There are a lot of ways to create an extremely popular blog. There are three main ways that most blogs lead to a popular one. There are probably over a couple hundred different ways you can get to a popular blog, but the three I’m going to talk about are some the easiest and may be some of the hardest ways.
3 Ways to a Popular Blog
1. Most the time blog growth occurs at the grassroots. You can do it the hard way where you do everything by yourself. However, the easiest way to start a grassroots is to collaborate with another blogger.
This is for blogs and bloggers at similar levels create a popular blog from the ground up. This is an easy way to gain a lot of links. Why would you care to do this? Because it is difficult to get links from popular blogs. A whole bunch of links from unpopular blogs is just as good as links from a couple of popular blogs.
The positives of this way is that you’re sure to succeed as long as you stick with it. Link Building should always be on top of the list of things you need to do. Over time it will begin to get a lot of traffic from search engines if you do this. He will also be able to get to know a lot of other bloggers and this can help if you ever need anything. The best thing, this way can also work with the other two ways I’m going to talk about.
The negatives are that it takes a long time to get a popular blog. Over time this might just wear on you and you end up slowly declining the time you spend on blogging. You end up quitting and never coming back to your blog.
2. Social media is becoming a more popular way to create a popular blog. This we will give you a huge traffic spikes and you hope to attain the people that come to your blog as subscribers. If you get to the front page of social media web sites than they can bring thousands of visitors to your blog.
It’ll be easy to build your readership if you are able to become a power user. Once you are able to somewhat control the stories that go on the front page this will happen. You will have to worry about any other source of traffic if you use social media right.
I think the negatives out rate the positives. A lot of times these blogs fail because it is difficult to become a power user on social media quickly.
It is hard to keep a positive attitude when your blog is not getting any traffic and you’re not yet a power user on any social media site. Of course if this fails you will have to start over someone else. It is a good idea if you try to implement this into your grassroots model. Then if it fails you still have the ability to fall back on your grassroots model.
3. The third way that you can easily build readership on your blog is through guest posting. This is the same thing I am doing right now. I am unable to give another blogger content to put on their blog and in return I get a link to my blog.
The reason I like this is because it is easy to build readership from the other blog’s subscribers. You will post on blogs that have similar niches to yours. This means it is more likely that the people you’re writing content for it will subscribe to your blog. Of course if you are able to write for some of the more popular blogs, then you’ll get a very powerful link back to your own blog.
The negatives are not that bad. You just have to make sure that you don’t spend too much time writing guest posts because then your own content might lag a little bit. Remember, even if people come to your blog from other web sites it does not mean that they will subscribe to your blog. You also have to write quality content for your blog not just your guest post.
These are three of the most popular ways to build a popular blog. They all have their positives and negatives but if you are able to eliminate the negatives then you should be on your way to success. Remember, it will take time to build up your blog. There are many ways to do this and don’t think that these are the only three ways. I use all three of these together so it is not like you only have to use one.
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
i’m newbie in blogging. i start create a networks with other bloggers in my list that is in same level with me and active reading to their updates and leaving comments, from the small networks, i hope it will be grow.
Sounds like you’re doing the things you should be doing when starting a blog. I definitely think you’ll be fine if you stick with it. Just make sure to write great content so that people will stay on your blog.
You know, so many people say you need to write great content to create a successful blog. While I agree, that has nothing to do with whether or not your blog becomes successful.
In addition to writing great content, you need to write content that relates to one overall mission statement. You also need to write content that falls within a specific niche because you need to write stuff that your readers will enjoy. For example, someone looking for fitness tips may not want to read about building a successful data warehouse.
Also, Franklin, when you type a comment on your blog in Firefox 3.0, the comment trails off the screen and you can’t see what you’re typing.
I think social media is a real turning point in driving blog traffic, and building a popular blog, but I also think there is no substitute for consistency. Just keep at it, and slowly over time it will build. What turns people off to a blog is when there is a post a day for 2 weeks, then nothing for a month Those people aren’t coming back…just keep at it, and do something each day and you’ll be on your way to a popular blog.
Matt
I definitely agree with you Matt. I do like social media traffic but most those people do not stay on your blog. That is my only problem w/ social media traffic.
I wish there was a better way to track that…
my sense is that I have picked up quite a few
regular readers due to social media, mostly
Twitter, but of course that is only my sense
I can’t really substantiate it.
Matt
Hi Franklin,
You covered these 3 tips pretty well. I know comment marketing has been getting popular lately and many have proven to get results from it. This is also another way to build relationship with fellow bloggers.
I agree with you that having a network of blogger friends are easier to grow a blog rather than to work alone. Great thoughts.
Wei Liang
Comment marketing has been getting very popular. I think as long as you add to the conversation people will come to your blog. Some people just write one sentence and then wonder why they never get traffic from commenting.
That is the reason why there is a group of
bloggers who think that comment marketing
don’t work. They simply don’t understand
the fact of providing valuable input to the
article.
Wei Liang
Bah! I never worry about front pages. I use sociability like commenting; to meet other like minded bloggers….basically getting to your #1 and then some.
Commenting kind of goes in the grassroots section. I don’t think you could ever start a blog without commenting though. Unless you do something like cracked.com and go 100% social media.
I’m not sure I’ve heard of them before, but I’ll check it out.
You have a sound approach combining the three methods or at least using some as backup. My new team blog is getting a high percentage of hits from social media. The pretty low bounce rate is due in part to a strong network of regular ‘friends’ — we visit and comment on each other’s blogs. Also commenting in general allows people to keep discovering your blog months from now.
It is always good to work with other people and comment on each other’s blogs. You guys could easily start linking to each other also for a good search engine optimization. After awhile you would all gain a bunch of links and get a lot of traffic from search engines.
Great post!!! I have been trying to change up the theme of my blog to be more consistent and unpredictable. I also try to get my audience to participate more by including either surveys or more controversial topics.
I definitely think you’re on the right track if your trying to include your audience. Building a community is a great thing you can do for your blog. It is also nice because they will link to your content quite often.
Apart from #1 and #3, I’m not fond of social sites. I figure the ladder to the top is pretty crowded and gamed by a group of power users. How many articles that made it into Digg front page were of real value? Anyway, the fact that you list the pros and cons, pretty much clears some doubts.
Yan
I completely agree with you. Power users are controlling everything on those sites. However, StumbleUpon seems to not be that way. I usually get about 300 unique visitors from StumbleUpon on each my posts. If that is the only social media site that I have found of any value.
Heyeah! Blog commenting is missing. I think it is one of the best way to popular a blog.
What do you think?
I definitely think so also. But I usually just add that in to the grassroots. I just think that is part of building up a blog right from the beginning.
Good stuff. Yeh, social media is surprisingly helpful.
It sure can be. Is there any one social media site you really like?
Yup I vote for guest posting! It has driven some nice traffic.
I definitely agree with you. Guest posting can easily get you traffic and a bunch of subscribers. It is the way that I built up this blog quickly.
Certainly by writing guest posts you will increase your readership. The important thing is to attack blogs related with yours, so this way their readers will read your content and probably will subscribe to your blog…
Nice points Franklin
Attacking the blogs that are in your niche is definitely the best way to go about guest posting. There are also side niches that can somewhat relate to your niche that can also be beneficial. I have hit these pretty hard and it seems to be working.
I really enjoyed reading this post,and the comments that followed.I would have to agree with most that commenting,and social networking are two great ways to bring traffic to your blog.I have been reading a lot of articles that talk about having a blogging buddy of sorts to also help in this process.Frequent post of good content will keep readers coming back,and just maybe they may share your site with others.
I agree with this article. A big part of gaining popularity is to have UNIQUE content. If you’re just scraping content from some other place- chances are people have heard it already. (Its not nice either)
No matter how you go about it, not everyone will be successful at making money. It all starts with a workable plan, a good design, and plenty of initiative.
Guest postings is a great idea. My problem is people are nicking my news items for free. I’ve sent several a breach of copyright notice.