10 Powerful Post Ideas to Help Build Your Blog’s Following

Image: it’s life.

Today, let’s talk about how to get more people to follow your blog.

I won’t do the talking though. Instead, I’ll use this outstanding guest post by Tom Walker.

(If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here)

When you’re looking for ways to increase your blog’s following, sometimes you have to think outside the box.

There are so many blogs out there that it can be difficult to find new and interesting ways to keep your readership coming back to your site.

Finding posts that bring something new or different to the table can be the perfect way to build your blog’s following, and having a strong readership is pertinent to creating a successful blog.

If you’re stumped for ideas when it comes to improving your posts, here are ten tips that might help jumpstart building your blog’s following.

1. Incorporate Humor

Keeping your blog posts dry and humorless can make your blog boring. This isn’t to say you should necessarily sacrifice quality content for humor, however; keeping things lively and being able to laugh at yourself, is often a good way to keep followers at ease and willing to follow your site.

2. Top Tens or Lists

It’s no fun when readers come to a blog for some quick information only to end up spending ten minutes digging through a lengthy post to find what they need. While it’s often difficult to keep posts short when trying to convey ideas, try incorporating easy to read lists, top tens, or bulleted points to keep information easily findable for your readers. When your readers are able to find what they need quickly and efficiently it can help you build a blog following.

3. Interviews

Using interviews can be a great way to strengthen your blog’s following by illustrating the quality of your blog’s information. Incorporating interviews with people who are intelligent and relevant to your blog topic can be a great way to get readers to follow your blog.

4. An Insider’s Viewpoint

It’s often interesting to hear the viewpoint of someone who has actually worked in and dealt with a particular job or industry. Having an industry insider or two to offer opinions, guest posts, and tips can be a great way to draw followers to your blog and often gives your blog more credibility as well.

5. Expertise

Similar to being an industry insider, having a certain level of knowledge or expertise that pertains to your subject matter can help you draw an audience to your blog. If you aren’t an expert in the field, consider utilizing an expert or two for posts and tips. Experts can also add credibility to your blog.

6. Enticements

You might want to consider gathering a group of followers to your blog with the lure of freebies, prizes, and similar enticements. While you should ensure that you don’t go overboard by offering more than you can, or are willing to give away, people often go wild for free stuff and prizes, and this can be a great way to bring followers to your site.

7. How To

Writing ‘how to’ posts or tutorials can be a hit with readers. If you have experience with the topics you are writing on, giving helpful hints and structured posts on how to do certain things can be a great draw for your blog.

8. Utilize Graphics and Videos

While you probably don’t want to overpopulate your site with too many odds and ends, using graphics, cartoons, and videos can be a great way to break the monotony of text posts. Choose your graphics carefully though, watching out for copyright infringement or stuffing your site with too many videos or pictures.

9. Personalize Your Content

Personalizing a portion of your content is another great way to entice followers to your blog. While in all likelihood you will have to maintain a certain level of professionalism, tossing in a few stories, using personal examples, and explaining situations you have encountered related to your blog’s subject matter can help to humanize your site. And while you don’t want to completely diminish your credibility, people often like to know they aren’t alone when they make mistakes. Explaining issues you have had or mistakes you have learned from can make people feel better and when done in the right way can teach important lessons and often be quite humorous as well.

10. Be Creative

If you’re trying to attract followers, in order to differentiate yourself from the crowd, you’ll likely have to be a little creative. Consider ways in which you can set your blog and content apart from similar blogs or look for a niche that has yet to be filled (or at least filled completely). By coming up with creative posts or ideas for topics, you could find yourself building a large blog following.

This is a guest post written by Tom Walker who writes and designs for a supplier of HP Deskjet inks, paper and printing accessories. For more of his writing on design and technology, visit their blog.