Finding Readers for Your Blog

If you’ve got a blog, or are in the process of launching one, the question of attracting a readership is a big one. Owners of static websites, who’ve found out the hard way that the act of simply having a website doesn’t bring automatic success, will be particularly skeptical of the idea that blogs are any different at all.

A Little Background…The Internet wasn’t always as it is today. Those who’ve been online ten years or more can remember it as an “enterprise-free zone.” There was no shopping, no pop-ups, banners, or any other kind of ads, really. (Anybody remember when the people who spent time online were referred to as “Netizens?”) It was considered improper form – or even forbidden – by some ISPs and/or website hosts to use e-mail or your website for commercial purposes.

By the time I went online in 1995, there was still a lot of that kind of philosophy. E-mail discussion groups often numbered in the hundreds or even thousands of members. There were no search engines as we know them today, so if you wanted anyone to visit your site, being active online was really the best way. By then you could get away with a discreet little note in the signature line of your e-mail promoting a book or product, with a link to your website and its more-active promotion. (NOTE – although newsgroups were the forerunner of the e-mail discussion groups, and often an important way to promote a website, I somehow never found my way into those.)

Within a couple of years, it made sense for someone with books to promote to do so online. It was possible to connect with thousands of people in a day through membership in e-mail discussion groups. Hosted chats with published authors were popular, and e-mailed newsletters easily found a wide readership. This is not even to mention that a few e-published authors found themselves being published by well-known hard-copy publishers.

Today, we recognize that too many authors and others promoting all kinds of things had the same ideas. This rendered the whole situation of online promotion impractical for those without sizeable advertising budgets.

Indie-published Authors and Search
Optimizing a website to make it “look” better for the search engines, mainly Google, is these days a big part of attracting website visitors. If you want a good ranking on Google, you have the choice of learning Search Engine Optimization yourself, or paying somebody else to do it for you. Unfortunately, for authors of fiction the search engine strategy is not effective, since search engines are based on generic terms. Any genre of fiction is going to have thousands of authors writing the same kinds of books, with only their names and reputations to set them apart from the others.

People don’t look for books in the same way they look for other things. For example, if you’re in the market for a toaster, you’re going to use a search engine to find, say, a two-slice model that has wide slots to accommodate your own homemade bread. You can easily find that, and also have the option of buying it locally or online. If you’re looking for something to read, you’re not going use Google and look for a book that’s a novel about two computer geeks in love who are being stalked in real life by terrorists who found them online. That’s because you don’t know what you want, when you’re looking for books, or “something to read.” Neither does anybody else. (That book I mentioned is here, by the way. ;>)

In other words, authors and books are more suited to browsing, rather than searching. It’s the same for people who go online as they are in your local library or bookstore.

Last year I told WOL readers to stop worrying about SEO and focus their energies elsewhere. Then, about the only way you were going to get into Yahoo or Inktomi, which were the sources for many search engines (including AOL) was through paid submission, and in my opinion, that didn’t do a struggling writer much, if any, good. I also warned those more-desperate individuals, who wanted website hits at all costs, against things like those programs that claim to “drive traffic to your site,” even though they may not have anything to do with your subject matter. I was right, it seems, and now I hear of many authors working in other ways.

You Can Rely On Search – A Little More – With A Blog
Today, the whole field of search is changing. Those who are in the business of selling widgets online are seriously concerned over what is going to happen in the struggle between Google and Yahoo. To be more specific, those who build the websites for the widget makers have the concern.

For those of us in the no-man’s-land that must be browsed – the writers – it’s our turn to get back a bit of that place in the sun we lost when the ‘Net turned commercial. We can use blogs in concert with (simple) SEO to our advantage! No, I will not blather on about algorithms and throw obscure acronyms at you. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to find a general subject to cover that is a generic term. Most fiction authors have done enough research in one or more fields, to have an expert knowledge or serious interest in something they could reasonably cover with a blog.

If there’s anything I learned at all from my association with the computer geek world, it’s that the simple way is always the best. I’ve read about the “complex, unknown algorithms” of Google for years, but computers are still stupid machines. The spider software Google uses is most likely pretty logical, because it has to be to function at all. So, to simplify your ways of understanding the Google spider is to understand how to gain eminence in the ranking. It hasn’t been widely understood by even the best SEO gurus, because until blog technology entered in, there wasn’t any way to easily monitor how Google worked.

Now we can see a part of how Google works. It’s entirely logical.

The Doodlephohm in the Framistan
If you’ve chosen your title carefully, you have a site relevant to a generic term, for example: Fashion Hints. Both your URL and site title are going to have the same term in them. Because it’s a blog, rather than a static website, you won’t have Flash animation, singing cats, or any other stuff on your start page that is difficult for the spiders to figure out. You’ll have what is called “clean source code,” and your content will be mostly text.

