Chapter 33. Growing Your Audience: Some Basics

My friend and former coworker, Mike Desjardins[156] asked me how people go about growing a blogging audience. It's a great question. I run into tons of people who have wonderful blogs,[157] blogs that deserve much more attention than they receive. What gives? What can you do to grow your audience? If you want to grow your audience, you first need to know who they are, then give them easy-to-consume chunks of content, promote your work effectively, and be persistent.

LET'S START WITH AUDIENCE

First and foremost, who are you writing this blog for? If the answer is "myself" and you have more than one RSS subscriber, congratulations. You've done it. If the answer is, "Anyone into _____," (e.g., "anyone into tech") and you have more than 10 subscribers, congratulations. Be clear about the audience. If I'm going to bother giving you some of my time, I want something back.

Let's take Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation.[158] This is a top-shelf blog, with clearly written content, that speaks to people looking to better understand the future of digital influence. Brilliant work, considerately written, and created in such a way that I come away thinking about how this impacts me. Perfect. Spot-on.

Other great examples of focused blogs that target audiences well:

  • Problogger.net

  • WebWorkerDaily.com

  • Copyblogger.com

  • 300WordsADay.com (This is a religious blog by my friend, Jon Swanson. Being that I'm not very religious, it should tell you that I love his ...

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