Blog question

From what I have seen link it to an already existing social media outlet such as facebook or twitter, whenever you post a new column on your blog link to it on one or both of those. Your friends on there will read it and, if it is witty, thought provoking, well written etc. they will often share with their network of friends which spreads the blog out to a wider audience. Rinse and repeat and after a time (depending on quality of writing, topics discussed, and the initial size of the social media network) it will grow a following.

The other way is to be an already popular writer and get asked by one of the many groups/papers/magazines etc. to produce a blog column for them but that is harder to do and much more restrictive in the topics able to be discussed.

She is using wordpress as well. I will pass on to her about the features you mentioned.

Good tips, thank you.

I have asked that before and the overall answer is to make it interesting!

Giveaways are also a good way to bribe attract followers!

Also she will need to blog consistently, one post a week doesn't attract as many people as one that posts regularly.

And if she finds out a goto way to get followers, let me know!

Thanks for giving all the tips to my dad!

I will definitely try them out.

If anyone wants to follow me www.greenishmum.wordpress.com

I've been blogging since February 2011, and over time it has gained readers/followers/popularity. The first thing your daughter should consider is why she is blogging in the first place. Blogging for popularity and hits on your page will not get you too far. Interesting content, genuine passion for the blog topic, and consistency will gain followers.

Both blogger and wordpress have a tool that allows you to track who your visitors are, what time of day they visit, the words they used to arrive at your page in a search field, and other tidbits like what kind of browser they use. There's also data on which posts are your most popular. Obviously, you need to post often to get the data, but once the data comes in, you can begin to target your audience more specifically.

Using social media to advertise your blog is another way to get the blog name out there. Use twitter to let people know there's a new blog post. Start a fb fan page for your blog, or use your personal fb page to alert readers. If your blog is photo heavy, pinterest and tumblr and flickr are useful for linking back to your page. Everything should link back to the blog. I would advise against advertising the blog heavily until the blog is nearly all set up. Nothing turns an audience away more quickly than "coming soon", unless in reality, that content is going up in week or less. There should be several posts for a reader to look through to get a sense of who the blogger is and what the blog is about.

Signature lines in forums and emails should link back to the blog. When leaving comments on other people's blogs, again, leave the blog URL.

Be a part of a community of like minded bloggers. She could include links on her blog to other bloggers that she enjoys reading, and she should interact with other bloggers.

I would encourage her to be patient and keep her chin up. I've been at it consistently for 2 years now, and my audience didn't build overnight. It's all about content and quality. Good luck!

*edit - If she is in North America/US specifically, post and tweet at 4 PM-5 PM EST. Most of the US population is in the EST/CST, and a lot of activity happens at that magic hour. By hitting facebook and twitter, she's going to have viewers read her tweets and updates first. Those posts made at 9 AM or even 2:30 PM will be farther down and people will have to scroll to get to it. Being up top does help, when people are fresh and ready for new content.

Using meta tags to allow search engines to find her blog is underused. Tell her to learn to use meta tags and it will help her blog again, be at the top of a search. People are lazy and don't often go 8 pages deep to find a page.

As an example, I have used meta tags so if you type in "labbit blog" or even just "labbit" in a google search bar, you're likely to see my blog come up in the first few results. Same goes for images. When you name an image, use specific tag words so people will find your images, and...like I need to say it...it should all point back to your blog. Type in "labbit" or "pictures of labbits" and the images section in google will be full of images all from my blog. Which, by the way, is www.yearofthelabbit.com. See what I did there?