Throughout your individual posts are references to things like clothes, dresses, shoes, pants. Fashions for Fall, Fashions for Spring. Every time you post something, that post adds to the amount of relevance your site has to that subject. NOTE: Keep your subject lines to individual posts short – go for description rather than wit. Blogs also have the option to list and/or archive posts under categories, which also helps. Make sure you’ve got links to helpful sites for your visitors, as well as other blogs on the same or related subjects. The more, the merrier!

Now, Google will find you on its own. There is also a “backdoor” method of getting into Yahoo, provided you’ve got a blog that is non-commercial; i.e., not specifically devoted to selling your books or other work.

You’re probably a member at Yahoo through discussion groups you belong to; if you’re not, then go over and sign up. Then go here and go to “Suggest a Site.”

Eventually you, too, could be high up in the ranking, and get lots of visits based on traditional search. My newest blog, Food Basics, has only been live for a few weeks, and a good proportion of its visits are from searches – not just Google or Yahoo, but AOL, MyWay, and others.

Don’t forget the variety of blog directories. At this point, there’s no way to know which of those will gain eminence, and there is some merging and situations where smaller guys are being bought out by bigger guys. There’s a list of 55 of those directories here. Also read what Robin Good has to say about attracting readers.

Make Friends with your Fellows
Of course search engine rank isn’t everything. One thing that blogs bring back, that has been somehow obscured by the hard-driving sales aspect of the Internet, is the element of community. Bloggers are more than happy to point out a new blog, or one they’ve just discovered. Some bloggers do little more than point out links to interesting stuff they’ve found online. I do that myself sometimes, because each site has its own readers, and if you Track Back to the source, it’s a polite thank-you nod to somebody else.

You can (almost) always leave a comment or join an ongoing discussion on blogs you read, as well. That’s another way to find other bloggers with similar interests. Add your new blogs to your blogroll (the links section along the side) and then let them know you’ve added them. Incoming links, both of the blogroll variety, and those in individual blog posts, are both helpful for your search engine rank, and to draw in new readers.

Many blog hosts have a community of some kind; where you can get help, announce your blog, or discuss blogging in general. There are also forums devoted to blogging discussion, as well as groups within the networking sites such as Orkut or Ryze. Jump in there and announce your blog, and read the ones other people are talking about, too.

If you haven’t been reading blogs in the past (or don’t realize you have, perhaps) you’ll need to set up an aggregator to let you know about some of the blogs that are available, as well as to give you a heads-up when they’ve updated. I happen to prefer Bloglines, since it is online, and like the blog hosts, there’s no need for a download. You can add any blog you happen to encounter to your subscriptions there. Don’t forget to subscribe to your own!

The Blogging Community Promotes its Own
A fun way to both find new blogs and get some more readership for your own is to participate in online events such as Carnival of the Vanities, Carnival of the Capitalists, or the Symphony of Me. Both Carnivals get wide mention of their weekly appearances, because a lot of well-known bloggers found good early exposure through these events. The Symphony is a newer event, based on older entries, but up-and-coming!

Check their sites for more on how to join in! NOTE: I’m hosting Carnival of the Vanities here in late April, and Symphony of Me in early April.

Probably the most important point of all is to make sure you’ve got well-written, interesting content. None of the above info will do you any good if you’re not posting something worthwhile for your readers. Think of your blog as a living resume – in fact, it’s a good place to have a nice presentation piece under “About Me,” or some similar title, which includes all your accomplishments.

Well, I see I’ve covered a lot here, but still haven’t gotten to the RSS business. I’ll try to get to that next time. ;>)

Comments

[Hamp]

This is good stuff, helpful, I want to see more of what you've written. Hamp

[William Kincaid]

Hey, thanks Wayne! You've given me the proverbial food for thought on ways to promote my blog. I'll definitely bookmark this page and refer back to it often! Thanks again.
When you have time please check out my blog at www.1derfull.com. This is an eclectic op/ed general blog. I'd welcome a critique by anyone as well as suggestions on how to make it better.
w247@1derfull.com
How can you tell I'm just a newbie?

[Robert]

Thank you for this information... I found it to be entertaining and very helpful. Now if only I can get my "BLOG" exposed *Blush*

Robert

[Wayne Hurlbert]

As always, some great advice for everyone! This is a great article on getting visitors. In my experience, how to get people to visit blogs or static websites is probably the most popular question. While I get msny search engine optimization questions. I also get requests for ideas on traffic attraction. Yours is a great post in that regard.