What you write got its purpose served only if there is someone read it
I am pretty sure most of you want to have a flock of visitors to come to your blog and read, comment, share posts or even buy something from your blog. In short, we all need traffic.
At the initial stages of blogging (whatever your blog niche is) I believe optimism, motivation and enthusiasm will be on top of everything in your mind.
Frankly speaking, as time goes by, those spirits can gradually fade out. One of the main reasons to get demotivated is that you don’t get the expected results as quick as you thought of. If you did not quit out of frustration, then you’re lucky.
All of sudden you will realize that it’s hard to get readers to your blog.
Many bloggers have believed that you should have made an eBook as soon as possible to build you readership base. Having a good eBook as a bonus to encourage subscribers is a smart move if you want a success within your blog. But the reality shows no matter how good your eBook is, build a readership is another story to succeed.
Starting from that fact, now many bloggers begin to ask how they can find alternative way out for this issue.
Desirable Methods to Find Readers
What is the most desirable methods in having readership into your blog?
Offering Ebook as incentive
If you have a plenty of time, writing skill, and (maybe enough budget) you will easily have this one. But what if you don’t have it? Is there any alternative?
Social proof
If you have one that will be great for you. You can add some testimonial about your achievement within your blog. You can add the appropriate counters.
Visitors will start to get impressed with your personality and pay more attention to what you have written.
But, back again, what if you don’t have it? Is there any alternative?
Alternate ways?
One of the important targets in your blogging business is “to sell”. What you do through your blog is “sell” information to all the internet users.
And one thing I have learned about selling things is
people will buy from you effortlessly when their needs match your offer and you don’t need to convince them that you have the best offer on the planet
… from my interview with Mavis Nong.
So, whatever your blog about is, to find the readers, you need to “sell” your information properly.
How to sell your information to find more readers?
Here are some alternatives you can use to sell your information properly :
1. Hunt readers from (A List or active) blogs
There are two ways you can do to “hunt” readers from the A-list bloggers. First is random hunting and second is targeted hunting.
As it is literally, random hunting means you try to embrace as many readers as you can, no matter what their backgrounds are. While targeted hunting means you do a selective hunt for your future readers who will actually serve the purpose you’re looking for.
Whatever you choose, what you should do is check the comments of those A-list blogs.
Actually I wouldn’t recommend focusing on the A-list blogs solely; if I were you I would prefer choosing a blog that has significant interaction with the audiences.
A blog that has good interaction shows that its readers are interested in delivering opinions and that means they are active readers. Having these readers you can have a valuable feedback toward your blog.
Once you decide your targets, lock them up and grab them in your personal database. Learn those blogs thoroughly and pay more attention on their interests.
2. Pick Commentluv enabled blogs to write your voice
After you take sometime and learn about your target audiences, now is the time to find the most profitable blogs. Pick those blogs that have commentluv plugin installed!
I am sure many of you know what comment luv is and I also figure out that many blogs use it already. If you’re not familiar with the plugin, read this post
Why Should You Install Commentluv on your blog
And, don’t miss out this too:
Premium Commentluv: Genius Features You Shouldn’t Miss
Why does this matter? It is all about free and smart content marketing. You can easily disclose and tell everyone in other blogs about what you have written by leaving good comments at comment luv blogs.
Remember the basic principle of sale I have mentioned previously? So this is exactly how commentluv plugin can help you find readers. They will find it easy to reach your blog by seeing what latest post (or any other post you choose - more flexibility on this with the premium commentluv plugin) you offer.
If your headlines are interesting then all the readers have to do is just click your post title displayed by the commentluv plugin.
Writing your voice on the comments is one of the smartest content marketing strategy that you can easily do. Leave your best comment there and start stealing reader’s attention.
3. Use the Proper Time When to Leave a Good Comment
At this stage you are going to need some plan to make unforgettable impression to your upcoming readers. Yaro Starak mentions about preparing the pillars. And this is what I mean, you need to make sure your pillars are good enough.
Once you have enough epic posts in your blog as pillars then you can start leaving comments at the proper time. The other pillar is of course your “About” page. Make it as good as possible because it could be your very first unique selling proposition.
It’s better if you can be the first to comment on active blogs. But don’t do it for the sake of being first. You need to write outstanding comments as well.
4. Play With Spam Comments
Do you know spam comments can give you an advantage? It’s a matter of consumer’s psychology. The readers are your consumers, and as consumers they will be more convinced if they see proof that you already have comments in your blog posts.
Blog posts that have comments will have a better status in the reader’s eyes. But I do realize that having a reader to comment on each of your blog posts is not as easy as the theory, especially if your blog is somewhat new.
You can begin with elaborating your spam comments - pick the best of the best spam comments you have. You can delete the improper link, and then hit approve. Remember don’t change any substance that is relevant!
What to Do Next?
The next important thing you can is analyze your efforts. There are free tools like Google Analytics that you can use to perform such an analysis.
