5 Ways Bloggers Can Grow Their Audience Online

The internet is now at the cusp of Web 3.0. Blogging gained prominence with Web 2.0. Irrespective of how the web evolves, building and growing your audience will always ensure your success. It is difficult to assign a tangible value to content. Since blogging is all about content, this also means you need a measurable metric to evaluate a content business. 

The most important parameter in a blog's community is its audience. That’s what advertisers care about. Audience development from specific demography will always be relevant to advertisers. Gaining clarity about your intended audience always pays great dividends. Building on behavioral preferences will help you grow your audience and open up several avenues to generate revenue.

Leverage analytics to create relevant content

Bloggers across the globe compete to appear on the first page of search results. While paid ad campaigns target specific demographics, optimizing your blog with well-researched keywords helps reach a global audience with the relevant search intent. It is a cost-effective and enduring way to attract potential leads.

If you're starting out with a new blog, your top priority must be to conduct detailed keyword research on your specialization. You must analyze the findings from keyword research about your competitors. This will help you create a more effective SEO strategy for your blog.

Tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs are a great starting point to understand the search terms that work well for your audience. They offer insights such as the overall search volume and SEO difficulty to help you to pick the right mix of keywords for your blogs.

That said, each search update by Google discourages keyword stuffing. Be influenced by the power of keywords, but do not overdo them in your blog. Doing this could impair readability, while also causing your blog to lose favor with the Google search algorithm.

Build reach by implementing social sharing

Imagine spending a week’s effort in creating a long-form post, only to realize that it gained no views. Do not let your hard work go down the drains. Explore the untapped potential of your posts by implementing an active social sharing strategy. 

Sharing your blog on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn boosts its visibility and helps discover and earn new audiences. Before you decide to take the plunge into social sharing, make it a priority to create engaging content. Nobody will share content if it does not interest them.

Also Read: 5 Tools To Increase Engagement With Your Blog's Audience

In addition, the very process of sharing your blog post must be a seamless affair. Ideally, this should be possible through easily identifiable social sharing buttons or hyperlinks. One way to do this is by implementing Click-to-Tweet plugins on your WordPress blog.

For long-term audience growth, it helps to have a deep collection of well-researched trending or evergreen topics that are shareworthy. Moreover, each content piece may need a different format or tone to suit audiences on social media networks.

What works for LinkedIn doesn’t necessarily work the same way for Facebook or Instagram. Understand the social media platform where you choose to share your blogs and their target audience. This ensures you create customized content that leverages the strength of your chosen platform.

Build authority with thought leaders

Thought leaders have expertise and authority in their area of specialization, which could be a topic, subject, or industry. Unique ideas and insights shared by thought leaders offer significant benefits to an audience. If you specialize in a topic such as sports, establishing expertise in sports builds credibility among your audience.

You’d agree becoming an expert is no easy feat. Not everyone can turn into a thought leader overnight. However, relevant collaborations with other content creators with more specific and relevant expertise could help enhance the reputation of your blog. Having a sports celebrity or expert write a post for your blog enhances the relevance and value in the mind of your audience. 

If collaborating with established personalities is out of your league, you could start by creating original and high-quality content in the form of whitepapers, research results, and surveys. What matters at the end of the day, is your ability to put out information that wins the trust of your audience.

Also Read: Power of Audience Ownership

Build credibility through validation

In order to establish credibility for your blog, another viable option is to look at prominent individuals in your network with a significant following. Invite them to share their points of view on your comment.

In case some of this has happened while attempting social sharing, you could also incorporate these comments into a new content piece to demonstrate expert validation of your blog’s content. 

But how do you get these people to contribute value-added content to your blog posts? You will likely find better connections through networking and nurture the relationships through mutual understanding. So gear up your networking game to invest in long-term results.

Enhance discovery through conversations

Another essential step in enhancing your blog’s reach is by engaging in active conversations on platforms where your audience is present. Once you identify the topics of discussion, you could join and engage with users on forums such as Quora and other platforms where questions are answered.

Also Read: 10 Must Join Communities For Publishers 

Unlike social media where appealing to users plays a role, here in-depth answers to questions influence how your content performs. The relevance of your posts and the depth of information in them will play a huge role in increasing the visibility of your blog.

In the case of platforms such as Reddit, promoting your own content may also risk your account being blacklisted. However, if your audience shares your blog and several others find it relevant, it could play a huge role in enhancing authority.

The key is to reply to people’s queries and add a link to your blog that might provide a detailed answer to what they need. You could also leave helpful comments on other blogs and be a part of a dynamic community within your industry to improve your blog’s visibility.

Also Read: The Best Content Syndication Tools

Key takeaways

Blogs are the secret sauce to growing an audience who have the potential to turn into loyal customers. With the right strategies and processes, including analytics, social sharing, thought leadership, influencer contributions, and engagement, you can organically increase your audience significantly.