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This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:
See the table of contents for the book here: BLOGTASTIC project
Previous article: Blogging can seem like a thankless job.
BLOGTASTIC!: Attracting and maintaining reader attention.
When it comes to blogging, it’s easy to employ tactics that will get you a short-term increase in traffic. Short-term tactics can include but not limited to:
• Creating and posting a viral video;
• Making a controversial statement on a topic of current interest;
• Joining a “hot” conversation;
• Assembling others’ content and portraying it as original content;
• Commenting on other popular blogs without adding anything of value to the conversation; and
• Submitting “below average” posts to social tagging sites and convincing friends to promote them.
These are just some of the tactics which will bring traffic to your blog. You’ll see visitors flock to your site, but they’re unlikely to stay. They will quickly go to the next site. In fact, once you lose them with those tactics it may be hard to bring them back even if you “reform” yourself later.
If you want to build a large readership, then you have no choice but to apply sound long-term strategies. From my viewpoint, the fundamental strategy for success in the blogosphere has two parts:
a. Build an identity that is very powerful through your accomplishments outside of blogging.
b. Provide valuable information that is of high relevance to your audience.
These two steps may sound simple, but they are hard to implement. In this chapter, we’ll look at ways you can attract and retain quality readers for your blog.
Blogging Tip: Focus on the long-term
The tactics that are used to gain short-term attention will actually work against a long-term strategy. If you want to succeed in the long-term success, you have to avoid short-term tactics.
Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow