5 Strategies to Grow your Blog (Even if you are a New Blogger)

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Starting a blog is easy. If you have prior knowledge of the domain, hosting, and a little about website design; You can start a blog even in one day.

The difficulty lies in growing the blog – Increasing blog traffic, gaining email subscribers, writing quality content, monetizing your blog, etc.

Any expert blogger would tell you that growing a blog is not as easy as simply writing content. Building a blog requires the use of strategies that have been proven to show results. The best thing about these strategies is that they are 100% free. Also, these strategies can be used by new bloggers as well as advanced bloggers.

So without any further delay, let’s have a look at top five such strategies –

5 ways to grow your blog (even if you are a new blogger)

1) Guest posting

Guest posting is one of the oldest, most loved, and result-oriented blog growth strategy. Guest posting means writing a post for some another blog where you will be credited as the author of the blog post, and you will receive a link back to your blog.

Through guest posting, you get a chance to feature in front of a new audience. Another benefit of guest posting is that it establishes you as an expert in your niche. It also helps in driving traffic to your blog. Last but not least, guest posting is good for SEO. Through guest posting, you get a backlink to your blog.

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If you are a new blogger, you should aim to write guest posts for established blogs. Guest posting would help you to grow your blog as well as brand yourself as an expert in your niche.

Here is a step-by-step guide on guest posting. This guide covers the basics of guest posting like how to find guest posting opportunities, how to write a guest post pitch, how to write a guest post like an expert, and essential tips for successful guest posting.

2) Creating Expert Roundup Posts

According to hubspot.com,

“An expert roundup is a collection of quotes or interviews by influential people in your niche.”

In other words, an expert roundup is where you collect data from expert bloggers in your niche and combine it into a single blog post. You will give credit to the expert blogger by linking it to his or her blog. The reason behind a hundred percent success rate of an expert round-up post is that a reader gets to read tips or ideas from the experts in one single blog post. He doesn’t have to read several blog posts to expand his knowledge. All he needs to do is read one blog post that contains information from all the industry experts.

Many bloggers, including expert bloggers, make use of this strategy to explode their blog traffic. So, whether you are a new blogger or an advanced one, you can make use of this strategy.

How to create an expert roundup post?

a) Choose a topic for the expert roundup 

Select a topic for your expert roundup post. The topic should be related to your blog niche and should provide value to your readers. Also, you should be able to collect at least 15 tips or ideas for your expert roundup, so make sure your topic is neither too narrow nor too broad.

For example, if your blog is about organization and productivity, you can create an expert roundup post like “40 Experts share their number 1. Organization tip”.

Another example can be “15 SEO tips by expert bloggers.”

Think about something that your audience would love to read and share.

b) Contact Experts for their contribution 

Once you have chosen the topic for your expert roundup, it’s time to reach out to experts in your industry for their contributions to your post. You can reach out to the experts via email. Prepare a list of experts you would like to include in your post. Search for their email ID on their blog or website contact page.

Write a short yet impressive email explaining the topic of your roundup post and ask them if they would be interested in contributing to your post.
There are high chances that some of the experts won’t reply to your email. Therefore it’s recommended to send emails to as many experts as possible.
If you don’t receive a reply even after a week or two, send them a follow-up email.

c) Create your roundup post 

You would gradually start receiving replies from the industry experts. Once you have at least 15 answers, start creating your roundup post. Make sure you write a proper introduction for your roundup post. The introduction should explain the whereabouts or the central topic of your expert roundup blog post.  Include a small conclusion at the end of the post.

d) Publishing and promoting your expert roundup blog post 

Creating your roundup blog post was just half the battle won. For the complete victory, you should promote this expert roundup blog post as much as possible. Promote your roundup blog post on social media platforms, send it to your email list, share it in various Facebook group promo threads, etc.

The best promotional strategy for an expert roundup post is to ask the experts to share this expert roundup blog post. Send an email to the experts who contributed to this roundup blog post with the link of the published expert roundup post. Request them to share this post on their preferred social media accounts. These expert bloggers have thousands or lakhs of followers. Thus, your blog would receive a huge amount of traffic, all because of this one single expert roundup post. And that’s the reason why creating an expert roundup blog post is an all-time favorite strategy to grow a new blog.

3) Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the best sources of blog traffic. As a blogger, you should make use of a free platform like Pinterest to drive a massive amount of traffic to your blog. Pinterest is a broad topic, and therefore, it won’t be possible to cover every basic of Pinterest marketing in this blog post. However, here are a few important tips to keep in mind to start getting Pinterest traffic:

• Always create two to three pin graphics for each blog post. Make sure the three pins differ in terms of pin description, pin design, and the text overlay on them.
• Learn about the basics of Pinterest SEO as soon as possible so that your pins start ranking in Pinterest search results.
• Make sure you create vertical pin graphics ( 2:3 ratio). Horizontal images do not work on Pinterest. Always create long and vertical pins.
• Regularly make new pin images for old blog posts.
• Make sure the images used in Pin graphics are bright and clear. If possible, invest in paid stock photos for creating pins.

I would recommend you start learning more and more about Pinterest (if you are new to this platform). It has the power to drive a lot of traffic to your blog.

4) Write quality content

Simple, cliched yet quite important. Writing quality content forms the foundation of a profitable blog. If your content is not good or up to the mark, you won’t be able to (or would find it difficult) to gain loyal readers for your blog.

The best advice is to write content that solves your reader’s problem. And your content should provide a complete solution to the reader’s problem or question. For example, if your blog post is “The Complete Guide to Losing Weight”, your guide should stand true to its name. In other words, it should indeed be “The Complete Guide” for those who want to start losing weight. It should be divided into various sections with proper headings. The guide should also contain images, videos, and charts for a better explanation. Videos should be embedded in the blog post, wherever necessary. In short, the content should be top-notch.

If your content is good, even other bloggers would share your posts. And this would indirectly start driving traffic to your blog.

5) Start an email list

Many expert bloggers would tell you that an email list is a must for a profitable and successful blog. And many bloggers make this mistake of delaying the process of starting an email list. A blogger should start an email list as soon as possible.

If you have not started an email list for your blog yet, start an email list today itself. If you don’t want to spend money right now, make use of free email service providers like Mailer lite or MailChimp. Both of them are popular among bloggers and provide high-quality service. To gain email subscribers, make sure you have a freebie or an opt-in on your blog. A freebie is a gift that you would give to a person in exchange for his email address. Freebie or an opt-in can be anything like a free ebook, free course, a printable, checklist, etc. Market your freebie on Pinterest and other social media accounts, in your blog posts and on your blog’s homepage.

Once you start getting email subscribers, make sure you provide them with regular newsletters, tips, ideas, and helpful content. An email list would help you in more than one way – From increasing blog traffic to helping you make money from your blog. If you intend to create and sell digital products in the long run, an email list is a must; so start an email list as soon as possible.

These are the top 5 ways to grow your blog (in terms of traffic, loyal readers, content, etc.) Don’t implement all these strategies simultaneously. Start with any one of these. Master it. Then move on to another one.

Growing a blog is a marathon (and not a race). It requires time and patience. So, start applying these strategies to your blog and see your blog reach new heights of success. Good Luck! And if you have any questions related to any of these strategies, feel free to comment below. I’ll try my level best to answer your questions.

Sakshi Bhatia