As long as I’ve been surfin’ the Internet, browsin’ the web, loggin’ online and checkin’ out the interweb, I’ve been a steady and ardent blog reader. I read blogs about everything; music, movies, culture, travel, food, celebrities (guilty pleasure), SEO (guilty pleasure), sports…everything. I love to hear people’s opinions and points of view, and I think it’s good to gather different sides of an argument and form your own well-informed opinions on whatever the subject may be.
What Makes a Blog Successful?
So, being the well-read blog connoisseur that I am, I’ve noticed two rather specific things about what makes a blog successful. The first thing that you need to make a blog successful is good content. It doesn’t matter if your blog is about superstar celebrities or different kinds of rocks; you need to have good, well-informed, well-written content. (And it doesn’t hurt to put some passion behind it, either.)
The second essential ingredient to a successful blog is quite simple; you need readers. No readers? No successful blog. Sure, you can write your thoughts on your blog, but if no one knows it exists or reads it, it’s not going to be successful. It’s like making a speech to an empty audience.
From my experience, there’s a specific tool that I’ve used which can really help out with both of these things; it’s called BuzzSumo. If you use it correctly, BuzzSumo can help you develop different topics to write about and create content that people not only will read, they’ll want to read it. It can also help you identify different influencers and networks within your community, through which you can share and promote your content and hopefully grow that ever-elusive reader base. Now, I’m not saying that BuzzSumo can instantly inject you with the innate ability to write interesting and digestible content, but it’s a useful tool for a budding blogger who wants to step up their game.
Get Inspired
BuzzSumo gives you multiple tools you can use to discover what kind of content to write and get your creative juices flowing. You can search for the top shared content (articles, infographics, images, videos, etc…) about a certain topic, see which subjects get the most engagement from certain publications, browse content by certain authors and even see top shared content by domain.
But what does this mean for you? So, if you’re a sports blogger and you like the content that, say, Bill Simmons writes, you can browse his top shared/read content to get ideas about the direction that you want to take your next post. Beyond this example, there are tons of ways to use BuzzSumo to generate engaging content. It’s worth giving the free trial a shot for people on the more “serious” side of blogging.
Strategically Build Your Blog’s Audience
In terms of using BuzzSumo to build your audience, there are many different tactics you can use, but the main objective is to find qualified “leads” who would be interested in your content. It’s up to you to get it in front of them. But, one way is to identify influencers in your space and either reach out and start a relationship with them directly, or see who engages with and shares their content, and work to get your content on their screens.
Another solid tactic is to search your blog’s topics to find other bloggers, companies, journalists or just regular people who create or share similar content. You can do a little research, find out where these folks interact, and jump in on the conversation. If your opinions (and content) are well-grounded and thought out, people will eventually catch on and become loyal readers.
Now, these aren’t 100% surefire ways to start a blog, gain readers, and build it into the greatest thing to ever grace the Internet. But if you do the research, use the tools properly, do it patiently and do it passionately, you can build a great blog with a loyal readership. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
