All week I’ve been discussing the five dimensions of growth your blog should reflect. We started with growing warmer, then talked about growing deeper, moved on to growing stronger, and yesterday covered growing broader. I want to close the series by sharing the aspect of growth we focus on most of all – how to grow larger.
There is one distinction I want to point out up front in my philosophy from others. Many people look at growing a “larger” blog in terms of inbound statistics – pageviews, subscriber counts, bounce rates, etc. These are important, but they don’t always tell the full story. I believe the most important aspect of growing larger is the idea of growing in influence.
The Basics of Statistical Growth
Let me start with the basics. How do you grow larger in terms of statistical reach? In other words, how do you attract more visitors and subscribers? Here are some of the ways I work on this aspect of growth daily…
- Network. Make friends. Be real, genuine, and generous. Meet new people.
- Get your content into the cloud, which means, spread it around everywhere. Join social bookmarking sites and submit your posts. Find sites with community links sections. Put your videos on multiple networks with your url in the description.
- Practice good SEO. Have strong titles, good keywords in your post, and properly SEO‘d page structures.
- Guest post.
- Comment. Don’t just leave comments hoping for clicks – truly interact and connect with people through commenting.
- Write good stuff! This is the #1 factor, by the way. The rest is just a matter of helping people find it.
If I were you, I’d establish a routine. I have a cycle I go through when promoting my content so that I rarely leave steps out. Decide which networks you’re going to utilize.
Growing Your Influence
This is bigger. It’s more important but harder to understand and apply. By growing your influence, I simply mean that the growth of your blog isn’t dependent upon writing a great post, it’s more dependent upon being consistently valuable to people.
As your writing improves, so does the value of your blog in total. People tend to give you credibility as you establish your authority on a given subject matter. I’m often asked about WordPress and web design issues as well as ministry leadership because those are two subjects I address consistently on my other blogs.
Be a helper and encourager. Let goodness ooze from your being!
In case you were looking for, oh, say 67+ steps to promoting your blog, that wasn’t really the purpose of this post, but I’ve covered it elsewhere.
About Brandon Cox
hey brandon, I know this post has been written a while ago but I thought I needed to read something to help bring my blog to the next level. I guess you’re right about helping others and contributing. Great posts won’t help you all the time. I’m now working on increasing my circle of influence and guest blogging.
Still find difficulty writing guest posts not that I don’t want to but it’s just that everyone has been talking about everything already!
Bryan recently posted..9 Awesome Proven Ways To Promote Your Blog
I agree those are good tips. The number one thing is to write good content but hoping that Google will find your blog is wishful thinking – You need to promote it.
Thanks for the reminder.
.-= Termite Web´s last blog ..Termite pictures – Microtermes pakistanicus =-.
No problem and thanks for stopping by!
Yeap, looks like another great part of this, say, novel :)
Thank you for your hard work.
I think I’m going to publish similar series of posts.
I wonder how to extend them to 5 parts..
.-= iWoodpecker´s last blog ..Let This Girl Survive – A Lump of Ice Fell on Her Head Right From the Roof of Multi-Floored Building – on 5th February, 2010 =-.
Hey thanks to you!!
Been reading this series on the background past week. Really great series Brandon and some good tips also. Thanks for sharing your views on growing a blog I enjoyed reading it. I can find myself in a lot of the points you covered as I try to grow mine. Once again thanks for this Great series :)
.-= Shurandy Thode´s last blog ..Spotlights on: Bonaire Windsurf Kids “From nowhere to the Main Stage” =-.
Thanks so much – glad you found it helpful!!
I have really enjoyed this series Brandon! There is a wealth of knowledge here.
I also loved the use of the purposes that I know so well! :)
.-= Kevin M.´s last blog ..Friday Top Five 2/5/10 =-.
Yep, they definitely apply across the board. Thanks so much, Kevin!
Really useful post! I appreciate your putting this together.
Although I am not new to music, I am new to music blogging. Through all of my research, I’ve noticed that you really do have to be SHARP about how you write, what you publish, even comments on other people’s blogs have to be thought-provoking.
My thought is that social networking has forced the world to raise the bar and be sharper, smarter, and thoughtful about everything that gets put out. Technological progress moves faster than a blink of an eye and I’m glad for your post to help me stay on top of it.
Thank you!
Allison
.-= Allison Rizk´s last blog ..ERIC LINDELL’s Festival of down-home BLUES! =-.
I think you’re right about that – social networking has certainly present a new array of challenges to excellence. But even more, it’s forced us to be more personal.