When you look at some of the top blogs on the internet, it can make you feel like blogging is easy. The truth is that growing a loyal audience for your blog is hard. You’ll have to consistently make an effort to grow your audience and there are generally no shortcuts that will put you ahead of those that have been doing it for years. Here are some of the truths that you will need to accept to understand why building an audience for your blog is so hard.

Hard Truth #1: You Don’t Know Your Audience

This is probably the number one reason why business blogs fail and it is because the business doesn’t know its audience. If you are trying to create content to attract attention, you need to know who you are writing to first. The other caveat to this is that the appropriate target audience for your blog is not necessarily who you think it is.

For example, you may assume that you are writing to anyone that wants to know about online marketing, when in fact your main target audience may actually be real estate agents. However, if you aren’t tracking visitors to your blog with analytics tools, instead of simply guessing, you’re probably way off track.

The first step to creating a blog that will become successful is to have a thorough understanding of your audience, their interests and their behaviors.

Hard Truth #2: You Can’t Afford Enough Advertising 

Big companies rely on news publications and native advertising to promote their content. If you can’t afford to invest a significant amount of your content marketing budget in advertising, things will be significantly more difficult for your business.

However, if you have been using advertising to promote your content and things aren’t working, this is a sign that it is time to revamp your strategy. Don’t simply continue to spend money on something that isn’t working just because you think that it is the right thing to do. Becoming stagnant in your content strategy is just as bad as doing nothing at all.

For better results, consider reaching out to a third-party agency for assistance with advertising if your in-house program isn’t getting the results that you expect. Too many companies focus on the amount of the budget rather than results. You may also need to reallocate your budget or spend more in order to get better results.

Hard Truth #3: You Don’t Have Influencers to Promote Your Brand

Influencers have the potential to grow your blog’s audience because they already have large, active groups of followers on social media. These influencers may also be active at conferences, seminars, and other industry events.

The majority of large brands are already using influencer marketing to promote their products and services. This is why people who promote products and services on Instagram, YouTube, blogs and other outlets have become so popular.

If you want to leverage the power of influencer marketing, you must first identify the right influencers for your brand. Using sites like Buzzsumo or Klout can help you to identify these individuals. Follow them on social media and get to know how they interact with their followers.

Before you contact an influencer, you must determine what your goals are. If you want influencers to help you build your blog audience, you might reach out to them to request a guest post or a review of your product or service. Make sure that you personalize each attempt at outreach. Influencer marketing must be done with care if you don’t want to damage your brand. Make sure that there is something in it for both parties so that you don’t risk looking like your just out to promote your business.

Hard Truth #4: Your Blog’s Design Is Awful

Let’s face it. How much time are you really going to dedicate to reading posts on a blog that has tiny text, cheesy graphics and doesn’t even display properly on your mobile phone? Chances are that you’ve already forgotten about a blog with these problems because you’ve closed the browser window.

If you think that blog looks uninviting in comparison to well known blogs, chances are your readers think that it does as well. They are not going to bother with poor design just because your company produces great products and services. Instead, they will simply ignore your content.

If you want to start growing your audience for your blog, you need to make sure that your blog’s layout is awesome. Make the text larger and easier to read. Simplify the layout and invest in responsive design. If you look at any blog that gets thousands of shares per post, chances are that the layout is as good as the content itself.

Hard Truth #5: You Are Focusing on Quantity Over Quality

Creating dozens of blog posts each month is not going to do much to improve traffic to your blog if the posts aren’t providing any value for your readers. In fact, with the most recent announcement that Panda is now part of Google’s core search algorithm, you could actually harm your SEO rankings by publishing low quality content.

However, it also important to understand that low quality content according to Google doesn’t only mean poorly written. These days, what Google is looking for is content that actually helps users. If you optimize your post content for a particular keyword, that content better actually deliver on its promise. This means providing comprehensive content that could be considered an authority post for that particular keyword search. If you are not doing this, then you can now expect to receive lower rankings for your posts.

Hard Truth #6: Your Content Is Boring

For companies in certain industries, creating content is a challenge because the products and services that they offer are generally considered to be boring topics to discuss. If your company is the leading provider of financial software or you provide real estate services, it can be difficult to develop content that won’t put your audience to sleep.

For boring industries, your content strategy must focus on creating content that solves your target audience’s problems. Don’t make the mistake of writing articles about your products and services. Draw in the attention of your target audience by writing posts about industry trends, the latest mainstream news that is related to your industry, or by answering questions that are frequently asked by your customers. You can also increase engagement by including visuals, such as infographics, videos, and images in your content to make things more exciting.

Hard Truth #7: You Follow Top Bloggers Without Paying Attention to What They Actually Do

These days, everyone has an opinion about the ingredients for a successful blog. However, are you actually paying attention to what these experts say versus what they actually do? We have already discussed some of the factors that go into creating a great blog. However, what you may have not noticed, is that the top bloggers on the internet are continually changing their strategies. Some of the changes you’ll notice are:

• keyword optimization changes
• writing style changes
• changes to the blog layout
• new opt-in designs
• new promotions to increase engagement
• changes to advertising methods

The bottom line is that if you want your blog to be successful, it takes more than simply publishing on a regular schedule. You need to invest in content promotion as much as you invest in content creation. Instead of reading posts on what others opinions are of how to create a great blog, focus on what they are actually doing. Chances are that you will see a lot of marketers that are making efforts to improve their blogs that they aren’t always sharing with their audiences.

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