The blog market is HOT! Everyone wants a piece of the pie. With the amount of “competition” to get your posts read what can you do to boost their visibility?
Check out these 10 great tips to get your blog posts READ! #blogtips #blogging Click To Tweet1- It all starts with a title
I know this sounds obvious but this is what’s going to make people who aren’t necessarily regular readers visit your post. Check out this fabulous posting to learn how to write great blog titles.
2- Flashy pictures
Whenever possible, include a picture with your posting. I use Stencil to edit most of my photos. I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth out of this service. Sometimes words speak louder than graphics (like in this posting). Experiment and have fun designing pinnable images for your blog.
3- Visit other blogs
I know I mentioned this as one of my 9 Tips To Build Your Blogging Community posting, but visiting other blogs is critical! Plus the blogs you visit and comment on often return the favour!
4- Capitalize on keywords
When you write a post, do a little keyword analysis before publishing it. You want to use keywords that have higher search volume but lower competition. Have a couple keywords in your title and ensure they appear intermittently throughout your posting. I use a free service, Wordtracker, when I am doing keyword research.
*Bonus tip: Did you know that you can customize the permalink URL of your postings in Blogger? There are many benefits to creating a custom permalink. Read the next tip to find out more!*
5- Become familiar with SEO (search engine optimization)
If you’re on Blogger there’s a great posting over HERE on how to boost SEO for Blogger blogs. It’s brilliant! I never knew prior to reading her post that it was possible to change the permalink URL on your postings! Once you know how to select keywords you could have 1 or 2 keywords in your blog title and an additional keyword can appear in your permalink.
If you’re on WordPress, I urge you to get an SEO plugin. I love YOAST SEO; it takes a lot of the mystery and frustration out of SEO.
6- Participate in link parties
I mentioned this last week but link parties are an awesome way to get your postings read. Select a few blog hops that you can regularly participate in and submit your posts every week. Here’s a great overview on how to participate in link parties. Stephanie’s posting also provides a list of parties which occur on specific days of the week.
*Bonus tip: Sometimes link parties showcase a set of popular posts from the previous week. If your post is selected, you may get even more visitors to your blog.*
7- Showcase your content
While you’ve got someone reading your blog, why not keep them engaged with your content? There are several ways to do this too!
– Have topic-based pages for your blog (i.e. have a page entitled recipes with all your recipe posts listed on the page). If your readers find a niche they’re interested in, they may spend a significant amount of time reading through old content.
– Create a related-links widget below your posts. This often entices your readers to check out similar content. I used to have the Linkwithin widget on my site but I was found that the widget wasn’t all that intuitive. I was getting recipe recommendations on parenting postings, homeschool recommendations on DIY postings, etc. When I was on Blogger, I removed Linkwithin and installed a custom code which works off of your blog post labels. I have been very happy with this custom widget (it takes a bit of fiddling with HTML but I promise if you follow the steps it’s easy to do). If you’re interested in installing it, you can check out this webpage HERE. If your blog’s on WordPress, you can use a plugin like Zemanta Related Links (which is what I use). It’s intuitive and you can customize the links that display beneath your posts!
– Have a popular posts widget in your sidebar. I have mine set to the most popular posts in the past seven days, this way, fairly new content is regularly showcased.
– When writing your posts, link to relevant postings (like I did in my third tip “Visit other blogs”).
– Have a search bar and place it above the fold of your page. This way your readers can easily seek out the content they are interested in.
8- Share your content and make it easy for others to share!
We often think of sharing our own content but we also need to make it easy for others to share our content too. The more that your content is shared, the more likely it will be read. This has been a work in progress for me, but right now more than ever, I am seeing my content being shared. I think the main reason for this is because I have made sharing a lot simpler for my readers.
– Make sure you have big, easy to spot, share buttons.
– My “tweetable link” has been outstanding for increasing the sharing of my posts. Ever since I installed it, tweets about my posts have increased by at least 600%. If you would like to install your own tweetable link and you’re on Blogger, the step-by-step HTML code can be found HERE. If you’re on WordPress, the Better Click to Tweet button is a wonderful tool.
