Blogging is an excellent way of building a community of like-minded people. Blogging communities are associations of bloggers and readers united by a common goal, passion, or interest. These groups help people grow as a community and learn from one another experiences. In addition, you can collaborate with other bloggers, come up with ideas for your blog content, build backlinks and increase user engagement.
So, if you are a blogger and want to build a blogging community then this article is meant for you. In this article, we are going to discuss some more benefits of building a blogging community and give you some simple yet effective tips to build one.
Are you all set? Let us begin!
Table of Contents
BENEFITS OF A BLOGGING COMMUNITY
Although we have already covered some of the advantages above, let us go over a few more below:
- A blog community increases the relevancy of your blogs as you get to create some user-generated content
- It acts as a social proof for other readers and hence works as a magnet to attract more readership
- Increases the user engagement of your blogs
- Makes your blogs more worthy of the advertisers
- Gives you an opportunity to attract more monetization opportunities as popular blogs are considered as rewarding
- A Blog Community Builds an Army of Evangelists and Advocates
- Reading your comments might inspire you if you’re lacking the drive on some days.
- A lot of reader interaction increases the time spent on a single page, which is beneficial for SEO.
It is obvious that you are losing out on a lot if you are not focusing on building a blogging community. This is why we have decided to give you some simple guidelines for making yours rapidly.
15 EASY TIPS TO BUILD A BLOGGING COMMUNITY
1. Build It Around A Single, Strong Concept
As they say it correctly, “Jack of all and master of none”.
Nobody will listen to you if you speak in front of a crowd, but if you address a group of people who share your views, they will cheer you on. The same is true with blogging. A specific topic-focused blog is usually more successful.
Your followers will stop reading your blog if you write about one subject, like fashion, for a week and then another, like sports, for the next week. They will simply get confused!
Make sure the topic of your blog is something specific that you are really passionate about. This will create an audience that can relate to and comprehend what you write. Your community’s foundation will be built on this very sense of connection.
To give you some inspiration here are some top-performing niches as per reports:
- Digital marketing
- Blogging and making money online
- Health and fitness
- Personal finance and investing
- Recipes and food
- Personal development and self-care
2. Offer Value With Every Blog You Write
73% of high-earning bloggers focus their content on a particular group. Overly high expectations for the community are one of the main obstacles to community building. By providing your followers with solutions, you must bring value to the community.
If you provide something of value to your community, they are more inclined to share your content and return to you time and again. This is possible by:
1. Creating in-depth blog posts:. You don’t want your readers to visit another site to find answers to the same issue. Therefore, don’t be selfish by only linking to your blogs, link various other useful resources to improve the blog’s vitality.
2. Well-researched Content: Always try out data backed up with scientific research, readers like to read these.
3. Answer Your Readers’ Queries: Try to draft blogs around your readers’ queries, this will not only make them feel valued but build trust among your audience.
The equation is straightforward: A more valuable article increases the likelihood of forming a community.
3. Engage With Your Readers
This is the most obvious step, to create a community you must interact with your blog audience. It’s crucial to use a conversational tone, that is, write in the same manner as you speak.
There are so many ways to do so, you can share your real-life stories, ask various questions to your readers like “What are your views?”, “tell us your favorite tip”, “do you have any suggestions?”, and much more.
You can also host various challenges for your readers to complete or a poll with a question you want them to vote on to stimulate interaction. The idea is to engage with your readers as much as you can.
4. Be Relatable
Try to be a little more involved, relatable, and transparent in order to entice individuals to join your group. One simple approach to do this is by including some self-portraits in your blog posts. When you post-human pictures people relate to it more, so if you are not doing this, try starting it now and see the change yourself! As per reports, bloggers who include 10+ images per post are the most likely to report “strong results”
Posting videos is another option. If you can share videos featuring yourself then nothing like it! This will take your blogs to the next level. The videos need not be of anything beyond spectacular, a simple relevant video will do.
