This guest post is by Daniel Kidd of Best Money Saving Blog.
I’ve found out over the past couple of months that the hardest part of blogging isn’t thinking of things to blog about, it’s getting people to read them.
There are thousands of helpful sites out there (especially this one) that give you advice on how to build a readership, but the first couple of months can be a real struggle. I now know why there’s such a large amount of bloggers who give up after the first couple of posts—luckily, though, I’m not one of them.
My money saving blog has been around for just over two months, and at first, I was getting next to no hits. Lately though, it’s picked up a bit, thanks to one little change I made to a weekly blog post.
Solving the authority problem
When you start a blog that gives advice to people, no-one’s really interested in you if you’re unknown in the subject you’re blogging about. That’s why I decided to get help from known industry bloggers.
Every Friday, I decided to ask a number of finance bloggers (randomly) to give me one money-saving tip via Twitter. As well as asking those people, I leave the option open for anyone else to give advice, too.
I’m not asking them to give hours of their time like they would if they wrote a guest post. This approach is very quick to respond to, as they have to be on Twitter to read the question anyway. It also helps my social presence, because if a blogger with 5000 followers answers you, there’s a chance their followers will also give you a tip.
Once I’ve got seven or eight tips, I have enough content to make a decent blog post. The post is probably more appealing to readers than if I were to just give advice like normal. After all, I’m asking for tips from people who are more experienced in my subject—many are experts.
Giving back
The post thanks everyone personally and includes a link to each contributor’s blog (if they have one). When the post is published, I thank the contributors publicly on Twitter.
The majority of bloggers who participate always kindly re-tweet or put a link to the post on Facebook. Once again, this is great if they have lots of followers or fans, as I’m bound to get a few visits from their networks, too.
Think of the bigger picture here: not only does this tactic improve a young blog’s traffic, but it gets me talking to other bloggers in my niche, and making myself known. In future, if I’ve got a really great post I want to share, or I want to guest post somewhere, I won’t have to go out of ,y way to break the ice with influencers in my niche.
This tactic isn’t going to attract millions of visitors overnight (unless you’re very lucky), but it gives you a constant source of content, as well as helping you to interact. I’m going to try and get a post like this out every week, and eventually I hope that I don’t have to ask people on Twitter—that my mailbox will be full of money-saving tips each Friday morning.
Do you think this tactic could help you build authority around your next blog? Let me know in the comments.
Daniel Kidd, 26, from London, has been working in SEO and social media for the past three years but stupidly, only just started blogging at Best Money Saving Blog. He’s very passionate about white-hat SEO and proper social media promotion, and has a huge dislike for anything that involves spam.
