A few of my clients have been asking for advice on how to grow their blog over the last few weeks.
What I think has happened, is that many people have started blogs in 2019 and seen that it is very difficult to actually get anyone to look at your work. So, they have started to do what any practical person would and are trying to gather information as to how to build an audience.
Well, I will address this, but only briefly as it is a very big topic which i have mentioned in our post – 16 tips on how to start blogging. The first thing you need to understand is that after you put up your post on WordPress or any other platform, there will be a brief window of time where it is visible in a public space – e.g. reader. After this, it gets buried by everyone else posting articles.
If you are writing about topics that is of general interest, a post about how adjectives work, for example, there is a chance of getting some traffic via a search engine, but – consistence is key!
Presumably, if that post is high on googles rankings you would expect that post to be viewed more than others: it isn’t, algorithms will calculate many factors from users location, credibility, consistence and authority, along with many others.
Marketing isn’t a massive Industry by happenstance. Read their work, comment on it, like and share etc. They may do the same for you, and you can grow from there. What I am trying to tell you is that it is a lot of work to build an audience, and you should probably spend a decent portion of your time marketing, blogging and putting yourself out there.
I attended a course once that was part of a scientific program, it had a lady there talking about social media and influencing – so we could better communicate our work. She said you should spend around 10 % of your time on marketing, and after this year of blogging, I tend to agree.
The dream of writing a blog post with your coffee in the morning, posting it online and having everyone read it and even make money from it is an utter fantasy! It takes time, research and alot of work to create relevant content for your clients.
It is no less passive than any other form of employment, and it is a lot of hard work! Sorry to ruin your fantasy, but isn’t that always the way?
