start a blogWhy is the latest craze on the Internet these days blogging?  First of all it gives the blogger the ability to spout their opinion. Many feel that creating and maintaining a blog is fun.  Blogs are magnets to search engines. Search engines love blog sites for a variety of reasons:

•    they contain unique information

•    they are not stagnant like regular websites that are created once and never updated

•    they have a constant source of new material through their posted articles

•    they have inward and outward links to other sites through comments.  The more links you have the more popular you are because links are like a vote for your site.  It’s just like being popular in high school.

Blogs can be used for many things from sharing information about your niche to selling your own product or service. Many bloggers make money on their blog by selling advertising or affiliate marketing.

Now that you know why blogs are important, you may want to know what it takes to make your blog successful.  The key to having a successful blog site is readership and lots of it.  The more readers you have, the more effective your blog is, the more traffic you will have, and the more money you will make.  The big question is how do you grow your readership?

Your blog is the sum of all of its parts.  What do I mean by that?  Your blog needs to contain several pages of posts.  No matter what the topics are covered in your blog, it is important to have several pages of posts from which your readers can choose.  Not every article you post will interest every reader.  You should try to introduce a number of different ideas as long as they are within the range of the topics your blog site is about.  You probably don’t want to be doing a review on a new Audi if you have a blog about cooking; unless you can tie the two together somehow.

Whether your blog becomes popular and has a large readership boils down to one basic thing: content.  You need to have good quality content that is written in a way that it is simple to understand and easy to read.  Your writing should not be to impress unless you have a technological or industry blog for a specific readership.  It’s not about the $5 words.  Use vocabulary that is understood by everyone.

Besides quality content, you need to post regularly to keep readers coming back.  A blogger who is posting new articles to their blog two to three times a week should gain interest and increase readership.

This is my personal opinion, and those of you who do not agree with me are free to comment, you should not over post either.  Inundating your readers with a new post everyday can be daunting especially for your subscribers.  The plain truth of the matter is that people today are busy.  If they have signed up to be notified when you post a new article they don’t need an email from your every day bothering them.

Besides quality content make sure that you are using original content to interest your readers. Try to give your readers what they want and are interested in.  If you are trying to gain more readers through search engines, duplicate content gives you no advantage.

One good technique to gain readership is at the end of an article mention other similar posts so that if the reader enjoyed the one they just read they are given the opportunity to read another one on the same topic. If you have a WordPress blog the best way to do this is with a plugin like “WordPress Related Posts” or “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)”.  Here is a good article I came across that you might want to read that recommends the later plugin.  You can find it at: www.mattcutts.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-related-posts/.

With the related articles you post on your blog you can place a link in the current post to the previous post to increase reader activity to the older article.

Another way to increase your blog popularity and readership is post a series of articles.  Creating a continuing compelling storyline about a particular topic is a good way to capture your readers’ interest and encourage them into coming back for more.  Be wary of annoying readers by creating too many posts in a series.

Blogs are worthwhile for many reasons from fun to profit.  The bottom line to make blog sites successful is to grow their readership.  By following these tips you will be able to increase your blog following.

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