– Once again, make those pinnable pictures for your posts. Pinterest is huge right now… you want your content to be pinned.
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9- Make it an easy read
It’s critical to make your postings easy to read.
– Numbered lists, headers, and short, simple paragraphs makes it easier for your readers to navigate your posts. Many people speed read when surfing the web… work with this and your readership will increase.
– Pay careful attention to your font size, font style, font colour, and formatting of paragraphs. Make your blog postings as accessible as possible to readers so that interacting with your content is pleasurable.
10- Write, write, write (and be consistent with it)
You can’t expect to write sporadically and have your readers follow along. Try to commit to posting at least one – two days a week. Be consistent and publish only on the days you decide upon (i.e. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). It took me a while to realize that my postings on Sundays were rarely being read, so I dropped Sundays from my editorial calendar.
Also, when I started this blog building series, I informed my readers that I would be posting about this specific topic on Saturdays. I did this because:
– I wanted those who were interested in the series to know when to expect the posts.
– I wanted my readers who were not interested in the blog building series to know when to expect this content. If the blog building posts appeared sporadically, I may lose my family/parenting readership. This way, they know up front, which day to not engage with my blog.
Would you add anything to this list of how to get your blog posts read? I would love to hear from you!
If you liked this post, I invite you to pin it.
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Great post! I wish I had more time to make my blog a real tool for people. I’ve been trying to get on a schedule : Said day, said “theme”… you know? But it’s been so unpredictable with my little ones. I’m thinking when they’ll get a older, it will be eaiser. Until then, I’m just happy to get to share, :-)
Thank you for for this series. I’ve been taking notes (even if I’m not ready to apply them all!)
Yes Yanic, family first. There’s a time to build your blog and you’ll know when it feels right/doable. In the meantime, thanks for following this series!
I agree. I try to post as often as possible but my kids are still little so scheduling can be hectic. I post as it comes to me. I will definitely keep this in mind for the future and try to make it work. I found a lot of other tips here that I have used though. Thank you so much for the help!
I like to write several posts in one “sitting” – then I schedule them. This really helps me keep to my allotted posting days. I hope you find a rhythm that works for you.
Wishing you all the best on your blog building journey.
Great post and list of suggestions. This is great for any beginner blogging starting out and a wonderful reminder for veteran bloggers. I love the Tweet feature.
Thanks Crystal! I love the Tweet feature too! It has done amazing things for my blog. I’ve been blogging for over 3 1/2 years and I’m always needing to remind myself of these practices. It keeps things moving and growing.
Thanks for stopping by!
Great tips! I have just written a post on 7 things you should do before you publish a blog post. I was surprised by the amount of people who commented saying that they never knew some of the tips and they have been blogging for years
Oooooh, Natasha, I’m going to have to read that post. Sounds good.
The thing is we “learn” so much about blogging as we do it but we often forget certain things. It’s great to have reminders to get us back on track so that we’re making the most impact with our work.
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Pinning this helpful resource! Thank you, Jennifer, as always!
Thanks for pinning Robin! I appreciate you sharing and I hope it helps you too!
Thanks for the tips! I certainly have to work on my “sporadic-ness” – I find that I just don’t make the time that it requires then want to get bummed out about it – when it is ALL my fault! Thanks again!
You are so very welcome. I write a couple times a week but schedule my posts ahead of time (for instance, as of yesterday, I had my posts complete and scheduled for the coming week). Then I write this week for the following week’s posts. This may change if something major occurs, but I can always make substitutions if need be.
Best wishes on your blog building journey and thanks for visiting!
Awesome tips! I’ve never heard of Wordtracker before but I’ve been looking for a way to find better keywords and SEO optimization. Thank you so much for sharing!
Visiting from SITS!
Hi Jessi! I was just at your site visiting you. I love Wordtracker. You can pay for an upgraded version but I’m enjoying the freebie version. It suits my needs well for now.
Wishing you a lovely day!
Wow, great tips. I’ve learned a bunch from this post. The links are spot on. Who knew? You!
Visiting from SITS.