5. Go ‘An Extra Mile’ For Your Readers
Make your readers the main character. Most bloggers make themselves the center of attraction, however, you need to put your readers in the limelight. Nothing goes in vain, everything that you do for your readers gets noticed.
You can do various things to make your readers feel valuable. For Example, you can create a blog out of a reader’s comment, highlight a few comments at the start of your blog, ask your readers their queries and resolve each of them, or give your loyal readers a shout-out every week.
Additionally, you may include a reader’s blog in your post and urge other readers to read it. This will provide your readers a chance to advertise themselves in some fashion. and make them feel valued. Lastly, you can ask readers to write guest posts for your website.
You can follow some of these aforementioned practices to take your blogging community to the next level and this will undoubtedly have a significant effect.
6. Use The Power Of Social Media
Do you know? 95.9% of bloggers promote their blog posts via social media. Social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and others have millions of active users, making them an effective means to build a community of like-minded individuals.
It takes time to gain followers but once you achieve a sizeable following then there’s no looking back!
There are several things you may do to engage with your audience. Some of these include posting a story having polls, asking them questions, adding eye-catchy pictures, posting short videos with a powerful message, sharing your real-life stories, adding CTAs, or even talking about some trending news. Regardless of the strategies you adopt, try to be consistent for every initiative that you take as social media algorithms reward consistency.
Pro Tip: Whatever you do just don’t try to be EVERYTHING. If the latest trend doesn’t align with the values of your company, choose not to follow it.
7. Create Shareable Content
If your blogs are shared more, your chances of building a sizeable community will automatically increase. Here are multiple ways to do so:
- Posting your blog posts to your social media accounts is one of the finest strategies to increase the share-ability of your content.
- Make your articles scannable using various subheadings (H1-H6), making important texts bold, using short paragraphs, or writing pointers instead of long texts.
- Include topics that are trending these can include a piece of trending news, a beginner’s guide, or any other topic.
- Make a community on Facebook or LinkedIn and invite all of the people who have liked your page to join. After that, distribute blog posts in them.
- Something that inspires you is likely to inspire others as well! Share anything that inspires you, whether it was created by someone else or not. This includes quotes, artwork, tales, and other media (just remember to give credit to the source)
- Timing is crucial. Your message needs to be current. Instead of just considering what you’re sharing and why consider “Why now?” Your material needs to immediately resonate with your audience.
Follow these tips to make your blog more shareable and grow your reachability (and community).
8. Make Your Audience Comfortable
Avoid creating your blog in a style that seems like a dry lecture. Nobody would enjoy reading a site that only discusses its own achievements and tactics while excluding the audience. Blogs like these would not even get halfway there.
If you want people’s indulgence in your blog activity then you have to make them feel comfortable. Wondering, how? We got you covered up!
Be Personal: Nothing connects more with your readers than being personal. You must write as if you are having a conversation with them so they feel included. Being Personal doesn’t mean sharing any of your private details or information. It is just a means to build a connection with the reader as also mentioned earlier.
Keep the tone of your blog empathetic & courteous: Enunciate stories related to your blog. To make them feel more inclusive use terms like We, You, etc. so that the reader’s interest remains intact throughout.
9. Maintain Your Reader’s Interest For A Long Term
Have you ever wondered, what happens after a new reader finds your site and reads the first article?
Consider various strategies to entice visitors to stay on your website by providing them with an irresistible offer. A freebie, a link to another section of the blog, your most recent edit to the post, or any other alluring items like giveaways are examples of such things.
Additionally, use an alluring introduction to hook your readers in the first go, end your blog well to help readers absorb the knowledge given effectively, and attach high-quality visuals or even podcasts to make your blogs captivating.
10. Utilize SEO Strategies
SEO stands for Search engine optimization. It involves making your material more easily discoverable on search engines like Google and Bing and hence increasing the possibilities of building a larger community.
