As an aspiring blogger, the biggest question I face is ” Why doesn’t anyone read my blog?” Now granted, The Social nooby is barely two weeks old and I haven’t produced a ton of content, but still, the question plagues me.
Oddly enough, through following and interacting, I have gained over a hundred, yes I said hundred, followers on twitter. However, I’m learning hard and fast that having followers on twitter does not mean that they are going to check out my blog every time I post new content. As a matter of fact, I have barely seen any activity at all from twitter with the exception of getting posted on a few small social media newsletters.
So why don’t I have people checking out my blog? Well to start, I’ve only just learned that by commenting and interactions on other peoples blogs, I’ll get some people to check out my own. Well that sounds very intriguing, but I think I am like the average person, and I have yet to check out another blog post from other peoples comments on the various blogs I frequent. And retweeting and quoting tweets has not really gotten anything going either. So the few times people have checked out my blog, I consider it a real success.
Look, to me it’s all about content that catches. The guys with successful blogs have produced real quality content that a few people checked out and BAM! It grew from there. Then it’s all about consistency and quality. All it takes is that one post that goes viral. But the rest of link back, commenting, retweeting stuff is all crap. Yet I will keep on doing it, because hell, if the pros say it’s the way to go then who am I not to listen.
When I started getting into social media marketing, it was all about Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I never though blogging to be a part of it. Now blogging is all what I’m about and researching. I want to do it right. I want to create quality content that can go viral. Until that point no one is going to read this blog except you.
So what do you to get people to read your blog? And why do you think no one is reading mine?
t
People only started reading my blog when (1) I started interacting back with them, and (2) I stopped worrying about people reading my blog and simply wrote for the love of it.
It also helped that I had some Genius writers stumble upon my stuff and pass my info along via tags and titles. Tags and your title is actually what brought me here today as well. Well, that and a T1 line, of course.
Good luck, and enjoy!
aryehkunstler
Hey Troy, thanks for commenting and the tips!
I definitely agree about not focusing on gaining followers and comments, but so far interacting with other blogs and tweets hasn’t yielded anything fruitful for my blog. You actually are the first person to comment on it, so I’m taking your advice and interacting with you!
Thanks so much!
Evelyn Carnate
Blogging is a really slow process. I have two, one very popular, and this one I just started. You can’t worry about people reading your blog for the first few months. You just need to produce great content and make it worth reading. People will come.
aryehkunstler
Hey Evelyn, thanks for posting.
I’m totally starting to see that blogging can be a slow process, but you are right: putting out quality content will draw readers, so I’m going to focus in that.
PS: Great post about leg crossing on planes! So so true.
Tom Baker
I’m sorry a lot of folks are not reading your blog yet I am happy I came across this post. I think WordPress is the best platform for bloggers to build rapport and have a community. Even with a young blog you can gain readers quickly. Go to your reader page and add topics that you like and visit those blogs with posts that are interesting. Comment, comment and comment. When they reply, you reply back.
If you want readers when blogging it is work. Start a page with a blogroll (not in the side bar) and make sure you visit your favorite blogs from that page so on their stat page they will see you have added them to a blogroll page.
Be friendly. You can notice a huge turnaround in numbers in just a weeks time. And don’t worry so much about followers. I’ve been to a blog today with almost 5000 followers but as I visited posts, only one or two comments and the person never bothers to reply when a person leaves a comment.
One last thing (and I hope you don’t mind this long comment), I and my friends are doing a meme on July 1st. Twenty questions and answers all posted the same time globally and everyone going to everyone else’s blog to read and comment. It would be a great way for you to meet some GREAT bloggers! I have the best friends. If you are interested let me know and I can email you the questions.
aryehkunstler
Hey Tom, thanks for the post! Truth is I’ve been busy commenting on more well known blogs rather than smaller ones like myself, so your suggestion is really helpful.
Tom Baker
You are welcome.
turtleb43 (@Turtleb43)
This blog brought me some comfort. I found it by googling “why isn’t anybody responding to my posts?” lol. I also just started. Facebook, Twitter, (it seems that you only get responses on Facebook if your post has something to do with a small child). Unfortunately, thats the only outlet in which I know people, and they still don’t respond. A slow process?…well I’m ready for it, because I truly have enjoyed what little I’ve done. Need to interact more, check.
aryehkunstler
Thank you so much for your comment. I actually got very discouraged and have not written in a while. You really gave me a spark to get motivated and write again. Thanks!