Barbara @ http://www.allmylivesnow.com
Hi Barbara! Thanks for visiting. I’m glad you enjoyed these tips and I’m thrilled that you learned some new stuff too. I hope this helps you in your own blog building journey.
Wishing you a lovely day!
Thanks for the tips. I definitely need to work on my titles. I’ve never been good at them so I haven’t tried as hard as I should.
Visiting from SITS.
Thanks for stopping by! Yes titles are key. I hope this helps you in your own blog building journey as well!
Wishing you a lovely weekend.
Great post, thanks for sharing these tip! I know that I need to work on my SEO optimization and the key words.
Thanks Tiffany. I’m still working on SEO and keywords. I think it’s something that needs consistent practice but it’s definitely worth the effort.
Wishing you a lovely weekend.
Very cool information. Eeek there’s so much to do! I’ll definitely have to be back to look at this list daily.
There is a lot to do but it’s worth the initial rhythm of getting into the habit of following these strategies. I have been building my blog since November and I have seen some enormous growth since I put my plan into action in January.
I hope these tips help you in your own blogging journey.
So I’ve tried to do the putting in my own widget for the related posts links but could never get it to work for me. Then I just went with outbrain, but it was noooo good. So since you provided that link for the related posts widgets I decided to try it again (since I swear I’ve been to that exact link and couldn’t get it to work) but this time I finally did it right. Woohoo!
Ooooh, awesome! I’ll have to head over and check it out! Thanks for letting me know it worked for you. I know I had to attempt to install mine a couple times too.
These seem to be some great tips, I appreciate you sharing! Thank you!
You are so very welcome Becca! I am far from an expert but as I learn and grow I wanted to help others do so as well. I hope this helps you as you build your blog!
Those are some amazing tips Jennifer and I thank you for them. I agree with them all and I will have to use a few of them. While I don’t have problems getting posts read I am not consistent when it comes to blog hopping. With my job and other issues it can become tough but I always make sure I visit at least once or twice a week. :)
I think it gets harder to visit and hop the bigger your blog is… and your blog is pretty popular! I think you do a great job considering all your other commitments!
Thanks for visiting and sharing. I hope some of these tips help.
xoxo
Thanks for the great tips! I’ve often wondered how people get the related posts at the bottom of a post. That would be a handy widget to have! I’m going to have to look into that!
You’re so very welcome Missy! The related posts widget is fabulous! It really keeps readers engaged with your content.
This is probably the post I will get the most out of so far Jennifer. SEO is still so foreign to me. I really need to go read that post you linked to. And I too love PicMonkey. It’s awesome!
Keep up the good work with the series. I love it!
xoxo
SEO can be completely intimidating and overwhelming but I think you’ll enjoy the link I provided. It’s very simple and straight-forward tips to improve SEO (and it’s Blogger platform specific). There are a lot of tips out there for WordPress, but not much for Blogger.
PicMonkey is amazing! I am so glad I sprung for the deluxe version too because all the extras are definitely worth it.
I’m thrilled you’re enjoying this series Tiffany. I figure as I go through this journey, I might as well help others too.
I hope you’re having a lovely weekend.
xoxo
You left a comment over on my blog so I had to stop by yours too. You have some great blogging tips here and a lovely blog. So glad we connected today!
Thank you Jean! I’m so glad you enjoyed my tips. I’m glad we connected too! I look forward to visiting more with you.
Wishing you a lovely day.
Hi Jennifer, some great tips here! I need to get onto this key words thing. Thanks for all the great ideas.
Hi Shannon! I’m glad you enjoyed these tips. Keywords takes a bit of time, research, and practice but it’s worth the effort. I hope you find these tips useful in your own blog building journey. Thanks for visiting.
Great advice and I could stand to work on my consistency!
Thanks Michelle. I think consistency is huge. Most people like to know what to expect. My husband, who is not a blogger but reads a few blogs, prefers the ones which are clear as to when they publish. He also doesn’t like over-publication. That’s something to keep in mind too. People are more likely to drop their email subscriptions if their email box is flooded every single day.
Thanks for visiting Michelle. I’m glad you enjoyed this post.
