How to Get Someone Other Than Your Mom to Read Your Blog

Did you just start blogging and are wondering how to get more readers? I get asked about this a lot so I thought I'd share some advice that I sent to my friend Wendy, who just started a blog about homeschooling called, Playing Hooky (where this photo is from). Please feel free to add your own tips in the comments.

1. Read other blogs about your topic. Search on Google Blog Search and Technorati--two blog search engines, for other people writing about your topic. In Technorati you can search for when your topic, in Wendy's case, "homeschooling" and "homeschool," shows up in a post, or by posts tagged with "homeschooling" and "homeschool." Do both searches.

2. You can also find other blogs writing about your topic by searching on del.icio.us and ma.gnolia for sites and blogs that people have bookmarked with a tag related to your topic like, homeschooling and homeschool.

3. Link to other people's blogs about your topic in your posts.

4. Put blogs about your topic in your blogroll.

5. Comment on other people's posts about your topic.

6. Tag your posts with tags related to the post, like homeschooling and homeschool, so that Technorati can find them. To create a tag, put a piece of HTML code, that looks like this into the bottom of your post, when you are writing in the HTML mode (rather than Compose mode).

If you look at the bottom of any of the posts on Have Fun * Do Good, you'll see Technorati tags.

7. You'll also want to register on Technorati, "claim" your blog and "ping" them whenever you post. "To ping" just means to let a site like Technorati know that you updated your blog.

8. You should also register on some other pinging services like Pingoat and Pingomatic and "ping" them whenever you write a new post. They will let other blog search engines know that you have added a post.

9. Add a stat counter to your blog like sitemeter, StatCounter or Google Analytics so you can see when someone links to your blog. If they link to you as part of a post, you might want to write a thank you in the post's comments. If they add you to their blogroll, you might want to reciprocate and add them to yours.

10. Write regularly.

11. Be passionate about your topic. If you are excited about your post, your readers will be too, and they might pass it on to their friends.

12. Add images at the top. People decide within seconds if they are going to read something. Images can sometimes grab their attention. Same thing with the title and the first sentence. What will grab their attention during the millisecond that you have it?

13. If it is appropriate, write about current events that people might be searching for on Google.

14. Make sure your blog has an rss feed so that people can subscribe to it in a feed reader.

15. Add an email subscription capability with Feedblitz so that people who aren't familiar with rss feeds can subscribe via email.

What are some other things that you think help to attract more readers?

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