The more you concentrate on content optimization, the better your blog will perform. Why? Simply because it will drive more organic visitors. Think about utilizing several SEO strategies, such as:
- Link Building
- Using Targetted Keywords
- Using User-friendly URLs
- Optimizing Pictures
- Optimizing Meta Titles
- Boosting The Readability
- Internal Linking
- Making Your Blog Website Responsive
- Generating Backlink
11. Networking Is The Key
It is not only about your readers, a blogging community also consists of your co-bloggers. So, you must focus on building a healthy relationship with them as well.
Networking can help your blogging business in so many fruitful ways. It’s critical to emphasize that in blogging, “real, genuine friendships” come first. You get to learn so many new things from others, enhance your blog quality, learn about different strategies, etc.
Participate in blog conferences. It’s the best and most efficient method for getting to know other bloggers. Moreover, commenting on your co-bloggers posts, sharing their outstanding work, and congratulating them for their successes is also a great way to build a healthy relationship.
Sometimes, blogging is widely misunderstood. Despite criticizing each other, it is fantastic to work with people who value your career and share your interests.
12. Be Consistent
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come”.– Dwayne Johnson
Google and online users enjoy seeing exciting, digestible, and fresh content when they log in.
Bloggers frequently notice that more frequent posting results in higher blog traffic, comments, and activity. The most well-liked blogs you can find online are updated every day, twice, thrice, or, at worst, just once per week.
While at the starting stage, your blog will first require a high learning curve from you. Therefore, don’t worry if you can’t post something every day.
Setting objectives for oneself, such as publishing content once a week, is a fantastic place to start. Try sneaking in an extra post each month once you’ve grown used to it, then build on that.
13. Guest Blogging
More than half (60%) responded that they write 1-5 guest posts per month. Your website may receive a lot of traffic from guest postings. It is not necessary to publish on a website with a comparable readership in order to write a fantastic guest post. The goal is to write something so compelling that people from your host site visit your site to read more of what you have to offer.
Make sure to adhere to their requirements while writing a post. Also, avoid trying to sound too familiar because this isn’t “your” audience. You’re writing for a distinct readership. Don’t be tempted to overly promote yourself in your posts.
14. Organize An Ongoing Challenge
An ongoing challenge, like 24 hours of nonstop blogging or a Blogger’s week of 7 days, might serve as a fantastic example of how to use a challenge to build a community around your blog.
Since all your co-bloggers might share the same goals and pain points, these challenges can be really interesting. Additionally, a really thoughtful challenge helps the readers tackle a common issue.
Giving all bloggers a boost with a successful event means building a community where ideas are shared and evaluated. Events also need care and maintenance, taking the time that would be better spent engaging in organized events or just leaving comments on blogs you like; all of these activities will ultimately grow your traffic and enhance the blogging community without much fuss.
Events don’t need a lot of traffic or infrastructure; if you have a few engaged readers and are willing to put in some effort, you can definitely host a challenge that improves the participant’s blogs.
15. Make It Simple For Your Readers To Comment
Sometimes it might be challenging for readers to locate the comments section of a blog. Make sure your blog design has a visible location for any comments already made as well as a link directing visitors to the area where they can leave new ones.
Take into account employing a format that requests fresh remarks at the front of the Comments section. This is preferable to have users read through every prior remark before leaving one.
CONCLUSION
A strong blogging community is proof of a fantastic and worthwhile blog site. This trick is already used by the most well-read blogs to boost viewership and rankings. You can easily create a community by following the strategies given in the blog above. To refresh your memory, let us summarize them here for you:
- Build It Around A Single, Strong Concept
- Offer Value With Every Blog You Write
- Engage With Your Readers
- Be Relatable
- Go ‘An Extra Mile’ For Your Readers
- Use The Power Of Social Media
- Create Shareable Content
- Make Your Audience Comfortable
- Maintain Your Reader’s Interest For A Long Term
- Utilize SEO Strategies
- Networking Is The Key
- Be Consistent
- Guest Blogging
- Organize An Ongoing Challenge
- Make it simple for your readers to comment
Follow these strategies and let us know which one worked the best for you.
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