You are so very right, all great tips!! I sure love to see you commenting on my site and happy to come here also!! You have great posts!
I am so glad you enjoyed this Tara! I hope it helps you with your blog building journey as well.
I love visiting your site (although it’s best when I do it on a full stomach *wink*)!
This is GREAT! Thanks, Jennifer! I’m pinning it so I can come back and really study EACH point. Have a wonderful week!
I am delighted that you enjoyed this post Kelli! I hope it helps you in your journey as you build your blog. Thanks for pinning!
Lots of great tips , I’m a visual learner and you kept me interested without pictures :)
Thanks for your post…
Patricia
I’m a visual learner too. That’s why the small, short, scannable paragraphs with headers are important. I hope this helps you. Thanks for reading Patricia!
You posted some really great tips here! I now am up and running with Wordtracker. Yay! That’s pretty helpful! I need to get the Tweetable link. Thanks so much for sharing!!!
Wordtracker is pretty awesome (and I find their free service to be sufficient to meet my needs). The tweetable link is amazing Dee! Seriously, it makes sharing posts so much easier for your readers. The key is having a stand out quote to accompany each tweetable link so that it’s tempting for people to tweet.
I’m so glad you found this helpful. I hope it makes your blog building process that much easier!
Wishing you a delightful day.
I have pinned this post, Sverve’d it, shared it, every way possible. This way I can come back to it. Lots of good info. I’ve already returned a couple of times today!
Share away Dee, share away…. I’m just thrilled you find this helpful. If I’ve helped ever just one fellow blogging buddy, then I’ve done well. Thanks again for updating me. I would love to continue to hear about your progress.
These tips are awesome. I’m bookmarking this page!
I am so pleased that you found this helpful. I hope these tips help you with your own blog building journey. Thanks for visiting!
I could really benefit from taking some of these tips. I pretty much just wing everything instead of methodically working out all the background stuff. These are great tips!
I’m glad you enjoyed these tips Rebecca! I figured while I was building my blog, I might as well share my research with others in the blogging community.
Thanks for all these tips with links included, I’ve never heard of Wordtracker and I’m checking out that post on SEO for Blogger blogs! I definitely agree with making it easy to read. When I see a blog post that isn’t broken up, I seriously read maybe the first few lines and then last few lines so I can get the jist of what they were writing about. I love me some short paragraphs and bullets!
I love Wordtracker Jessica! The free version is basic but I find it meets my needs right now. The posting on SEO for Blogger blogs is fabulous! I think you’ll enjoy it!
I will read lengthy paragraphs if it’s someone I have a blogging relationship with but if it’s a blog I’m unfamiliar with or a “new” blog I’m discovering, then I, like you, will speed read the posting.
Thanks for visiting! I hope these tips help you out!
xoxo
I’ve never heard of Wordtracker either! There’s so much to learn along this blogging journey… thanks for the helpful tips :)
There is a lot to learn Cassidy. That’s actually why I started this series on blogging a few weeks ago. I figured while I was doing the research and applying principles to my own blog, I might as well share my insights and discoveries with my fellow bloggers.
I hope these tips help you in your own blog building journey.
Obviously you know what you’re talking about since you’ve got heaps of comments on this post! LOL! :) Great tips, Jennifer!
Thanks Sanz! Well, I’m on a blog building journey and I’m glad there are others who wish to be on it with me too. I thought while I was doing the legwork and research, I might as well share it with the blogging community.
Great list of suggestions. So many of these things I think about, but it was great to see them all in one place. (Stopping by from The Blogger’s Digest.)
Thanks Katie! I’m the same way, I like my thoughts to be collected and all in one place (another reason why I’m doing this blogging series). Thanks so much for visiting!
Hi Jennifer, these are really great tips, I can’t wait to try some of them…I’m trying to blog more regularly now – it’s one of my goals for 2014! Following from blogger’s digest today.
I’m so glad you enjoyed these tips Jen. Remember, you don’t have to “blog” regularly… you just have to publish your posts regularly. If you feel compelled to write four posts in a row, write them and schedule them on your predetermined posting dates.
Thanks for visiting!
