Today's task is all about finding readers for your blog... or at least coming up with a plan to find readers for your blog. Do you have a plan for building readership on your blog or are you a blogger that like many just drifts from one thing to the next that they 'hope' might help them strike it lucky? Once you've read today's post share with us what your plan going forward is below.
ProBlogger, DPS & TwiTip
How much time do I have:
About 2 hours a day can be used to blog at the moment, should be more than enough I think.
Describe Your Desired Reader:
My readers are anyone interested in zen and it's aplication in daily life. Also, anyone interested in noncoformity and ruthless honesty in personal development
Where are my potential readers gathering online:
I think my readers can be found (among other places) on other blogs in my niche. Illuminated mind, art of nonconformity, slacker reform and ratracetrap for instance. So far I'm using twitter and comments on these and otehr blogs to reach them. I'm also using stumbleupon, digg and other channels to find my readers.
What Opportunities are there to Build a Presence:
I'm working on guestposts both ways, I've been samped a bit with work the last few days but I'm going to renew my effortin getting things rolling. I do my best to comment onother blogs with helpful information and of course I use the power of promise to get people to come back.
On building a network I've been working on a collaboration of bloggers to help one another in promoting all the blogs. You can find this collaboration elsewhere on this forum. I think we're up to about 15 bloggersat the oment who will be helping eachother in blog promotion.
On all forums I'm visiting my blog URL is in my signature. It doesn't yield a lot of traffic but it's a steady flow of about 5 a day.
Plan a strategy:
I've already built a plan earlier on in this 31day challenge, you can find it on my blog right here
Analyze Your Current Activity:
I've been spending about 20 hours a day working on my blog or writing and another hour a day trying to find my readers else where online. I'm hardly effective however. pageviewnumbers are still hovering around the 70-100 a day. (Maxed out at 152 one day..) I'm posting every single day, I think I'll have to drop frequency a bit in favor of quality. I don't feel like posting every single day I must say. I'll have to evaluate this further.
My last post on the 16 buildingblocks hase been a while back, I need to get back on top of the game and build that collaboration I'm trying to set up. This will be one of my three main activities this week. The other two are:
Getting answers to the 6 blogquestions I have
Writing a post I've been planning to do last week: " what's in your bag" (Sorry if it's totally out of my niche, I really like them and somehow after watchingother bloggers do the same they spike interest a lot. I know I always need to take a look.. apparently others feel the same.)
Mind the beginner A blog on beginning, it sounds so simple but it’s quite complex
I have added a 'calendar' to my google editorial calendar dedicated to the different kinds of marketing activities I do, i.e. forums, my facebook group, visiting other blogs, the linkedin groups I belong to, twitter, ning etc and each day has a specific type of activity - between 30 mins and an hour, as it's important for me to interact and become a part of the community not just for the sake of the blog.
However due to the fact that yes, it's very easy to get lost in these activities without them producing anything of value, one important step I've taken has been in keeping a rough track of my tiny url's (on some of the sites where this is relevant) by privately "deliciousing" them.
The idea behind this step is to monitor, over a period of a month or possibly longer, which of my activities is producing hits on my blogs so that I can focus more of my attention in these areas. This is time-consuming also, without question, but hopefully in the end will give me a clearer idea of how effective my web2.0 marketing acitivities really are.
Thanks,
For those who want to check out their demographics I have found this site to be useful: http://www.quantcast.com/
As for me, I've done carnivals, forums, blog comments etc., without much luck. The traffic is a trickle. So, I only invest a small amount of time in social media efforts--and am more interested in Facebook and then some of the animal related social sites which I may try again.
I'll be launching a new course soon but for the time being found my giveaway--Animal Disaster Guide to be a good incentive. I am not getting large numbers of readers but a steady increase.
Depending on the day--I might invest only 1/2 hour to 1 hour of time out and about. The rest goes to my blogs and other projects.
I enjoyed the outline of everything in the post and am pondering just how I might make some changes to see larger responses.
I had a plan for building readership to my blog, but it hasn't been very effective, so my NEW plan is to spend an hour each day posting comments on the blogs that I read on a regular basis and also participating in social media in one way or another. I have found that Social Media does not really bring much results to my blog in terms of readership, so I want to reduce the amount of time that I spend participating on those types of websites and spend more time contributing to blogs and forums in my niche.
Daily:
A. 30 Minutes reading blogs and participating on blogs in my Niche.
B. 15 Minutes on Forums
C. 15 Minutes on Social Media Websites
Weekly:
D. 8 Hours each week developing and producing a web series.
E. 1 Hour reading and participating on NEW blogs in my niche and also blogs that are indirectly related to my Niche.
Darren,
You mentioned Myspace Ads and Facebook on the Problogger post related to this task and Stumbleupon seems to be a better fit when it comes time to pay for advertising a blog. Myspace places a hold on your credit card for a set amount of money and from what I understand, their charges are recurring until you manually go in and pause your campaigns. As someone who has a lot of non-blogging tasks to do each day on top of the blog related stuff, I do not want to have to contsantly monitor my money or credit card balances to make sure that Myspace isn't taking out money every 30 or 45 days. I'd rather pay a flat rate and let my ads run for a set price or set amount of time instead of having Myspace recharge my card every month. Facebook ads are similar to Myspace in some aspects as well. That makes Stumblupon more attractive for my advertising dollars.
Madlab Post Discover indie films and entertaining facts!
Hi Arklady,
Thanks for the link. It is GREAT!
Wishing you a wonderful day,
Ravi
Regards, Ravi
Peace : The pursuit of increasing excellence in a world that works for all
How much time do I have:
I can consistently use about 1 hour a day on building the blog (can do my writing off-line).
Describe Your Desired Reader:
My readers are anyone interested in getting more adventure in their life.
Where are my potential readers gathering online:
My readers can be found on travel blogs, lifestyle design blogs, twitter, and various forums. There are likely some good FaceBook groups out there as well.
What Opportunities are there to Build a Presence:
I need to focus on doing some guest posting for relevant blogs, even as I continue commenting on them. I am already an active member one some forums, need to seek out a few more. I have a number of twitter followers, I need to spend time developing better relationships with my followers before seeking out more new ones. Join a couple of FaceBook groups and become active in them, test this out with a couple before spending much time on them.
Analyze Your Current Activity:
A large portion of my traffic comes from a particular forum, where I comment about once a week and have my link in my signature.
Even without really connecting with my Twitter followers, a large portion of my traffic (at least new traffic) comes from there. However, since I want repeat readers, I need to connect with them further, build a real relationship.
Pursuing daily adventure, and helping others do the same at http://Adventure-Some.
My plan involves the following "beginner steps":
Keep smiling! @ Coolwired
I'm going to take a look at and deveolp my plan after the Holidays.
Happy Holidays all.
Okay, I'm baaack.
Currently on my blog, I'm writing about Japan. I started doing this one night when I wrote a blog post and it was "heavy." I wanted to lighten up so the idea of writing about Japan came in and now I'm hooked. I think I could write forever about it. Maybe I have found a niche.
As for my plan.
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flikr
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forums
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thanks XD
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