Click here to start at the beginning of this series!
As a homeschool blogger, your blog naturally becomes an extension of your home. Because your blog is a sort of “home on the web.” You need to be approachable and down to earth in order to gain an audience. One of the best ways to do this is by encouraging conversation on your blog.
Conversation can just “happen” for some bloggers, especially if a post hits a hot button topic, but the majority of posts will not naturally incite conversation. They need a little help. Here are a few ideas to bring more conversation to your site.
1. Write quality content that speaks to readers. When you do a search for information, what are YOU searching for? Become the site you have always been looking for! Quality content gives you authority and relevant content gives you common ground with your readers.
2. Ask questions. Readers want to feel valuable to your site. They want to connect in meaningful ways. When you ask them a question or ask for advice you are including them in the worth of your site. Readers respond more when they feel valued.
3. Realize the conversation may be taking place elsewhere. Often, you hear bloggers say no one comments on their blog, but their Facebook page is hopping. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it does make your site look a little empty, but if the conversation is happening elsewhere, you are still building a sense of community. Use the community you have built on social media and bring them to your blog by regularly linking to your content.
- Try linking to your main post in the morning and linking to an older post in the evening.
- Try linking to your day’s post twice on Twitter during the day and then spending 15 minutes engaging in conversation there.
Just because the conversation is happening in another venue does not mean no one is reading.
4. Don’t be a know it all. If your blog takes on a tone of being the be-all-end-all authority on everything and commentors are made to feel their opinion is inadequate because you continually shoot them down or ignore them, you won’t be able to build the readership you are looking for. Remember, you don’t know everything.
5. Remember your roots. This goes hand in hand with #4. Don’t ever forget where you came from and how lost you felt when you first started. The moment you forget yourself, you become holier than thou and unapproachable. Remembering who you were and where you’ve come from gives your posts a message of compassion and understanding that will in turn endear you to your readers. A blogger who humbles herself before the Lord and before her readership is a blogger who reaches out and ends up reaching far.
So, if you are looking for readers, best be putting on your little britches and getting conversational!
