Jan
17
It happens to us all. We spend time carefully crafting a well thought out post, then we wait for the response. And all we get for our trouble is a deafening silence. It’s upsetting and hurtful, but you don’t have to put up with that treatment. Here are some strategies you can try to rescue your post from the doldrums.
First of all, look at the post again. Are you sure that it’s well written and on-topic? Is there anything you can change to make it better? Maybe the title isn’t appealing enough to get people interested. Maybe it doesn’t tell readers what your post is about. Or perhaps what your post needs is a few more links to other blogs. When you link to others, that encourages them to check out your post, and maybe link to your blog as well.
Next, make sure you’ve tagged it with the terms people are searching for. Check out Google Trends or the equivalents on Yahoo or Live to see what is piquing people’s interest. Maybe there’s a way to include a couple of those terms in your post (as long as they are relevant).
Third, bookmark it. If you haven’t got accounts at delicious, Blinklist, Furl, Magnolia, Mr Wong and others, then now’s the time to get started. Adding your post to social sites will help it to gain visibility and you might just reach the readers you want.
Fourth, use your network. You’ve got friends; ask them to read your post and comment on it. Find out if any of your SU friends might want to give it a thumbs up. Connect with other bloggers on BloggingZoom – you can even zoom your own post without penalty.
These strategies ought to be enough to get some attention for your post. If no one can be bothered after doing all this, then you may have to face the fact that you’ve got a turkey on your hands.
Of course, it may be a matter of timing. Some days readership is lower than others, and you may have less traffic over the holidays. If that’s the case, you can always delete the post, tweak it again and republish it with a new title. And this time, make it snappy!
Popularity: 9% [?]
Great post topic – this is something that I’ve thought about a lot as a blogger but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything written on it before. I love that your suggestions aren’t just about how to promote the post but also about how to improve the post to make sure it’s interesting to others.
Thanks, Kathryn. I think everyone has off days. I’ve had to edit post titles a couple of times because the original ones just weren’t working.
When starting out as a blogger, it’s not that people don’t like your posts, the real issue is the fact that they don’t know about it. Writing great content helps you establish a solid foundation upon which you can build but promoting your blog and letting others know that you’re out there is equally important.
Alan Johnson
I agree with Alan….you can write great content, but if not enough people know you’re there, then you won’t get the comments.
I also think that the # of comments is related to traffic and subscribers, because most people who read your blog don’t even leave a comment. You see the most comments on blogs that have a high # of subscribers, but the comment numbers don’t match the # of subscribers.
That’s what I think.
Yes, Alan and Jo Lynn, that’s why networking and promotion are so important. Promotion gets people to your blog and great content keeps them coming back.
You know, I’m going to have to find the time to sign up for BloggingZoom and check them out. I read your review about them here while back, and since then I’ve heard a lot about how effective BloggingZoom can be.
Alan made a good point! It takes time to build targeted traffic, it takes a lot of good blog posts and participation in the social sites.You need to build up credibility by participating, not only submitting your own blog posts.
As you said, it happens to us all but those are good tips to improve that, thanks for sharing.
If you are new to blogging it’s quiet hard to drive more readers in your blog. also another important thing, make sure that you choose the name for your blog, I think if you want to get more readers you should have good title that would retain in the minds of your readers. And also make sure that you have quality posts!
I think it’s a great site, Misti.
@Tom: Agreed, though how you participate depends on the ethos of the site. On SU I mostly stumble others’ posts. On BZ, I mostly plug my own – if I think they’re good. And as with blogging, it’s always a good idea to respond to messages and comments from other users.