Thank you so much for joining in with the Say G’Day Saturday linky party! This is such a great post. I’ve just shared this on Google+ and Pinterest.
Hope to see you again this Saturday!
Best wishes,
Natasha in Oz
Thank you so much for sharing Natasha. It was my pleasure to join the party!
What great tips I’m off to implement them now!!! Thanks for linking up to “Stumble Into the Weekend”!!
Thanks
Mandy
Thanks so much! I’m thrilled that you’re excited to start implementing these tips. Thanks for visiting.
Wonderfully written! I have been blogging for over one year and still making changes to incorporate these tools. I still have a long way to go but I am having fun learning.
Thank you for sharing these helpful tips!
It’s my pleasure to share these tips with you Bismah. I hope that they help you as you work to build your own blog.
Lots of great tips. Pinning and will be checking my blog against your list. I’m still new to this and all these tips are so useful.
I’m so glad you find this useful! Thanks so much for pinning too!
These are some great tips. Thanks for the links to more info too. I’ve pinned this and I know I’ll be coming back to it again.
I’m so glad you found this helpful Rabia. Thanks for pinning. I’m so glad you stopped by. I hope this helps you in getting your blog posts read.
Those are wonderful tips. Right now I’m dipping my toes in the world of sharing. When you want your real life identity kept separate from your blog, that’s sometimes a bit of a challenge. But there are some really interesting things happening in social media land, so I’m giving it a try…
I used to want anonymity on my blog but that changed as my blog grew because many sponsors don’t want to work with someone who’s anonymous.
Best wishes as you bridge into social media. My advice, go slow. Choose 2 or 3 social media platforms to focus on and then expand when you’re completely comfortable.
Great Tips, thanks a bunch for sharing!
Thanks and you are so very welcome!
I can’t begin to tell you how helpful this post was to me! I’ve been wanting to “fine-tune” my blog, but wasn’t sure how to go about it; I feel like this post was the guide I need! Thanks so much for sharing!
I’m thrilled to hear this post was of great assistance to you. sometimes it helps to have a list or a process to follow. I hope it helps you in your blog building journey.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
This was an awesome post! I learned so much. I had never heard of AddThis and now I definitely will install it. I was wondering does it have an option for people to subscribe to your mailchimp newsletter by email. I would prefer that to the social media buttons
Wonderful Keitha! I’m so glad that it helped you!
I love AddThis it’s fabulous. It’s pretty diverse. I don’t have MailChimp but it does have subscribe buttons for email.
Thanks for stopping by.
There is SO much good information in this post! I can’t wait to get started applying what I haven’t done! Thank you so much for sharing it all, Jennifer.
I’m thrilled that you enjoyed this Susan. I hope it helps you build your blog and get your posts read.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks!
You’re welcome Jean!
Great advice! I’ve been debating on purchasing the deluxe version of picmonkey. It sounds like it is worth it!
Ooooh, Stephanie… PicMonkey is so worth the investment. You’ll definitely get your money’s worth from it.
Glad you enjoyed the advice and so happy you stopped by.
Great points! I haven’t a clue on SEO and didn’t realize it could help me if I was using blogger. I’m pinning this! Thank you!
I was so excited when I found out there were SEO tips for Blogger blogs! Yay!
Thanks for pinning… so glad you enjoyed this.
This was great and I’m checking out some of the links you shared. But can I tell you something else? You should install another comment system. If you reply to this, I’m not gonna know. Blogger doesn’t email our responses! It made me so mad when I discovered it that I immediately installed Disqus.
Hi Jennifer. I’m glad you enjoyed this! I used to have Disqus on my site but it slowed things down and many of the comments did not sync properly. I may be switching to WordPress shortly, so I don’t want to make any major changes at this point in time. I have been eyeing Intense Debate (I love the Comment Luv feature).
Thanks for stopping by!
This is soooo helpful! I love the click to tweet in WP but never knew I could do this in blogger. Totally trying this today!
So glad you liked and enjoyed this Kristen! I love the tweetable link… it’s fabulous!
Great post! Lots of helpful tips :) I’m trying to become more regular with my posting…this month I’ve been doing every week day, and I really think it’s helping.
I’m thrilled you enjoyed this Stacey. Regular posting is SO important.
Thanks for stopping by!
This is great information for a blogging newbie like me! I am the one who believes those who have gone before me, so, “Thank you!”
I’m delighted you enjoyed this information Yulunda! I hope it helps you as you build your blog.
Great tips, thanks!
You are so very welcome Caroline! Thanks for stopping by.
Hey, Jennifer…Happy Monday! It’s Courtney over at The Brown Girl with Long Hair stopping by via SITS…we actually started following each other on Twitter recently via #FF…
This post is phenomenal,and I’m headed back to Twitter to share it right now…
(I just began following your blog, too, via Google Friends Connect!)
Have a fantastic week! :-)
Hi Courtney! Thank you so much for stopping by. I’m so glad you enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing. I think we’re following each other’s social media networks now… talk about connecting hey?! So pleased to meet you.
Wishing you a lovely week as well.
This is great Jennifer. Congrats on being a SitsGirls superstar. Pinned and tweeted!
SITSGirls Superstar… LOL – too funny! So glad you enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing Jelli!
Thanks for sharing the wonderful tips. Even I need to take care of the images of my post. Using Picmonkey at your recommendation and must admit, even the free version of Picmonkey is a great and easy to use tool for editing images.
You’re right, even the free version is good. I do like the bells and whistles of the paid version though.
Thanks for stopping by!
I’m a little late to this posts party, but this is fabulous. Thank you for all of the very helpful tips and information!
You’re welcome Jennifer! I hope this post helps you out as you grow your own blog!
Thanks for the tip on word tracker. I wish you had more tips for wordpress in addition to blogger cause I don’t use blogger.
You’re welcome Lindsay, Wordtracker is a great tool. A few of these tips can be used with WordPress blogs as well.
I like to write what I’m familiar with. Since I’m on Blogger, it’s a lot easier for me to share my knowledge based upon my personal experience with it. Although, I’m currently making a transfer to WordPress, so who knows… maybe there’s a follow-up post in my future!
Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you so much for this post! I am excited to implement the tips you have and do some tweaking to my html to put in some of the plugins you recommended! The tweet it link is fabulous! And also thank you for the other links that provide the how to’s. It is so nice to see step by step instructions!
Brandi
http://fairytaleglamorous.blogspot.com
I am so thrilled you enjoyed this post Brandi! I love these plug-ins… I hope they help you out!
Thanks for stopping by.
Consistency is key, all great tips!
Thanks Lori! I’m glad you enjoyed these tips.
I clicked on this because of the little popup you have that recommends an article and it did a good job. I never knew about using keywords. Thanks
That little AddThis plugin is pretty fantastic (and it’s free)! Keywords are pretty important. I hope this post help you out. Thanks for stopping by!
great tips! thank you for posting this! will keep everything in mind
xo
Orly
coffeebeansandhighheels.weebly.com
I’m so glad you enjoyed this Orly! I hope it helps you in your blog building journey!
Was browsing your site and am so glad I stumbled upon this post! (which was super easy to do with those clear topic pages!) Good advice about keywords- that’s something I haven’t done and hopefully it’ll improve my stats. Thanks!
I’m so glad you found this helpful. I’m also glad you were able to navigate my site with ease… I like people to find things swiftly, so I appreciate the feedback!
Keywords are great to research… I’ve had some solid traffic on posts and I think it was simply from being intentional with my use of keywords.
Thanks for stopping by Casey!
HI Jennifer!!
Nice to meet you. My name is vandefan from pursueincome.com, I am new to your blog and I like what I see. I have a picmonkey paid version and I enjoy making pictures off it to look good.
What a great way to reach out to the community of bloggers Jennifer :)
Thanks for sharing your thought and opinion they came in handy!!
Thank you for stopping by Vandefan. I like to share my blogging tips and tricks with my readers… especially since many of them are bloggers as well.
Isn’t PicMonkey great?! I just love it and I think the paid version is totally worth the small investment.
Wishing you a lovely weekend!