“I keep posting all the time but readers just don’t come. What am I doing wrong?” bloggers often ask. Here is a list of things you might want to consider, if you are one of them. Everybody else should feel free to leave their own suggestions in the comment section. Don’t worry, I will not insult your intelligence with the suggestions of the “write great content and check your spelling” kind.
- People prefer a dialogue to a monologue. If a reader comes to a blog several times and leaves comments, they are usually expecting some sort of a response. Nobody wants to feel like they are talking to themselves and not being noticed. Responding to comments takes time and effort but this is something you need to do to in order to acknowledge the effort of people who comment on your blog. It is also a good idea to follow your readers to their blogs. You might discover some pretty great blogs this way and start a fruitful dialogue.
- Reading is as important as writing. A successful blogger spends as much time reading other blogs and commenting on them as writing and commenting on their own blog. When you leave comments on other blogs, this allows both those bloggers and their readers to discover your existence and, possibly, follow you to your resource. Reading other blogs can also provide you with inspiration for your own posts.
- Pay attention to the post titles. I said it before, but I feel it bears repeating: for a beginning blogger, post titles are crucial. The best way to go is to imagine what a Google search that you want to take people to your post will look like and name the post accordingly. See, for example, the title of this post. I have absolutely no doubt that quite a few people will enter this phrase into their search engine and alight on my blog. In a while, I will even be able to tell you exactly how many readers came to the blog this way.
- Ask questions. A blog is a great thing not only because you can share your ideas but also because you can get help and feedback on a variety of issues. My life has become so much easier since I discovered that I can simply ask for help on the blog and people will offer extremely valuable suggestions and advice. On the other hand, readers enjoy sharing their knowledge and being helpful. Posts that ask questions and allow people to enter into a dialogue are always very popular.
- Listen to the readers. Of course, it’s impossible to accommodate everybody, but if there is a suggestion several readers keep voicing, it might be a good idea to listen. To give an example, I prefer to see posts that aren’t syndicated in full but just give you the first several lines in Google Reader. Readers told me, however, that they hated that and preferred to see posts in their entirety in their blogrolls. I don’t understand that but, since this is what people want, I changed the format of my blog’s syndication. There are obviously cases when accommodating requests is impossible for you. I still haven’t been able to honor the request of some of my readers to blog less. 🙂 Sorry, my friends, I just can’t help it.
- Explore the widgets. Some blogs are more hospitable than others and make it easier for you to explore them. Sometimes, you alight on an interesting post and want to read more by the same blogger on topics that are of interest to you. However, some blogs make it very hard to find one’s way around them. Tag clouds, lists of most popular posts, random posts from the past, and easy to navigate archives make people spend more time on the blog and read more posts.
Clarissa's Blog 
Responding to comments is a must imo, if one wants to attract readers. O.w. I not only see no reason to comment, but it also diminishes the desire to read a blog since very often comments are even more interesting that the post – even if the blogger is smart, there are enough other smart people on whose blogs appear lovely conversations with other interesting people and 2 or 20 minds are better than 1. Besides, I love blogging (mainly?) since it lets me interact with people, o.w. I would read newspapers and books. And I don’t think I am alone, blogging is like Facebook in a way for many people. The only exception are blogs with numerous readers, like Pandagon.
I love Tag clouds. Imo, widgets, which make blog easier to navigate, are great. However, I hate widgets, which give out visitors’ personal info to all the world. I recently started reading one blog and now want to stop since every time I visit everybody sees not only my country (Israel), and not only the town (which isn’t OK, imo), but the part of the town in which I live! May be I am paranoid, but it feels SO unpleasant. I hope you, at least, won’t use this widget.
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I agree completely! Whenever I alight on one of those blogs that immediately highlight my location on a globe or list it in a box, I just leave. It feels way too weird.
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A little controversy doesn’t hurt either. People like controversy more than safe opinions. Also, anything about feminism or politics will get more hits, all else being equal.
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And psychoanalysis. 🙂
Also posts that start with “Why do Americans…” 🙂
But the absolute hit ever is the kind of post that suggests or hints that sex is a good thing.
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I agree about responding to people’s comments. although I must admit I am not overly efficient about it. On my blog, sometime I like to sit on the sidelines for a bit and let the conversation take its own direction. I suppose that may come across like I am ignoring people… I do try to respond kind of cumulatively (it’s blogspot, so no nesting like you do here) but I admit that from the standpoint of commenters it’s much more satisfying to have the blogowner’s response to each comment.
I also second (third?) el’s comment about global positioning widgets — they really creep me out.
There’s a blogger on one of the blog collectives who is a nutcase about storing and tracking people’s IP addresses and reminds us periodically of that fact — it totally freaks me out. I know people get a lot of trolls and people pretending to be someone they are not (posting under different pseudonyms etc), but I would like some consideration/privacy. If I am maintaining a pseudonym on the web, it is for a reason…
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Your blog is super popular, too. It must be very hard to answer comments when a resource becomes so popular.
I only recorded the IP addresses of two people who tried cyber-harassing me. As soon as I did so and informed them that I have an attorney on retainer, they disappeared forever (I hope.) In all other cases, investigating readers is just bad form.
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🙂 Thanks, I do OK, I suppose. I am nowhere nearly as popular as your place, and I really admire your posting frequency and your ability to keep up with all the comments. Btw, I think that a high posting frequency is another aspect that makes blogs popular.
I am sorry about the cyber harassment — that’s really scary… As much as Iove blogging and especially connecting to smart people out there, there are a lot of things in the blogosphere that are not for the faint of heart…
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