels.
34. Offer hyper-relevant content updates
Whenever you have popular content that brings you a lot of traffic, you have a great opportunity to update it.
Simply put, a content upgrade is strategically placing a lead magnet in the middle of a relevant blog post. Although simple, this tactic is extremely powerful and has seen some bloggers increase their conversion rates by 785% in just one day.
Content updates are great for growing a blog because you're giving your readers something you know they want.
35. Target elated readers on your blog
Depending on who you are talking to, exit pop-ups are either the most annoying thing in the world or one of the best tactics to drive more conversions and grow a blog on autopilot.
It's up to you to see where you stand in this debate. All I can tell you is that, in my experience, I've seen many blogs and companies use exit popups to great effect. However, there are reasons to believe that search engines like Google may soon discourage the use of exit pop-ups.
Ultimately, the vast majority of people who visit your blog will likely stay there for a minute or two and take a quick glance before leaving – probably forever. But just because someone has already walked through the door doesn't mean you don't have one last chance to turn them into a loyal fan.
Exit pop-ups activate when a visitor performs a very specific action, such as moving their pointer to close the browser window, open or close a tab, or enter the address bar. Each time a visitor performs one of these actions, the exit pop-up is triggered and the visitor is presented with a carefully crafted pop-up to give them one last compelling reason to stay.
36. Create an online quiz
Take a cue from Buzzfeed and start creating your own online quizzes to generate new leads and grow your blog's email list.
Many bloggers are just beginning to realize that online quizzes — and other types of interactive content — are natural lead magnets.
The reason online quizzes (especially Facebook quizzes) are so appealing as a lead magnet to grow a blog is because everyone has a natural desire to learn more about themselves. , and is usually more than happy to share their results with others – which, in turn, attracts even more people to take your quiz. In other words, quizzes are a lead generation machine.
To take advantage of online quizzes, all you need to do is use a tool like Interact Quiz Builder, and you can immediately start creating the perfect lead-generating quiz for your blog. Once your quiz is created, all you have to do is promote it through the appropriate channels, like social media, or highlight it on your homepage.
An extremely valuable lesson I've learned as a blogger is that if your blog isn't growing, it's dying.
Developing a blog is not a one-time process. This is a process that requires constant maintenance and upkeep if you want to continue to grow and achieve blogging goals more ambitious.
The good news is that you don't have to start all over again to keep growing your blog.
You've already done most of the heavy lifting, and all you need to do now is take a few simple steps to maintain the momentum you've created.
37. Know your analytics like the back of your hand
If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. This truth is no clearer than when it comes to learning how to develop a blog and generate more traffic.
A critical part of growing a blog is knowing exactly what metrics to measure and what data sets to analyze. Without a working knowledge of the numbers that drive your blog, you won't be able to spot opportunities for improvement and optimization, let alone understand how to grow a blog in the first place.
If you run your blog on WordPress, I highly recommend checking out MonsterInsights to help you decode and fully understand your blog statistics. Just link it to your Google Analytics account and you can immediately start tracking how long people spend on your site, your most popular articles, and many other valuable insights.
38. Never stop A/B testing your blog
No matter how good your blog is, I can guarantee you that it will always be possible to improve it.
But instead of relying on your intuition and guesswork about what changes might lead to improvements, A/B testing gives you hard data on whether or not you're getting the best possible results to help to the long-term growth of your blog.
A/B testing (sometimes called split testing) is a process of creating two variations of the same thing and analyzing which performs better. You can A/B test virtually any aspect of your blog, whether it's the best times to post an article, copying a call-to-action, or headline writing of your last article.
It's important to think of A/B testing as an iterative process, where the key to success is not one drastic change, but rather a number of small tweaks over time. With rigorous and consistent A/B testing, you'll be able to continuously optimize and refine your overall blogging strategy to ensure consistent growth.
39. Automate and outsource with tools and contractors
The great thing about a successful blog is that a large majority of the tasks involved in growing it can be easily automated once you build some momentum.
With the right tools in place, you'll be able to step back from day-to-day management and focus on your blog's long-term growth strategy.
And if you're also hosting a podcast to boost your blog's growth, you can turn episodes into blog posts. This service does it for you, so you can focus on other things.
40. Experiment constantly
Finally, and this is perhaps the most important point, never be afraid to experiment with new ideas and new processes that might help you better learn how to grow a blog. You might be surprised by the results of a wacky experiment.
What's good about Content marketing, is that it is an ever-changing landscape, and those who manage to stay at the top of their industry are always the ones who are willing to experiment with new strategies and tactics.
When I created this blog, it was to generate side income and publicize my services as a consultant in Content marketing.
I never thought I would one day turn my blog into a podcast, or create my own free blogging course.
All of these things started out as experiments – small projects that eventually grew into what they are today.
How will you develop your blog this year?
I hope this guide to growing a blog has been helpful and given you some ideas for new strategies to try.
Now that I've broken down 40 of my favorite tactics for growing a blog, I know I couldn't cover it all here today…
So what did I miss?
What are your favorite ways to grow a blog?
Share them with us in the comments below!
