On increasing blog views

A few days ago, my friend Jenny wrote a post on her blog in regards to increasing blog views. She had some advice on what to do, further advice on what not to do, and some humour mixed in there too. In her comments section I posted some blog view ideas that have been working for me, and I will be again writing about those ideas for this post although they will be in greater detail than what I put in the comment (they will also be adjusted to apply to everyone). I shall also be writing about some more ideas that I have thought about since then:

1. An active blog
Anyone who is serious about having a blog with a significant base will have to make sure they post regularly. The definition obviously varies, but I would consider an "active" blog to be one that is has at least a post per week. The basic point of a blog is to write content for people to read, and if you do not write anything on a regular basis, you will not receive many views.

2. Suggesting posts to people who may be interested in a topic
Mindlessly spamming your blog will only cause it to blocked, blacklisted, or have something else done to it that will cause its reputation to be ruined. However, sending a particular post to somebody who might be interested in its topic is acceptable: for example, if you found an online recipe, used the recipe, then wrote a lengthy piece about it, it would be a good thing to send the post to the writer of the recipe (this does assume the post is helpful, whether it is a glowing review or something constructive that suggests how the recipe could be improved: do not send them a post that outright insults them). Doing so offers the other person feedback, and gives your own work some views (who knows? Maybe they will suggest your piece to others, or even decide to follow your blog themselves).

3. Using Twitter
If you have a Twitter account and several followers, it would be very worthwhile to link to your posts in your tweets. If you do not have a Twitter account, and therefore no followers, it will still be worth creating an account there: it is likely you will know people with Twitter accounts, so you will be able to follow each other. In addition, careful use of the hashtags (the "#" on the keyboard, followed by another word, such as "#cooking" or "#homecooking") can attract people to your tweets, and therefore your posts. If you have written about painting, placing "#painting" in your tweet will help you find some views.

If you use other social media, such as Facebook or Google+, I also recommend linking to your posts on those sites as well. Be warned, however, that it would be best not to use those accounts solely for the purpose to linking to your blog: no one wants to follow a spammer.

4. Telling friends
Simple word-of-mouth by telling your friends about your blog will get you views. In addition to having friends who "officially" following my blog, I have other friends (and family) who follow my blog...they are just not in the "followers" section. If your friends find your blog interesting or merely a fun read, they might even tell their friends about it.

5. Commenting on other blogs
Commenting on other blogs can certainly raise your profile. However, I would be very careful with this one: it is probably not a good thing to comment on other people's blogs just to promote your own, and commenting on every "most popular" blog may be seen as suspicious. If anything, I think it is best just to comment when you feel it is appropriate to, and give the comment substance: the occasional genuine, well-thought out comment to another blog will give you more readers than spamming them with silly comments will.

6. Keep the blog fresh
This is perhaps the hardest of all: coming up with new topics to post, and frequently, can be very difficult: even for me, the hard part is not the actual writing, but coming up with something to begin with. If you run out of things to post and are constantly going back to old writings on the blog, or anything you do post that is new comes across as a redress of everything done before, your readership and amount of views will decline. At the same time, if you have a particular style, your readers like your blog the way it is, and you are still gaining followers, it is probably best not to stray from that formula too much in case the changes drive them away; but you can still modify a format without alienating readers.

At the end of the day, I believe it is best not to worry too much about views, and instead just blog because you are fond of blogging and are into writing. Evidently you should make some effort in attracting a base, but the readers will come to you with the more you write (I am finding that posts of mine from months ago are receiving more views now than they did when they were initially submitted).

Finally, when referring to other people, it is also courteous to give them credit where it is due. As such, I would like to thank Jenny for inspiring me to write this post.