How to Get Your Blog Noticed When No One Knows You

Most bloggers will tell you that they started their blog because they hope that it eventually turns into a full-time income. I know I started my blog because I want to walk away from my WordPress freelancing business. If you’re new here check out my about me page.

It’s Always Hard At the Beginning

Whenever you start something, whether it’s getting back into shape or trying to lose weight, it’s the hardest at the beginning.

For example: Let’s say that you want to lose weight. Before making the conscious decision to want to lose weight, you’ve been eating anything that you want. You have never taken time to count the calories because you didn’t care what you were eating.

Then one day, you put on a pair of jeans and you notice that they’re a little too snug. Instead of buying a size larger, you decide it’s time to lose weight.

For the first couple of days, it seems like torture. You’re now counting your calories and making better decisions when it comes to the food that you eat, heck you’ve even started exercising more.

After about a week, it’s time to weigh in. You’re sure that you’ve dropped at least 10 pounds. But after stepping on the scale, you notice that you’ve only dropped one pound.

It’s easy to get discouraged and go back to the way you used to eat. After all, losing weight takes way too long. You were much happier when you didn’t have to count calories.

This is What Blogging Feels Like

You go through the process of setting up your WordPress blog. You’ve chosen to use the Genesis Framework and even invested in a beautiful Restored 316 theme.

It took you over a week to write your first 5 blog posts. After reading everyone’s income reports online, you’re sure that you should have at least made your first $100.

Related: How to Write Your First Blog Post

But when you look at your Google Analytics, you haven’t gotten any visitors. Sure you might have gotten a few visitors from the Facebook Groups that you belong to.

Now you’re starting to second guess starting a blog. After all, it’s not as easy as everyone says it is.

It’s A Process

The one thing that you need to know about building a successful blog is that, it’s a process. Don’t believe that saying “If you build it they will come,” because that will leave you broke and frustrated.

Instead, you’re going to have to work your ass off, in the beginning, to start seeing some traffic. The cool thing is that once you start getting targeted traffic to your blog, it will get easier.

Does starting a blog take a lot of time? YES

Does learning how to grow and drive traffic take time and patience? ABSOLUTELY

Does building trust and a blog community require a ton of patience? YEP

Building a successful blog is a process. But the cool thing is that you don’t have to wait back and wait for it to magically happen. In fact, if you do sit and wait, chances are you will never earn any money from your blog.

In order to grow your blog, you’re going to have to work hard. You can’t be afraid of doing the legwork and experimenting with different traffic strategies to help you grow your blog.

If you try something and it doesn’t work. That’s fine, just keep going and keep trying different strategies until you find what actually helps you grow your blog.

Ready to learn how to get your blog noticed? If so then I’ve put together 15 actionable steps that you can use to help you grow your blog. It’s not going to be easy to grow your blog, but if you stick with it you will see success.

Here’s a great podcast that you can listen to when you start second-guessing the growth of your blog.

17 Things to Do to Learn How to Get Your Blog Notice

1. Pick the Right Social Media Platform

By now you’ve read that you need to be everywhere if you want to grow your blog. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one traffic basket.

While I agree to an extent, I do believe that it’s impossible to try to be on all the social media platforms. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a presence on the platform.

What I am saying is that you can’t learn how to fully use a platform if you’re trying to learn Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest.

Pick 1-2 platforms that your target audience hangs out on and focus on those platforms. As you know, I am currently doing learning everything that I can about using Pinterest to the help me grow my blog.

When I started this blog, I was trying to learn Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter at the same time. You know how much my blog grew the first year?

I never made it over 3,000 page views in my first year. So don’t make that mistake, pick 1-2 platforms and put all your time and energy on those platforms. If you’re completely new to Pinterest, I highly recommend the Pinning Perfect course.

It’s the course that helped me set up the proper foundation for my blog.

2. Automate Your Social Media With Smarter Queue

Just because you’re not focusing on Twitter or Facebook doesn’t mean that you don’t want a presence on those platforms. I’m just saying that you don’t want to spend time learning how to use those platforms while you’re investing time learning another platform.

The cool thing is that you can automate your social media with Smarter Queue to help you maintain a presence on those platforms. Heck Smarter Queue is responsible for helping me grow my Twitter following and I don’t even spend a lot of time on Twitter.

