Blogging as a business is a viable choice in the modern, digital world – but it’s not without its pitfalls. There are always issues that can crop up, and there’s always new techniques and ideas that you need to be able to learn to make you a better blogger.
For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on your readership. Many of the thoughts regarding readership for professional blogging are not really about the readers themselves. Instead, the tips and tricks focus on increasing readership – which is necessary, of course, but it’s also rather impersonal. For a blog to truly be successful, learning to understand and connect with your readers is essential.
Why?
First and foremost, because a blog needs readers. If you don’t have that, then you’re not going to be able to monetize your blog. There’s not going to be anyone to look at your ads or buy any ebooks you sell off the back of your blog. Without readers, it’s fair to say you just don’t have a professional blog. ‘
Secondly, gaining new readers is all well and good – it’s a sign that a blog is expanding and growing. However, keeping your old readers happy is just as important. A regular reader who is going to return to your blog for new content on a continual basis is worth their weight in gold. Appreciating them is well worthy of your time.
How?
Blog comments as a whole have dived off a cliff in recent years, and engagement as a whole is falling. People are more likely to read and run than stick around, which isn’t useful when you’re trying to keep eyes on your blog.
Engagement is the answer to this. There are all sorts of different forms of engagement, but here are a few ways to give your readers a reason to stay on your blog even after they have read your latest post:
- An email list is a great way of offering exclusive content to loyal readers. If you’ve not got a mailing list setup, then you need one now. There’s a lot of great software out there that can help you manage the list and schedule forthcoming additions.
- Asking questions. People, in general, are opinionated – they like to say what they think and engage in discussion. An occasional post that seeks to play on this, rather than just being an instructional one-dimensional post, is perfect.
- Running polls. This ties into the above; encouraging people to give their opinions makes them feel as if their opinions are of value. In turn, this makes them feel valued as a person rather than just a dot on your Analytics graph.
Does This Generate More Revenue?
Perhaps the above techniques won’t necessarily bring in a lot more money, but they will help secure the future of your blog. By encouraging readers to engage with and spend time on your blog, you’re forming a connection with them – a connection that, if strong enough, will keep them coming back to you for years. That’s valuable, meaning it’s well worth spending the time to do it.