5 Secrets of Successful Blog Growth!

Didn't we all start blogging for a reason? Whether it was to find a new hobby, share our opinions with the world or because we wanted to feel better about ourselves. Each of us had a reason for starting our blogs. Now that you've started your blog don't you find your reasons changing for why you continue to blog. For many bloggers out there we start to see the numbers, we start to make friends and we start to see the amazing interactions we can have. So the focuses of our blogs shifts from why we first starting blog, to how can I continue to grow this blog so it reaches more people, so I can help more people and so I can continue to make this blog successful.

Has anyone ever thought this way before? 

As Embrace & Ignite continues to evolve and grow I thought this would be the perfect time to share with you some of my tips, tricks and techniques at how I've grown my blog successfully through various methods. Of course, I believe there will never be a point in blogging where my blog or yours will ever stop growing. There will always be new people to connect with, new technologies to invest in and more time to spend. So while these are the tips, tricks and techniques that I have used and found to be successful there are also others out that there you can learn from and adapt to fit your own personal blogging needs.

Who is your Target Audience?
It's important to know exactly what type of audience you are trying to reach with your blog. Do you want to reach out to mom's and share your experience of raising your child? Or do you want to reach college-aged females and indulge them in all aspects of college life? No matter what type of blog you are trying to bring to the market it's always really important to have a clear vision of the type of person you want to reach. Having your Target Audience in mind will allow you to create posts that you know they will enjoy and want to come back to read. Creating posts that are directly targeted at this audience will also make them feel individual and as if your posts are personally created just for them. This keeps them coming back and will make loyal readers out of this Target Audience.

Have you Defined a Niche or Branded Your Blog?
As I just spoke about, it's important to create topics that are directed at your Target Audience. By doing this, it helps you to create a niche for your blog. Creating a niche for your blog is important because it helps fill a need in the market that might otherwise be missing. For example, maybe you have noticed a lack of blogs that focus on starting a farm and raising animals. Because of this lack in the market, you can take this niche and make something completely unique out of your blog. Combine this with who you want your Target Audience to be and you have a perfectly formulated blog to bring traffic and growth towards it.

Along with having a niche, another really important thing is to brand your blog. Branding is the combination of a name, colors, symbols, and an overall design that will relate to your readers. For example, if you are using more than one platform for blogging such as having associated social media accounts to promote your work you want your readers to be able to identify your brand over all of those networks. Whether this be by using the same fonts, colors or tone of voice in your posts. Branding your blog allows your blog to have a visual impact with your readers and keep them remembering exactly who you are.

Setting Growth Goals for Your Blog
Traffic and growth are a huge part of our blogs, whether we realize that from the very beginning or develop that method of thinking along that way. At some point, we are going to want to see our numbers rise and our interactions become more frequent. There are endless possibilities of how to grow your blog but one of the biggest things that helps me stay on track is creating goals. Goals can be as small as taking blog pictures on a given day, or increasing your Twitter followers by 100. Whatever your goals are, big or small, it's important to have them in mind whenever you are writing a new post, promoting on social media or brainstorming new ideas for your blog. Having clear and defined goals will help you stay on track, stay on schedule and show your readers that you are 100% invested in your blog.  These goals will also help you see your own personal progression as well as your blog growth.

Growing Your Blog Through Social Media
To me, social media the #1 biggest resource you can use for blog growth. First of all, do you know how many social media platforms are out there? Chances are you are probably using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. But did you know there is also Tumblr, StumbleUpon, YouTube and so many more platforms that can help you get your content out there to the market. Social Media can also be a daunting world to jump into, especially as a new blogger who doesn't really have a clue how to use the platforms effectively. Here are some of the major social media accounts I use and how I find them effective:

TWITTER:

+ Twitter Chats allow you to join via a hashtag and talk to a variety of different people. There are also hundreds of Twitter Chats now and each one is selective to a different group of bloggers and people. For example, the #fblchat is a chat for fashion, beauty and lifestyle bloggers. Whereas the #USbloggers chat is for United States bloggers. While these are more specific chats, anyone is still welcome to join and participate.

+ Scheduling tweets is also another really good idea and I like to use Buffer to do this for my account. It's a really great technique to use when you know you have a post launching in the morning and want to promote it throughout the day. It's also great if you know you won't be home for a day or two but still want to connect with your readers, share your content and interact. It also shows that you are dedicated to your blog by giving a false sense of activity. I know this sounds bad, but really people who are reading blogs want to know that they are getting the most up to date content possible.

FACEBOOK:

+ Groups will become your best friend as they have for me in the past couple of months. Once again just like Twitter Chats there are various groups that are dedicated to different niches of bloggers. For example, The Blog + Biz BFF'S Group by Melyssa from The Nectar Collective is a group for bloggers and online entrepreneurs to connect and ask questions. Whereas my group, The Blogging World, is dedicated to fashion/beauty and lifestyle bloggers to promote their content and interact and meet new bloggers.

+ Public Pages vs Groups is something that as a blogger you will have to decide what you want. When I first launched Little Beauty Bug (now Embrace & Ignite) I opened a Public Facebook Page to share and promote my content and give people another platform to follow me on. This flopped pretty quickly. So I made the switch a few months back to a Private Facebook Group. My progress with this group has not been as speedy as the Public Page but it certainly has benefited me. It allows loyal readers and followers to connect with me. I also use this group to provide free content and discounts on my products. It also makes my readers feel special and like they are really part of a community.

INSTAGRAM:

+ Branding is equally as important on Instagram and it is one of the easiest places besides your blog where you can brand yourself. In the past, my Instagram has lacked branding. I used to post images of everything and anything, in various lights and locations and hoped that I would get comments and likes. Over the past month, I've been working to brand my Instagram by sharing images that have the same colors scheme and look to them. This has allowed me to gain followers and comments daily and I think this has been a huge step in the right direction

+ Scheduling on Instagram is also something I have found extremely helpful to my growth. I used to post one to three times per week and just hope that would be enough. It wasn't until I started posting daily (sometimes posting multiple times per day) or even every second day that I started to notice people really paying attention to my content. I've also started to notice that some of the same people keep coming back to like and interact with my account. While I'm still gaining new followers daily.

Tracking Your Growth with Google Analytics
So now that I've given you some good solid advice to allow you to grow your blog successfully now it's time to give you some advice on how to track that growth and keep on growing. Invest some time in learning all about Google Analytics, even the most basic knowledge of this will allow you to look at your statistics and study them to help you improve and grow more. Google Analytics allows you to see how many people are visiting your blog on any given day, how many times these people visit, if they are new or returning visitors and so much more. Google Analytics will also show you your bounce rate, average duration per visit and other important information that you can then use to help build and grow your blog. This biggest impact this has is it allows you to see what days are the most active on your blog. For example, if I get 500 views on Sundays and 100 views on Mondays which day would I be more likely to post on? Obviously, Sunday's when I am getting the most traffic and able to reach a wider audience. Google Analytics will also help aid you in the growth of your blog through PR and Sponsorship work from companies and brands - which we all know is a great bonus of blogging.

So what are you waiting for? Get back to your blog and start implementing some of these wonderful tips, tricks and techniques. Don't forget to leave your blog link down in my comment section so I can be part of your blog growth and support you along your journey (aka I'm going to follow you)!

And if all of those tips, tricks and techniques weren't enough you are going to want to join my Facebook Group for some super fun posts and activities coming soon. Including a Blog Coaching thread in which I will allow you to leave your blog links and I will provide you feedback that will continue to help you successfully grow your blog! Click the image below to JOIN!