Growing your blog audience

Part of the goal of the Summer 100 is to grow the audience of your blog. One of the questions on the sign up form even asked how the participants were planning to track the growth over the summer. Because hopefully this challenge will increase everyone’s audience.

I am planning to track my growth using the site analytics plugin I am already using on my site. But because I am also the organiser of the challenge, the addtional information on my blog means that I will get more hits because of that, and not necessarily because of my new content. So my statistics might be a bit skewed.

Growing your blogging audience is great. I remember the first day had 100 views on my website, I felt so proud. It feels great to know that people are reading your blog and you are not just a lone voice calling in the wilderness. Sure, my readership is not nearly as great as some of the bigger sex bloggers, but when I first started, I had days when I had absolutely no visitors at all.

There are a lot of articles out there who teach you about SEO and how to improve traffic to your site using SEO techniques. I am not saying that SEO is rubbish and should be discarded, but it’s not the be all and end all of blogging traffic.

SEO might bring more people to your blog, but what keeps people coming to your blog is well-written blog posts. Blog posts that come from the heart. Like this amazing post by Fairy Cake’s Land about crying after having an orgasm. Fairy Cake is very open and honest in this post and that is what makes this such a powerful article. People want to see the real you, and even if you are anonymous, as so many of us are here, you can still be honest in your blog posts.

Even when you write sex toy reviews it is important to be honest. People are not going to come back to your blog if they feel that you are just writing a glorified advertisement for the product you are reviewing. Viva la Sexy blog reviews sex toys and is very honest about which producs worked for them and which didn’t. In the case of not likeing sex toys, it is always a good idea to let the reader know why you didn’t like it. What doesn’t work for you may work very well for someone else, so you need to make that clear.

Some people are more comfortable than others about revealing their identities online and therefore, those people may find it easier to be open about their lives. Juliet, aka Mrs Sexy Book, writes openly about her life as a hotwife and her stories are always very entertaining. But having your face and “real” name out there isn’t the only way to reveal your true opinions and thoughts.

Growing your blogging audience is something that every blogger wants to do. It is how you go about it that makes the real difference. Your audience will want something from you, but in the end, they do not dictate your life. You need to write about what you think is important, not about what you think your audience wants to hear. You will lose all authenticity that way, and once your readers figure out that you are fake, they will leave.

I love blogging. I started this blog really just for myself to have a place to vent my thoughts about sex. I am happiest when I just write what I want and I don’t wory too much about what other people think. Sure, I try to make sure my blog posts are not offensive, but I don’t want the pressure of thinking what other people might want from my job weigh me down. Whenever I start worrying too much about what others may think, or what I “should” write rather than what I would like to write, I lose interest in my blog and I struggle to find things to write about.

So just write. Write from your heart, no matter what it is you wan to write about. Sure, use your SEO tools to your advantage, but don’t become slave to it. And just have fun with your blog. It’s your own little space on the internet to do with as you like. Go wild!