Hero Habits

It was a Tuesday.

I had just opened up the analytics on my site – just like a hundred times before.

And there it was.

1,000 visitors in one day.

I was gobsmacked. I’ve been writing and publishing blogs posts for over 6 years. And for most of those years 100 blog readers a day would make me smile – 300 and I’d have to sit down.

And now I’m looking at 1,000, 1,200 – even 1,500 in a single day. I quickly checked to see if I’d been infiltrated by Russians or Indian readers (no offense, but you’re not my market). Nope, all good there.

So, how did I go from a couple hundred a day to over 1,000?

Let me explain…

Not only will I explain exactly what I did to reach over 1,000 readers in a day, I’ll show you how you can as well.

But, before I get to that. I want to address the Elephant in the room…

I think you’re lying.

In fact, I think any business owner worth their salt is lying if they say they don’t care about the numbers.

I think any business owner worth their salt is lying if they say they don’t care about the numbers. Click To Tweet

I mean, really!!

That’s like saying I don’t care if I make money, or my customers are happy, or my staff want to work hard.

Of course you care if your blog performs well! You put in the time, sweated over the edits and worked hard to create what you created.

Results count.

5 steps to more traffic and profit

Now, I’m going to share the 5 steps I took to get to 1,000 blog readers a day. But, first I want to jump to the punch line: I had help.

Sure, I do all the writing, but I have help with re-publishing (see #2), editing, publishing and promoting. You should as well.

If you are worth more than $15 per hour you should be outsourcing the “routine” parts of the publishing process. That’s what I do.

At BlogWorks we can write a new blog, refresh and republish old posts with updated SEO, plus promote your blog on social media. Learn how we do it.

Okay, let’s jump in…

1. Read more than you write

If you want to be a better blog writer, you need to be a better blog reader. Reading the work of other writers introduces you to different opinions and styles of writing. And for your blog, it’s valuable to learn how top bloggers structure their content.

I’m amazed at how, in the middle of a busy day, Jon Morrow can make me read to the end of his email. Every time I read a Maria Popova post I learn how research is really done. And a 20,000+ word post from Tim Urban is a study in journalism we all can learn from.

I like to capture interesting articles and save them for future blog ideas. And even though I only use a small percent of them, scanning through saved articles before I start creating my next post stimulates my thinking. In this post I explain how I use Evernote to organize my saved articles.

2. Write good shit

There’s no other way to say this…good content attracts more blog readers. It’s no different with books, magazines or articles that go viral.

There’s no other way to say this...good content attracts more readers. Click To Tweet

When you pen a thought-provoking piece your readers will share it because it makes them look smart. Just like a friend raving about the latest food show they found – they want to share their discovery.

Your job is to get beyond the obvious and dig into problems people really care about.

In this post I share a writing template that will help you organize your thoughts and save time. It will also save you lots of frustration trying to wrestle a post that got away from you.

3. Promote. And then promote again

You might be the most voracious reader and have written a brilliant post, but nobody will know if you don’t promote it.

Start with email. Even a small list will out perform any other promotion in terms of click-through and response rate. Our blog announcement emails contain the first 200-300 words and then an invitation to click through to read the whole post.

Next, share your blog on social media. But, share more than just a link – ask a question, make a bold claim, or tease the reader to click through. Just like a good movie trailer, you need to build interest and intrigue to get readers to commit to the full article.

At BlogWorks we keep blog posts in circulation by sharing them progressively less frequently the older they become. We know that followers won’t see everything we post and it takes multiple exposures to get a reaction.

4. Watch the numbers

You wouldn’t drive your car without a dashboard and you shouldn’t own a website without knowing the numbers – even the basics.

You wouldn’t drive your car without a dashboard and you shouldn’t own a website without knowing the numbers - even the basics. Click To Tweet

I have to admit I didn’t understand the analytics on my site, so I didn’t check them. It was all “greek” to me.

Now that I understand the basics of the numbers I’m even more motivated to write great content and to improve the results I’m getting. The good news is you don’t have to be an expert. Start with this article to know if your Google Analytics is correctly installed.

5. Get help(!)

Publishing a blog is not as simple as writing a great article and hitting “Publish” – there are many small steps. And some of those steps can be outsourced. The most obvious step to get help with is editing, but there are lots more, like…

• Article research
• Writing
• Editing
• Image collection and editing
• Loading article on to site and scheduling to publish
• Setting Alt tags, tabs, categories and SEO
• Publishing your article on LinkedIn, Medium.com, etc.
• Creating, scheduling and publishing social media posts
• Responding to comments

At BlogWorks we can write a new blog, refresh and republish old posts with updated SEO, plus promote your blog on social media. Learn how we do it.

 

Liked this article about getting more blog readers and want to procrastinate about work a bit longer? Here are 3 more great articles:

7 Fast and Easy Ways to Add More Punch to Your Writing
Five tried and true sources for writing inspiration (I’m using one here)
Hyperbolic discounting and why your goals suck

 

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash