5 Surefire Ways To Build Community On Your Blog

There are many different ways to build your blog traffic and you can find countless great articles online that will guide you through the basics (like here and here) but one of the best ways is to build a community around your blog and have some regular readers and contributors (in the comments etc) helping you along. It’s not an easy thing to do and you should aim to start off small but the power of having an online community and the ability for them to spread your content should not be underestimated.

Content

Why do people come to your blog? It’s not to play with those fancy widgets in the sidebar or to look at your pretty picture thats for sure. They come to read the content. If you open up that content and get the users involved with how it is written you will be on to a winner. Some simple ways of doing this are 1.Turn an insightful user comment from a previous post into a full blown post. 2.Have some of your more passionate readers write a guest post for you 3.Expand (this is very different to copying) on a post you have seen on another blog with an established community and link to it.

Comments

It can seem like these are taking forever to come and that you are writing countless posts without anybody commenting. Don’t beg for comments in your posts as users will pick up on this but simply leave a few unanswered questions or room for debate. If you are lucky enough to get some comments make sure to answer where appropriate and continue the discussion within the comments. The number one rule is to make sure to add a “subscribe to comments” option so as users can follow the discussion.

Offline Networking

You should never underestimate the power of a physical handshake and buying somebody a drink. I have 100s of “friends” online but the strongest of those relationships and the people who are most involved with reading my blog and following what I am trying to do are the ones that I have had a night out with or shared a coffee with. Attend industry events, go to conferences and watch out for Tweet ups and show people the face behind your blog.

Join Online Communities

There are 100s of thriving online communities from wine drinkers to farm machinery so go out there and get involved with your particular niche. It will take time and the last thing you should do is jump into communities shouting and screaming about your great blog. Talk to other people with similar interests, engage with their content and they will eventually find your blog and hopefully join your own community. Don’t be pushy.

Interactive Tools

Get your thinking cap and find ways for your community to contribute to your blog. Why not get users to submit photos on a certain subject and build a post around them. Throw in something as simple as a weekly poll to get people involved and checking back for results. You want to let users feel like they have some ownership of the blog and can influence the content. Everybody loves seeing their name up in lights