Blogging is a great way to interact with others and exchange thoughts and ideas. Blogs lead to broadening the horizons of knowledge. But how do we make our blogs popular and increase engagement on them? There are some websites that can be used to attract followers. Some of them are paid. You may or may not get genuine followers, but you do get them.

Bloggers always look for creative ways to enhance visibility and engagement. My blog is still in a nascent stage, but once I publish more posts on it, I would definitely make a move to increase its visibility. How? I scratched my mind for some creative and genuine ways to increase blog visibility and engagement and I am sharing my thoughts with you. Some of these ways you might have heard, some not.

Blog Name: Some considerations for choosing the blog name and URL are:

+        If the blogger is not someone very popular, then it is better to keep a name that might be more popular. You can keep the name of the blog pertaining to the industry or topics you write. The key is using words that are more popular when searched through organic search. This means the name must comprise of simple words.

+        Keep the name easy, memorable, and without too many characters. Too many characters might confuse the readers. Imagine someone who wants to recommend your blog to others, but is unable to do so just because he/she forgot the right character that was to be inserted.

+        Try keeping a name that’s easily distinguishable from other blog names, lest people end up engaging on someone else’s blog.

Blog Content: It is important to understand that content reigns. You might beat trumpets about your blog leading people to land on your page once, but what keeps them coming back is only what you write. To increase interest in reading, it is necessary to break the monotony by using different colors, splitting into paragraphs with sub-heads, bullets, and even quotes. You may also add graphics and infographics to make your data presentation interactive. Adding videos is an interesting way as it saves the labor of reading the post if the viewer is not in a mood to read. Categorization and tags are a must to make the blog look organized and also facilitate discovery through search. If you see that there are views but not many comments, then probably you are just telling the readers, and not asking for their opinions. To engage and compel them to write, you can ask a question or two at the end of the post. This will prompt them to share their views.

Social Media Profiles: The blogger can use his/her social media profiles to enhance blog visibility. He/she can ask a trigger question to excite and increase interest in a particular topic. Then give the link of the blog where the social media reader can go and get an answer to the posed query.

Self-Promotion: There are two ways the blogger can promote his/her blog without sounding arrogant.

+        Strategically embed links of your other relevant posts in the content of the newer posts. This will save repetition on the blog, save words in the post, and also promote other posts.

+        Mention about your blog in your CV and resume. Many young bloggers forget that in the present time of social media, recruiters do like to see how you write on social media.

Commenting: Communication is a two-way process and completes only when your receiver responds. Two ways to engage via comments are:

+        Regularly check your blog to see if there are any comments due for approval. If people write, they want to see it published. If the comments are not published, then they may not comment again. Also, if comments cannot be approved due to a specific valid reason, then the blogger must make it a point to contact the commenter and reason why it wasn’t approved.

+        Comment on blogs of others from your blog ID is a great way to show that you are interested in someone’s writing. It is important to write appropriately on others’ blogs; otherwise they might not approve your comments or even block or defame you in any way. If you comment on others’ blogs appropriately, they might visit your page out of curiosity to see what your blog is about and also comment on your posts.

Personalized Emails: Many people might not know that you have written about something that interests them. They might not be very active on social media. But they might be really interested in a particular topic. The blogger can send personalized emails and messages to invite people to view the blog and share their views. A thank you note after they have visited is a must if you want to keep them in the loop.

Studies show that even journalists check blogs for gauging sentiment about issues related to the public. Brands also make use of blogs to increase the flow of two-way communication internally and externally. But if interest is not driven to read the blog, no one will bother about it. These are some personal thoughts on blog engagement. Do you think it is important to take an initiative to increase visibility or not? What are your views on blog engagement?

References:

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