Don’t Just Write into the Void: Read Other Blogs!

Even though I’ve been blogging for over a decade, I don’t consider myself an ‘expert’ (because I’m not sure there is such a thing). However, I have learned a lot, and I do get frustrated because 90% of bloggers simply write articles, with no thought of promoting their work. They get next to zero readers. And so they get despondent and give up. So many bloggers will write one or two posts, get disappointed that their work isn’t being read, and so abandon their writing endeavours entirely.

No! This is not good, because so much great writing gets lost. You need to view WordPress as a community. We have an amazing tool called the Reader, which if you weren’t aware is like a search engine for WordPress blogs. You can choose ‘tags’ to follow, in accordance with your interests, and you can read and comment on other people’s blogs. This is what people in the WordPress community should be doing!

I’m not an advocate for ‘aggressive’ blog promotion, even though I have been guilty of doing it sometimes. By ‘aggressive’ I mean liking lots of posts without really reading them properly. What I usually do is follow lots of blogs that look interesting, and then when the new posts from these blogs come into my inbox, I read them and then decide whether to continue following them or unsubscribe. I have to be selective, of course, because no one has the attention to follow hundreds of blogs in an engaged way.

I do try to regularly read blogs carefully and thoughtfully and offer honest reflections and encouragement in the comments. And you should do this too! Because if you build relationships with other bloggers, you will have a deeper level of engagement, make friends, and perhaps your blog following will subsequently grow, which will give you the motivation to keep writing.

Also, just get a few basics in place. Make sure your blog has a profile photo, as this will appear in the emails that go out to your subscribers and when you comment. Otherwise your blogging efforts look half-hearted. Also, spend a bit of time putting together a menu with an ‘About’ page, a ‘Contact’ page, and some other pages perhaps, and learn a bit about how to customise your blog. WordPress support has loads of useful articles about this! So you have no excuse not to.

Don’t just expect to post into the void and for people to discover and read your blog, it doesn’t work like that. Take advantage of the amazing resource that is the WordPress Reader, always be kind in your comments, and see promoting your work as just as important as writing. This is if you take your writing seriously!

*Steps down from soapbox*