10 Ways to Grow Your Blog

Growing a blog in today’s crowded digital space takes more than just publishing posts and hoping for the best. Having a blog requires long-term commitment, monitoring and work, which is a sure way to grow your audience base and the blog itself. In addition, it also requires a strategic blend of quality content creation, consistent posting, promotion of content and audience engagement with the content. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale an existing blog, the following proven strategies can help you to build traffic, authority and long-term success. So, here are ten ways to grow your blog:

1. Focus on high-quality, valuable content

Content is the backbone of any successful blog. Your posts should help to identify problems, provide a solution, answer questions, and entertain your audience in a way that’s both helpful and meaningful. Instead of writing for quantity, prioritise depth, clarity and originality. Long-form blog post content that’s also well-researched often performs far better than short-form content over time. In addition, it improves trust and authority in the search engine results pages (SERPs). 

As well as helping with performance in the SERPs, quality content also shows readers that you know what you’re talking about and that you take what you do seriously. Essentially, it should be seen as a way to showcase your content and what you do. Finally, quality content is something that the Google algorithm looks for when it crawls the internet, so it makes it even more likely that your content will appear high up in the SERPs.

2. Understand your target audience

You can’t grow your blog if you don’t know who you’re writing it for. Define your audience’s interests, pain points and preferences. Create content that’s tailored specifically to their needs. The more relevant your posts are, the more likely it is that readers will return and share the work you’re publishing. 

This is an essential step to making sure your content is being seen by the right people. When it comes to identifying your target audience, make sure you delve deeper into their age, occupation and interests. Use tools like Google Analytics to seek those demographics to be as accurate as possible. 

3. Be consistent with publishing

One of the top rules about starting and growing a blog is to refrain from creating filler content. This is content made and published that’s often rushed and carries no value, just to fill a void in your schedule. When it comes to publishing content, make sure it’s planned out months in advance. 

This stops the creation and publishing of empty content. Instead, work out what you want to write about, think about how long it’s going to take you to create a solid, good quality piece of material and then plan the publish date accordingly. Of course, you shouldn’t take too long, as consistency is key to growing and maintaining a quality, valuable and helpful blog. 

The general rule is to post something at least once a month at the very least, and two or three times a week at the very most. This applies to blogs regardless of the content you’re producing. From cooking oil companies to landscaping businesses and everything in between, consistent content posting is paramount to growing a blog successfully.

4. Optimise for search engine optimisation (SEO)

Optimising your content for search engines is otherwise known as search engine optimisation, more commonly referred to in the field as SEO. This is something that’s essential for organic growth and website traffic. SEO can be carried out in numerous ways, but some of the easiest methods of SEO are the inclusion of keywords and phrases. 

You should also make sure to include headings (H1s and H2s), write meta descriptions, improve load speeds and ensure a mobile-friendly design. Good SEO helps your content to get discovered by a wealth of relevant readers that are part of your target audience. If you struggle with SEO techniques, then choose a digital marketing agency to help you.

Here at Kumo, we have a team of highly-skilled and professional SEO marketers, alongside PPC specialists and qualified content writers, all of whom can help to optimise your blog and its content for the search engines. As well as optimising the content, we can write it for you, allowing you more time to spend running your business. Check out our SEO services today.

5. Leverage social media platforms

Social media is your best friend if you want to grow your blog, especially if you have a considerable number of followers across different social media platforms. Whenever you produce and publish a piece of content on your blog, make sure you’re also posting it on social media to let your followers know that there’s something new for them to look at.

Make sure you’re promoting your content on social media channels where your target audience spends most of their time. For instance, if your target audience is over 50 years old, then TikTok wouldn’t be the most appropriate platform to use, as the largest group of TikTok users are between the ages of 25 and 34 years old. 

However, according to Marketing Charts, the over-50s are more likely to spend their time on Facebook and YouTube. With this in mind, don’t be tempted to just drop links to blog posts. Engage your followers, start conversations and tailor your posts to each platform. Consistent social sharing can significantly increase your reach and your engagement.

6. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate

Collaborating with other bloggers might seem like just another task to do. However, you should see it more as a win-win for both bloggers involved. It’s a benefit for the blogger you’re collaborating with, but it’s also advantageous for your own blog. Collaborating with other relevant bloggers who already have a large and targeted following can do wonders for your online presence. 

According to BlogPaws, blogging collaborations lead to increased audience size, make you more appealing to brands, allow for the sharing of ideas, enable you to try new things, require the utilisation of different skill sets, ensure the development of a trusted network in the industry and keep yourself accountable. Some ideas to help get you started with blogging collaborations include the following:

• Swap guest posts
• Start a group project
• Host a multi-blogger giveaway event
• Start a mastermind or accountability group
• Put together a round-up post featuring other bloggers

7. Use some visuals

Blog posts that do contain visuals perform far better than content that doesn’t contain anything visual, whether it be a static image or an aid to the reader (like an infographic). Some of the visuals that you could use in your blog post content include photos, images, infographics, videos, gifs, reels and more. 

Visual elements are beneficial to go alongside blog post content as they help to break up the text whilst also increasing the amount of time a reader is on the page, therefore decreasing bounce rate. They also make for highly shareable, quality content that boosts your blog’s visibility.

8. Analyse your performance

A way to realise your strengths and weaknesses is to analyse the performance of your past content. This enables you to gain an understanding of your data, therefore helping you to refine your marketing strategy and focus on content that resonates with your relevant target audience. 

This can be easily done with the help of tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Semrush and more. Use those tools to help you track what’s working and what isn’t, paying particular attention to things like page views, bounce rate and the time that visitors spent on either the page or the website as a whole.

9. Update & repurpose old content

Just because you’ve published the content doesn’t mean you can forget about it. Don’t let your old content go to waste, essentially. Keep using it to your advantage. You can reuse it by updating it with new information, improving the SEO (such as including more up-to-date keywords and removing irrelevant or outdated statistics and broken links) or reformatting it into infographics or videos, for example. This only helps to elongate the life of your content, maximising its value in the process.

10. Encourage interaction

Finally, invite readers to comment, ask questions and share their opinions. Either do this using the comment section on the blogging platform or on social media posts that have been shared. You should then make the effort and take the time to respond to those comments in a way that’s positive. This helps to build a sense of community and keeps people coming back to your blog to read the content you create. Engagement also signals to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. 

Kumo provides high-quality digital marketing services to businesses nationwide. Whatever your industry, our skilled team offers customised SEO, PPC, content marketing and web design strategies aimed at strengthening your brand and growing your online visibility. If you’re looking to outperform competitors and boost traffic, leads, conversions and revenue, get in touch with our approachable experts today – we’re here to help take your business to the next level.