This is a question I get very often either on Bloggie Wednesdays or via email. I thought instead of just answering them in comments and emails, I could write a post on it as well. Just how do you get more readers to your blog, especially if you’re starting from scratch?

When I first started beauty blogging, I knew I had at least one reader and that was Paris B. She was the one who encouraged me to give beauty blogging a go. At that time, I didn’t think much about having a lot of readers. I just wanted to write about beauty-related topics that I know of. I didn’t have to worry about working with brands or anything like that because at that time in Malaysia, it just wasn’t done. I was happy with my handful of readers; it was like writing to a group of friends you’ve never met.

Of course, it came to a point when I wanted to reach out to more people. I’d love to have more readers to my blog. I still do; heck, who doesn’t? If I’ve been blogging for 6 months and I only have 10 readers, I wouldn’t help but feel a tad disheartened.

There are many methods on how to get my readers to your blog. These are some of my tested ones that worked for me. Perhaps they’ll work for you too. 🙂

Comment but don’t spam

This is a common method that most bloggers will tell you that work and I don’t disagree. Commenting on blogs you like will in time bring more readers to your site. Leaving your footprint on their part of the internets will bring some back to you too. On the other hand, please do leave valid comments that are relevant to the article. I’m really not a fan of comments like “Great post!” and then leaving the blog link behind because it tells me that this person just wants to leave his/her link on my blog and nothing more. There’s no value to that comment and it just looks like spam.

It doesn’t bother me if you leave a relevant comment on my blog post and then sign off with your name and blog link. I’m not fussy about that at all. The only thing that shits me are all those “Great article! Come visit my site!” comments with blog links. In a split second, the blogger can simply mark you as spam and delete your comment, thus wasting your time anyway. Leave relevant comments and don’t spam. In time, you’ll see people coming to your blog.

Be active on social media

I think I first signed on to Twitter in 2007 but didn’t even start using the account until a year or two later. It made a big difference to me when I started using Twitter more because I didn’t only discover a lot more blogs, other people discovered mine. I can’t begin to even tell you what a difference Twitter made on my blog. I’m not even talking about brand-blogger discovery; it’s organic traffic from other like-minded bloggers that stumble upon your blog on Twitter, follow you, see the blog, like it and become your readers too.

I find that social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and particularly Instagram allow you to be more candid about yourself, that it shows a more personal side of you that you may not necessarily show on your blog. People tend to resonate with others better that way. I find that I get more readers out of these social media platforms than just typical Google searches.

On the other hand, don’t be a Negative Nancy on social media

If your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc have your blog bio and link in them, then these social media platforms that you’re on represents you and your blog. If a blogger is always whinging on Twitter, complaining on Facebook and posting “me so sad” pictures on Instagram, it’s sadly not going to get that blogger very far. You want to share your passion and interests with like-minded people, not read their complaints repeatedly. I used to complain quite a lot when I first started out on Twitter (because hey, I can finally complain with no one telling me to shut up! :P) and only realised a few years later that that’s not going to help my blog if my tweets represent me and my blog.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to vent your frustrations online but if you read your timeline and realised that 8 out of 10 updates are negative, you might want to consider starting a new account just for that. I want to start one where I just want to scream and shout. No one to follow me and no one to know who I am where I can just let my frustrations out. How cathartic would that be? 🙂

Join Twitter chats

This was something I discovered over a year ago. Twitter chats are getting more popular and it’s a great way to participate in something you can learn or offer advice. It’s also a fantastic way to gain new readers. If you’re unsure of what Twitter chats are, it’s basically a discussion on Twitter, set on a specific date and time and people chat with a specific hashtag. A good Twitter chat is one hosted by Blog Trends (using the hashtag #blogtrends). If you’d like to learn more about blogging, I highly recommend you join in (if not, just read the tweets with that hashtag). There’s a lot to learn from other bloggers and a good way to get your blog out there too. I’ve gained a number of new readers from the Blog Trends chats alone. 🙂

Have something to offer to your readers

By something to offer I don’t mean just running giveaways and competitions. In fact, I find that running too many giveaways and competitions hurt the blog more than help gain readers. This is something I discovered a few months ago. I’ll discuss more on this on another Bloggie Wednesday.

If you’re good at something, why not show it off on your blog? Are you skilled at graphic design? Offer free downloads of pretty images for your readers. Are you social media/blogging/etc savvy? Offer some tips and tricks to your readers. Are you good at makeup application? Show it off by offering tutorials on your blog. Are you great at cooking? Offer some recipes to download for your readers. You get my drift. Give your readers something to come back for. 🙂

Meet other bloggers!

For me, this is the best part of blogging. Being able to meet other bloggers who share the same interests and passion as you do is just gold. I’ve met some of my dearest friends through blogging. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a social butterfly (I’m not). Try one or two first before meeting them in a group. It’s so much fun talking makeup with people who enjoys it as much as you do. 🙂

That’s it! These are just some tips and tricks for you if you’d like to know more on how to gain readers for your blog, especially if you’re starting from scratch. Don’t be discouraged if things aren’t going as smoothly or quickly as you hoped. Some bloggers hit the wave and gain traffic a lot more quickly. Most bloggers (including me) are more of what I call a slow cooker. It takes a while for things to happen but when they do, they’re absolutely delicious. 😛

If you have any tips and tricks on how you gain more readers for your blog, please share it with us in the comments.

Good luck in your blogging journey!