Do you know what the hardest part about blogging is? It isn’t writing content or growing your traffic. So, what is it?
The hardest part about blogging is getting that initial traction…
Sure, you can get your first 100 readers by hitting up your friends and family, but it won’t be sustainable. What you need to do is get 1,000 qualified readers legitimately. Then, you’ll have a solid base that will be easy to grow further.
So, how do you get your first 1,000 readers? Well, all you have to do is follow the steps in the infographic below.
But before we get started…
I’ve made the infographic a bit too technical, so I thought I would break down a few of the learnings for you before you read the graphic:
- Quick Win – posts with content that helps your readers accomplish something is considered a “quick win”. For example, this post breaks down how you can get 1,000 visitors to your blog… in essence, that’s the quick win for you.
- Welcome gate – it is sort of an interstitial. Think of Groupon, in which you have to put in your name and email to see the content.
- Qualaroo – it’s a survey tool and within you can collect emails instead of surveying your audience.
- Squeeze page – it’s a page where you only have one goal… typically to collect an email. In which you are trying to get your visitors to enter in their email or leave.
- Confirmation page – having double opt in decreases the number of emails you collect. If you want to use one, tell your subscribers to visit their inbox and click the confirmation link.
- Comment check box – you can actually add a check box to your comment box to get more subscribers. Look for the subscribe to comments plugin.
- Popup – by using Bounce Exchange or Opt In Monster you can create popups that collect emails.
Now lets dive into the infographic.
Conclusion
Emails may not seem that important to you, but unless you are a news site, it’s hard to build a core audience without email marketing. By capturing emails, you’ll increase the number of people coming back to your site and sharing your content.
So, how else can you get your first 1,000 readers?