Grow a Blog

I was looking at the monthly stats to my blog, and even though there have been some ups and downs, I am pleased overall how the numbers are going, especially looking at how it began.

I started in January 2005 with around 300 visitors a month. December of that same year, it went to 13,000 visitors in a month. That is quite a growth. It made me wonder, how did I grow this blog?

December being an exceptionally good month gave me my first answer as to how to grow a blog. Number one being, provide GOOD content. That month I did a blog on photography, terragen, autostitch porgram and a graphics program. I demonstrated how I did something. I gave a tutorial on something I did and it’s found no where else. I then followed it up with something ‘extra’. Both blogs proved to be enormously popular. I suppose I ‘gave’ people good content that month, and the stats prove it.

I considered another factor into my blog, I blog reguarly. The content may or may not be of interest to anyone or everyone, but it is, in fact, regular. People who visit there often, KNOW they are not going to see the same stale old thing there for weeks. I am thankful for the time I have to put into it.

Perhaps one place I have strayed from advice on blogs is I don’t seem to pick an audience and stick with that theme. My blog shows my diversity of interests, I am a total mix of so many things, I couldn’t possibly narrow it all down and refuse to do so.

One advice given is to think of keywords…. The fact that I list mp3’s is no accident. Mike called me on that a long time ago. For one thing, music is a BIG part of me, so I am not stretching on anything there, but I also know, no matter what language you speak, music is universal. I felt people looking for songs would find my blog. It has definately been an attraction, mp3 is the number one keyword that lures people to Barb’s Blog. I make no apology for it. I thought it was a clever tactic and will continue to do so. What amazes me too, is based on a few keywords, how quickly search engines are to find blogs that match that keyword. More than once, as soon as the next day after blogging a subject, a search engine finds me!

Networking is a place I fall short, but a good recommended way to get people to find you and your blog. It’s also a very time consuming process. Mostly networking on the net means you have to become part of communities, visit other blogs and comment on them, even colllaborate in projects. This is quite time consuming, but if I had more time, I am sure would be a great experience.

Submitting to directories is a good way to attract to your blog, and I have done that. I don’t think it gets the attention to your blog that it should, but that is partly due to blogs just becoming such a huge and growing element. You become a needle in a haystack, and buried under so many other blogs.

After some pondering, I see there are things I am doing right, and perhaps others not so right, but for sure, I am having fun doing it. Perhaps that should just be number one on the list!