Before you can get that first fan (reader) to follow you, you need to know who your audience is. You can’t expect bald men in their mid to upper sixties to care about the proper technique of diapering a baby. If they’re grandfathers, or even fathers, you lost them about forty years ago. However, new mothers would probably appreciate the 101 from you.
We’ve all seen television shows like The Biggest Loser. Well, today, we’re going to talk about finding your biggest blog fan.
There are three main ways to draw in an audience and build a readership or fan base.
1. know who your fans are
2. SEO (what?)
3. Social Networking (not to be confused with SEO)
So I write fiction, just in case you didn’t know that. But I don’t just write any kind of fiction. I write tender-hearted, life changing, wholesome stories that connect my readers with my characters. And that is who my readers are, people (mostly women) who love compassion filled, heart warming stories that have some kind of impact on their lives. And, then I have a differnt kind of readership, those of you who are learning to get your blog on. Now that you know who my audience is, ask yourself what type of people would be interested in my topic?
Then comes those three little letters, SEO. Terrifing aren’t they? Well, SEO or otherwise known as search engine optimization is the use of key words in both your content and your blog post titles. Confused yet? I have to admit, even I still struggle with the whole SEO concept. But I’ll try to break it down for as simple as I can.
In order for you to find your biggest fan, that fan and other readers have to find you. In order for them to find you, they search using search engines like: Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Those search engines rank the pages they bring into a potential readers view by the keywords used in your content. If I, Susan Lower, were looking for a recipe for making chocolate gelato, I would type in the keywords “Chocolate gelato recipe.”
Through my search engine, different sites would appear based on the number of times the search engine found the key words “chocolate gelato recipe.” Then it is for me to decide which site I want to click on for finding my recipe.
When you write your blog post, make sure you use key words into you writing, but don’t force them, else you’ll come across too stiff and uninviting to your readers. You can’t find your biggest fan (see I just did it) if your readers don’t stick around long enough to find out what your all about.
Lastly, I believe I have mentioned this before under widgets, but make sure you have your rss feed, follow me, and share buttons available on your blog. The easier it is for your readers to share what they’ve read the more beneficial it is for you to gain readership.
In the meantime, I encourage you to read 8 Incredibly SImple Ways to Get More People to Read Your Content by Copyblogger.
Tomorrow, we’ll tweet a little more about social networking and building the readership of your dreams.
