So, You’re writing, writing and writing, but you’re still looking for ways to increase your blog’s popularity…

There are literally tens of millions of blogs currently on the web, with thousands more being created each day. With so much competition, it’s often difficult for new, smaller blogs to succeed. You can spend countless hours crafting the perfect posts, but it’s not going to offer any real tangible benefits to increase your blog’s popularity unless you can develop a strong following of readers.

increase your blog's popularity

Quality Over Quantity

It wasn’t long ago when webmasters were fixated on churning out 400-500 word articles on a daily basis, hoping it would boost their search rankings. Well, the game has changed, and now Google places an emphasis on quality content over quantity. If you’re looking to create a popular and engaging blog, focus on crafting exceptional-quality posts that really strike home with your target demographic.

It’s one thing to simply say, create quality blog posts, but we all know it’s an entirely different thing to actually do it. Why? Because it’s hard and time consuming.

One of the key components to a blog post that sticks around in serps and gets shared a lot is that it provides in-depth analysis on a specific topic. Frankly, it’s much easier to take the quantity route. Unless you have a team of writers willing to contribute then I find a blend of consistent posting sprinkled with some really researched posts does the trick.

If you plan on taking this challenge on yourself check out the post, “How I Write Research Based Posts” by Belle Beth Cooper. This is probably the most in-depth post about writing in-depth posts I’ve ever read.

Publish New Posts on the Weekend

There’s nothing wrong with publishing posts throughout the week, but if you’re looking to capture the highest number of social shares, you also publish them on the weekend. According to a study of more than 4,500 blogs conducted by TrackMaven, blog posts that were published on the weekend received the most social shares.

While posts published on weekends only account for a combined 13.1% of posts by frequency, they received 32.6% of all social shares for the data set.

TrackMaven social share image

Add Media to Your Blog Posts

Numerous studies have found that blog posts with images receive more traffic, more social shares, and are generally ranked higher in the search results than blog posts without images.

You don’t have to be a professional photographer or videographer in order to add media to your blog posts. Just head over to Flickr, search for a relevant image under the Creative Commons section, and upload it to your blog! Another great resource for free website photos is Pixabay, it’s currently one of my favorites.

pixabay free website photos

Host a Contest

Struggling to come up with new content ideas for your blog? Why not host a contest? It doesn’t have to be anything complex and difficult to manage. If you operate a pet website, for instance, you could host a photo contest where visitors submit a photo of their pet. At the end of the month, select a winner and send them a free gift.

Contests such as this can really improve visitor traffic by immediately providing your audience with something for them. If you’re interested in boosting blog traffic by running a contest, learn how to add 500 new subscribers with a simple contest here.

 

Encourage Social Sharing

If you look at some of the most popular blogs on the web, you’ll probably notice that they all have convenience “social sharing” buttons displayed. These buttons allow readers to share posts and articles with their social media friends without ever leaving the blog. Sure, they can share it by exiting the blog and logging into their social accounts, but including buttons keeps readers on the blog.

social sharing buttons

Tip: if your blog runs on WordPress, look for a social sharing plugin.