Find out which blogs deliver you more traffic and learn how your “bounce rate” is performing. The lower the bounce rate the better your campaign has performed. This indicates that your readers are able to find what they have been looking for.
If you can figure out some blogs that give you a good traffic referral, it is important to embrace more engagement on those blogs. Plan your connection to the next level by becoming a guest blogger, taking initiative for online blog interview, proposing a joint venture, or other idea you can come up with.
At the final step you can keep performing these alternative strategies until you have adequate numbers of subscribers. Once you have those subscribers then everything should be easier than before.
So, if you think this post is useful, would you please share it so other can also take advantage of ? I will be more than happy to discuss your experience in this issue, please share your thought in comments box below.
Oktorian S Hakim is a blogger from Jakarta, freelance writer and founder of notordinaryblogger, a blogging tips on make a blog for a passive income in a simple ways
Haha #4 is something funny
I never thought like that. I just delete those spammy comments every week(instead of doing this, one should focus on creating compelling content and publishing less in the beginning of blogging career which can really creates good impact on other readers)
And to get more blog readers or to get more comments it’s better to end with the call to action. Which is really a powerful tool to get more exposure.
BTW I totally satisfied with your article Hakim, you have provided so many alternatives
Thanks Rahul.
Call to Action indeed, a good strategy. But somehow it is still difficult for many bloggers to get a real comments. While on the other hand, an article without comments seems to be less interesting to read.
The case will be different if we already have an adequate list of subscribers.
I absolutely agree with you. Without having adequate no. of comments the article will be less interested no matter how good the content is. Comments & subscribers are real assets for any blog.
One thing I’ve observed in getting more no. of comments is, if you already have good no. of comments in the previous posts, then the probability of getting more comments for the new post will be very high. I’ve observed this on my own blog and trying to get even more..
I agree with Rahul on this one Okto. You did a good job of pointing out how we can all do better with getting traffic to our blogs. Good article. Let’s see some more just like it!
Thanks David
It’s great that I can share something useful to others
I liked the spam comment idea also! I too just send to trash typically…
I have found that if you can dig up a forum or two that allows for links in your signature that is really targeted to what your blog is about, you will get some reasonable traffic. May seem a little outdated, but it does work - at least it has for me.
I thank you Jane for making this post goes to live. There is nothing but the value I wish to deliver to your readers.
Okto, the pleasure is mine in featuring you here
Thanks for your valuable contribution!
These are very good tips. I was thinking about these a few days ago. Although I have more than 10,000 members on one of my social network site, there are very subscribers for my new blog. Nonetheless will keep to the strategy and will do the things you have mentioned. I am impressed with manipulating the spam comments. I think its a brilliant idea. Thank you for these great tips.
Hi Shalu … thanks for sharing your experience and stopping by at notordinaryblogger :).
Having 10,000 members in social networks is a hard to do, congrats to you :). You have just proved that having a subscriber lists were another story to succeed. And I believe every blogs have spam comments. I just make an experiment of spam comments in my blog, and see a positive reactions from the bounce rate percentage.
Eventhough there is still no guarantee you will have a huge list of subscribers using this strategy (I only get a few of new subscribers since I started), but I could steal their attentions. They spent at least 1 until 3 minutes for each of articles they read on.
And I think 1 until 3 minutes is enough to deliver my message. What else a blogger want besides having the message delivered, right? Having money or huge list of subscribers from it is just a bonus of your hard work making your message being delivered to the readers.
Leaving a very good comment; contributing to the blog owner and the readers will leave a great impact and traffic.
Hi Joseph.
I agree with you. Moreover if you leave it in commentluv enabled blogs, it can give you targeted readers. Just like your comments here, I can tell that your blog must be in economic matters (gold, inflation, currency, etc).
So you make it easy for readers to know about what information they will get if they click it.
Thanks for sharing your insight
Great idea @Okto.
The rate at which people send spam comments to my blog these days is a little bit frustrating and the idea of removing the link is a welcome one. Thanks for sharing such a great idea to help others.
You’re welcome Daniel
Yup. Removing link inside the comments box is okay in my opinion. They have chance to put link in “website” box anyway, right?
I am glad this idea can help you.
Hi Joseph.
I agree with you. Moreover if you leave it in commentluv enabled blogs, it can give you targeted readers. Just like your comments here, I can tell that your blog must be in economic matters (gold, inflation, currency, etc).
So you make it easy for readers to know about what information they will get if they click it.
Thanks for sharing your insight
Spam Comments do doubt can bring some traffic and reader to your site but that one thing you are loosing your one backlinks to your site, so according to me a strong comment is always better.
Hi Rakesh,
Well, you are right. I use spam comments for catch the visitor attentions, but to get traffic I use comments on commentluv enabled blogs.
