A month of blog posts could be written about the spamming and dishonest approaches many used to try to gain clicks online.

In blogging, these tactics are pointless and detrimental to a blogger’s reputation.

But, there ARE steps that you can take to maximize the technical mechanics of your blog.

Whether commercially-oriented or lifestyle-focused, your blog will be more successful if you understand the drivers of blog discovery and traffic.  This information will improve your blog, and you’ll see many more visitors and blog followers.

1. Know Your Audience

Many bloggers decide they have something to share and dive into blogging.

The problem with this approach is that these bloggers may not fully understand the larger blog environment.

As a dedicated blogger, you should understand the potential audience(s) for your blog very early in the process to make it easier for them to find you quickly.

Let’s say that your blog focus is the unique appeal and advantages of custom wood furniture.

You should:

• Research other bloggers on the subject
• Identify complimentary websites and online discussion groups
• Find social media sites that offer related content or content sharing.

This is valuable research because other bloggers that post about complimentary topics are likely to be interested in reading and sharing your content with their audience.

This provides exponential opportunities to expand your audience and build a following.

The same goes for social media sites.

Identify the complementary vendors, trade professionals, artists, or interested hobbyists on social media, and you’ll likely find people who will want to follow your blog.

2. Know the Players

As in most every scenario, there will be bloggers who have established a large and loyal audience – these people have influence.

People read their posts daily, follow them and even want to be like them.

Whether these bloggers have influence because they have been blogging longer or because they have a unique point of view, you should dedicate time and effort to attempt to understand why they are successful.

Also, pay attention to the discussion group and social media influencers, whether they blog or not.  You will want to study their actions in order to improve your own.

Besides using successful online influencers as role models, you should participate in online discussions and interactions in the same venues, sites, and groups where these influencers hang out online so that your opinions and blog to align yourself with them.

3. Know the Magic Words

Additionally, a study in the area of search engine keywords will also speed your blog recognition.

Through search engine optimization (SEO), bloggers like you can use high traffic keywords associated with your blog topic to appear more frequently in search results.

For example, in our case of the custom furniture blog, the primary search words according to Google’s Keyword Tool are “custom furniture,” as these words get about 79,000 global monthly searches.

The second and third place got “custom made furniture” and “custom built furniture,” with about 15,000 global monthly searches and 12,000 global monthly searches respectively.

Note that these are global search results, but Google Adwords can also provide local search data if your primary goal is to reach regional audiences.

Once you know the top three keywords that drive the most searches related to your topic, you can use this information to improve your blog visibility.

Does this mean you should insert often-used keywords to fool people into visiting your blog?  No way.

Should you write a blog that is focused on keywords, rather than your passion: custom furniture building?  Again, the answer is no.

Follow a few basic rules:

1. Once you identify the major traffic keywords, try to reflect those in your blog’s URL.  You might name your blog:  www.customfurnitureperspectives.com (if you purchase a website domain) or www.customfurniture.blogspot.com (if you use a blog-hosting site like Blogspot).

Note: You should only do this if the keywords will authentically represent your blog content.

2. Don’t use a spammy approach like calling your site www.makemoneynow.com and then present your visitors with custom furniture content.  You might get many visitors initially, but you’ll get no followers because searchers will leave quickly after having been misled.

Be sure that important keywords are near the top or title of the page.  Follow the same rules as above.  No faking the relevance of the words, but if it makes sense, you could build the title on the page to read something like: “Custom Furniture Perspectives – One Hobbyist’s View of the Forest.”

3. Include the keywords that most relate to your subject matter throughout your page and blog content.

As we saw from Google Adwords, the keywords “custom furniture,” “custom made furniture,” and custom built furniture” are searched more frequently than many others relating to the subject.

So, using these keywords appropriately in your content will increase your likelihood of appearing in searches.

Don’t force it, and don’t try to fool anyone by hiding an array of keywords invisibly within the body or in tiny type somewhere.  It’s easily spotted, everybody hates that tactic, and it won’t win you any long-term traffic or followers.

Remember, the goal here is not that a keyword agenda should drive your blogging.  SEO should never interfere with quality writing.

4. Actually, Use Social Media

As a blogger, should you even pursue social media?

I’m not talking about creating a profile and leave it. You actually have to stay engaged and put effort into it! If your blog is mentioned on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+, your search rankings will improve due to search engine algorithms that capture and assign a positive value to mentions and shares by others. But, more importantly, social media interactions and content sharing will result in direct traffic to your blog and direct opportunities to grow your base of followers. Since many online users have specific preferences for media consumption and interaction, you may find that there is little overlap across several social media sites. For example, you may find that there is a high concentration of custom furniture aficionados on Pinterest, but very few on Google+. You won’t know for sure until you explore participation in each of the major social media sites to identify which of them appeal most to those who are interested in your content and likely to follow your blog. Social media will help to increase your blog’s visibility and traffic, but increasing blog followers/subscribers is also dependent on the ongoing value of your content. For the reader, a blog represents discovering and aligning with a unique and engaging perspective or outlook. Develop your own engaging point of view, make sure your blog can be found by an interested audience and readers will follow.

Getting Started

Are you ready to get started blogging? Do you have any questions? Leave a comment below and we’ll answer them for you!]]>