Before attracting readers to my blog, it is essential I determine its purpose, and that this purpose is apparent and consistent throughout each post. This blog is being used to communicate information about academic media studies as it pertains to my undergraduate degree in Media, information and Technoculture. From this point it is possible to determine my target readership, who are likely students and young professionals either in the field of media studies or who are interested in cultural theory, media and digital studies (Ledbetter 2014).
Throughout this course we have learned the importance of leveraging social media – on this post, social ‘share’ buttons have been included on this post so if desired it could be shared through my personal social media accounts, through which I am a member of several MIT-friendly community pages and groups. Further, this allows potential readers the opportunity to share my blog posts via their personal channels, increasing opportunity for unique visitors (Ledbetter 2014).
To increase viewership to my blog, I changed the privacy settings so that my blog content is visible to search engines (“Getting More Traffic”). Using SEO (search engine optimization) strategies are also important in driving readers to your blog. By tagging key words in both your post and title, it is more likely that you post (and blog site) will appear in the top search results for certain key words (“Keywords”). According to Male (2012) of Business Insider, a simple yet effective basic SEO strategy in the integration of internal links to your site (i.e. linking back to yourself). To increase future readership, this post has been linked to the ‘Archives’ page of the site. If I was interested in putting money towards gathering more viewers, using Google Analytics and AdWords to identify SEO keywords to include in posts would drastically help my sites numbers (“Keywords”).
As someone who works in the public relations industry I understand the importance of niche markets and using successful market leaders to your digital advantage (Ledbetter 2014). Approaching successful blogs for potential partnerships, guest posts, podcast interviews and more will allow you to leverage the readership of a blog who attracts a steady monthly viewership (Ledbetter 2014). According to WordPress, linking to successful other bloggers will help to facilitate online discussions, as they will likely see your link and mention within their own blogs stats. For example, I recently studied a book by Danah Boyd, who shares posts about youth culture on the internet on her blog Aphoneia. Future posts could continue to link posts to influential bloggers with the hopes of engaging with either the author themselves or their audience.
Lastly, to optimize potential engagement and keep readers wanting to return to my site, I have also set up comment and forum features to allow for thoughtful discussion between my peers and I, which I hope will lead to consistent viewership as this blog continues to grow.
*Note: Forum features may only be used with a (costly) Business plan. However, potential plug ins to consider include: Bbpress, Asgaros, and wpForo.
Works Cited:
“Getting More Views and Traffic.” Support. March 03, 2017. Accessed July 24, 2017. https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-more-views-and-traffic/.
“Keyword Research & Strategy with Keyword Planner.” Google AdWords – Google. Accessed July 24, 2017. https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/.
Ledbetter, Jennifer. “5 Free Ways To Get Your New Blog Noticed.” Marketing Land. November 11, 2014. Accessed July 24, 2017. http://marketingland.com/5-free-ways-to-get-your-new-blog-noticed-38658.
Male, Bianca. “10 Basic SEO Tips To Get You Started.” Business Insider. January 13, 2012. Accessed July 24, 2017. http://www.businessinsider.com/10-basic-seo-tips-everyone-should-know-2010-1.
FIMS BLOGGING 