So it’s like preparing the pillars.. Just like Rahul said above … “Without having adequate no. of comments the article will be less interested no matter how good the content is” and that is how you can play with spam comments. You can put “more attraction” to your very first blog visitors to read on what you have written.
Spam comments won’t give you traffic, it will give you more chance for visitors to read and stay longer at your blog.
Thanks for sharing your insight.
Great tips, Jane! I’m looking for new ways to find readers, so your article came to me at a time when I needed to read it most.
Good communication with your readers is an excellent opportunity for every blogger to get success. You shouldn’t leave any question without answer or any reaction
Hi Amanda,
That’s a good point, it can create positive reaction to the readers. I think I miss that one
Thanks for adding more tips
Great post! Definitely agree on CommentLuv blogs, they can drive a lot of traffic!
Hi Marie,
Thanks, don’t forget to enabled commentluv in your blog too
It is very necessary that the needs of the visitors should match the our offer. We can get good reader for out blog if something is new and research based in our e-book.
Hi Azam,
Yes I am agree, and the easiest way to do that is from leaving comments in commentluv enabled blogs. It’s like free advertisements. Who wouldn’t like blog promotion for free?
Thanks for sharing your insight
Your idea is very correct about spam comments and i am already using his technique on my blog. I delete the link of the spammers blog and approve the comment.
Hi Ali,
I am happy to hear that you already use spam strategy too
Great strategies. Thanks for this informative post. especially agree with the commentluv part.
Hi Wolston,
Thanks for the support
Collaboration with other bloggers can be the best variant for getting readers. I mean placing interviews and guest posting
Hi Melissa,
Interview and guest posting are great. I have made some new friends from it.
Thanks
Great tips Okto, giving an ecourse is much better than giving an ebook. And deleting the url from spam comments is a nice technique
Hi Sreekanth,
If you are able to provide an ecourse, I believe it is better. Ebook is very common nowadays, thanks for adding tips
Hey Okto,
The post was really interesting to read around since I enjoyed the unique points you listed here… And the most interesting idea is Playing with Spam Links. Well, Spammers always frustrate blog admins but removing their comment links is a smart idea.
And I also appreciate your other points as they are really valuable and worth following tips. I personally liked fetching readers from any other blogs, commenting and just not for that, it helps me to build more relations.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Debasis,
I am sure every bloggers will experience spams, but not many take advantage of it.
Yes, commenting is one of the easiest ways to interact with other bloggers I agree. If you are selective in leaving your comment (on commentluv enabled blogs) you are not just make a relations, you make a free promotion too.
Awesome article about finding commenters on blog posts. Its really informative to all inspiring bloggers.
Thanks.
Hi Nandita,
Thanks for enjoying this article
I am running membership websites with integrated blogging platform. Honestly have never had any problems with finding readers as usually readers find me first.
That was great Carl. Congrats!. I believe you have an outstanding blog promotion whether online or offline.
But actually there are many others that still find it difficult, that’s why I like to share some alternative solutions
Hello Oktorian, Very nice article on finding blog readers. Getting readers to your blog is always a hot topic to discuss with other bloggers. You have explain it very well. As you have mentioned “Play with spam comments” in article, It looks like funny when read but your point of view for that is excellent. When your blog post have no comments, its always better to have one though it is spam. But its important to remove spammy links from it. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Veer,
Number of comments could trigger the new visitors to read. Thanks for your support.
Absolutely right, Okto. I completely agree with you. Number of comments is one of the factors which encourage visitors to read the post. You’re welcome and thanks again.
Hi Okto, great suggestions, actually this is how I started promoting my blog throu blog comments and Yaros blog was one of my first “targets” thanks for sharing this is must read for all the new bloggers…
Hi Kostas,
Having a blog as “target readers” is a good plan for blog promotion. Thanks for your support
Yes I am agree, and the easiest way to do that is from leaving comments in commentluv enabled blogs. It’s like free advertisements. Who wouldn’t like blog promotion for free?
Hi Oviie,
Thanks for stopping by, free is always interesting, right? thanks for your support
I agree with Carl on this one Okto. You did a good job of pointing out how we can all do better with getting traffic to our blogs. Good article.
Hi Shivam,
Congrats, you have had great achievement, and thanks for your support
Yes commentluv is best way to find blog readers i faced some problem my experience is not good with comment luv. I agree it’s awesome plugin but not works for me my blog always crashed when i am activate it well thanks for sharing great tips
Hi Rahul,
Too bad commentluv not work on your blog. I think you should report your problem to comment luv to find solution. Many advantage you can get if you enable it on your blog
Good luck
Hi Okto, I seem to be following you around the web today :-), great post by the way, goes to show you know a lot of good stuff and people should take note. What I need is to learn how to get more comments on our blog, I don’t think my posts are particularly bad, I think they are very informative, maybe I should turn off the Akismet and start playing with the spam comments, great idea.
that good way to look our reader at our blog without subscribers, and i think that way is more effective than subscribe because our visitor will come to see our new update..