A lot of new bloggers arrived in 2021, and I am grateful that quite a few chose to follow my blog. Some of them wrote on their own blogs about how they are struggling to get to grips with blogging, had few followers, and little or no traffic. A couple even contacted me by email, asking for suggestions on how to build up their readership.
Of course, we all know that two months of blogging is too soon, and no indication of how your blogging experience might turn out. But excited new bloggers can find that initial lack of interaction very disappointing, especially if they have arrived here from fast-paced platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
So once again, I am offering some tips about how to make blogging work. Whether they bother to use them is up to them.
1) Lead by example. Blog how you would be blogged to.
2) If you follow another blogger, then at least comment on their posts occasionally. Once a month is adequate, if you are busy. Once a week is better though.
3) If you find you are not enjoying the content of a particular blogger, unfollow them. It’s easy to do that.
4) Never ask anyone to follow you back by writing ‘Please follow my blog’ as a comment.
5) Definitely never ‘tell’ anyone to follow you by writing ‘Follow my blog’ as a comment.
6) Engage and debate by all means, but never Troll or be rude. If you don’t like someone’s opinions, stop following them. And then ask yourself why you followed them in the first place.
7) Avoid boasting. Things like ‘I have already published six books’. ‘I have sold 1,000 copies of my e-book’, etc. Nobody likes a bighead. Of course this does not exclude you from promoting your own work on your blog, it’s a great way to do that. Just be nice about the way you do it.
8) Don’t try to upstage a blogger writing about illness or grief by stating that you are worse than them, or have more to grieve about. That’s tacky.
9) Be polite, and do not use swear-words in comments.
10) Thank people who follow your blog by leaving a thank you comment on one of their posts.
(Not required for people just trying to sell you things, or promoting their own religion)
11) Don’t expect all your followers to read everything you post.
12) Don’t expect any followers to leave a comment, but be pleased when they do.
13) Reply to those comments, to show them that you appreciate the time and effort. Even if only to say ‘thanks for commenting’.
14) Don’t expect a regular readership if you don’t post any content. You can’t put up a couple of posts, then sit back and not bother to add more content. Followers will disappear like ice melting if you do that.
15) Keep going. Two months is not enough time to see if your blog will be popular. It might turn out to be, but you must not be impatient.
There you have fifteen easy to follow suggestions that may help you enjoy blogging more than you are at the moment.
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