While there’s no guarantee that you’ll become the next big blogging sensation ala Gary Pepper Girl or The Manrepeller, you can still achieve success relative to your site’s focus with a blog growth strategy. Creative, interesting content will always be king, but with some planning, you can build a better blog that will keep readers coming back for more. Whether you only blog as a hobby or it’s serving as a platform for something else, these steps will help you grow your blog.

DETERMINE WHO YOU ARE  WRITING FOR
What’s his/her name? Profession? What do they like to do for fun?  What kind of music do they listen to? What would they come to your blog for? All of these answers will help you determine your blog’s ideal reader. It’s great to want to write for everyone, but it’s a LOT easier to write for a specific niche. When you know exactly who you want your readers (and potential clients) to be, tailoring your blog’s content to that demographic will be a breeze.

MAKE TIME FOR BLOG PREP + EDITING
How much time do you have each week to work on your blog?  Are you able to devote big blocks of time on certain days for batch tasking, or do you only have a few minutes each day to work on a post? Really looking at your daily/weekly/monthly schedule to see how much time you have free to work on brainstorming, research, interviews, photography, etc. will help you develop a schedule you can actually maintain (a blogging ethic if you will).

TELL READERS WHEN TO COME TO YOUR BLOG-CONSISTENTLY
Will you have posts go live every day? Twice a week? Will post topics be random, or will categories be assigned certain days? The biggest factor in growing your blog’s audience is consistency. You can have the best content in the world, but if you’re only updating your blog every 2-3 months, or posting at odd times of the night, it’s pretty hard for readers to know that they can come back for fresh content. You don’t have to post every day (or every week for that matter), but you do need to be consistent with delivering content.

The easiest way to be consistent with your posting is to create an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar will make creating a consistent prep + post  schedule easy and fun. By plugging in your post topics and categories on a visual calendar (as opposed to just writing out a list), you can stay organized and have a real plan of action. You know what you’re working on each day/week/month, so you won’t get overwhelmed or quit.

*** FREE DOWNLOAD***

I recently hosted my first blogging workshop (read about that here) and I created a workbook for my attendees. In the workbook, I included an editorial calendar that can be used to develop a weekly posting schedule by day and/or category. I could never find a simple one that I actually liked, so I made my own. Click below to download a copy:

Download

I plan  to make more downloads in the future, so let me know what you think,and if this helps you.

Do you have a blog growth strategy?

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