You can pre-schedule your content and other people’s content to be shared on your social media channels without spending a lot of time on the platforms.

3. Make It Easy for People to Share Your Content

When you’re just starting out, chances are you won’t get a bunch of shares. However, you want to make sure that you are using a WordPress plugin that makes it easy for others to share your content. I use the Social Warfare plugin to help me get more shares on my blog.

Choosing the right plugin can be the difference between people sharing your content or wishing they could share but it’s too much trouble.

4. Create A Pinterest Pin for Every Blog Post

Since I’ve been really learning the ins and outs of Pinterest to help me grow my blog this past February, I am really starting to love it. Pinterest does come with a learning curve, but then so does everything else in blogging.

Social media is a new blogger’s best friend. Yes I know we all want traffic from Google, but it’s not going to happen overnight. It can take Google up to six months to start sending you traffic. That’s if you’re properly optimizing your blog posts.

Don’t’ sit back and wait for Google to start sending you traffic. Jump on the Pinterest bandwagon to get more traffic to your blog.

The best way to do this is to create a pin for every blog post and pin it to your account. Let others know that you’re on Pinterest and to share your blog posts as well.

5. Schedule and Loop Pins With Board Booster

One of the cool things about Board Booster is that it helps you loop your pins on Pinterest. This means that once you add your pin to your secret board, you don’t have to worry about it again.

It’s the perfect set and forget it system so you can focus on other things in your business. (although I don’t recommend letting the automated scheduler do all the work for you)

What is Board Booster? Well, it’s an automated scheduler that allows you to automatically repin your content over and over again. Basically, revive and recycle your pins so your account is always active and you’re constantly getting your pins in front of your audience.

It’s a genius way to grow your blog traffic and if used correctly, it can definitely help you grow your blog. You can check out Board Booster here to learn more about it.

6. Share Other People’s Content

I know that you want to grow your blog and start earning money. One of the best ways to do this is to share other people’s content.

That’s right, you want to make sure that you’re sharing other people’s content. On Pinterest people say that you should follow the 80-20 rule when it comes to sharing on social media.

The truth is that there is no right or wrong rule when it comes to sharing other people’s content. The important thing is that you don’t always want to be sharing your own content. It just looks bad and this isn’t going to help you grow.

I’ve found that the more I share other people’s content, the more my content gets shared. It’s much easier to grow your blog if you’re making friends and they are sharing your content.

Just remember, it’s easier to grow your blog if you’re friends are sharing your content as well. So start off sharing other people’s content without expecting anything in return.

After a while, you’ll see that other people will start sharing your content as well.

7. Use Strong Calls to Action

Make sure that you’re using strong calls to action to let people know what you want them to do next. If you’re a brand new blogger and don’t know anything at all about WordPress, make sure that you sign up for my 7 day WordPress course.

You see what I did there? I just added a call to action that will help new bloggers know that they can sign up for my Free WordPress course.

If you don’t tell people what you want them to do, chances are they won’t do anything.

Always be working on the conversions of your blog. Here’s a great article that talks about the psychology of color to improve your conversions.

It takes time to learn how to improve your call to actions and increase your conversions. This is something that we all should be working on improving on a regular basis.

8. Use Content Upgrades

Content upgrades are one of the easiest ways to get people to opt into your email list. What is a content upgrade? It’s a download that you offer someone in exchange for their email address. If you write an amazing blog post that has maybe 31 tips on how to do something amazing, you can offer that as a PDF download to your readers.

The content upgrade is offered within the blog post and is related to the blog post that they are reading.

I put off doing content upgrades because they took a lot of time. It wasn’t until I found the Post Gopher Plugin that has allowed me to start using content upgrades to grow my blog. They definitely work and can help you grow your blog traffic and email list.

Related: How to Get Blog Followers Make The Most of Your Blog Traffic

9. Create A Resource Library

If you’re still trying to decide on a lead magnet freebie for your blog, you definitely should consider using a free resource library. All you have to do is create a private page on your blog and it can hold a collection of your best content upgrades, lead magnets, and other tools that are helpful to your subscribers.

Your resource library can be filled with motivational videos, tech tutorials, blog checklists, podcast interviews, planners or anything that you want as long as it adds value to your subscribers.

Related: How to Create A Resource Library on WordPress

10. Guest Blog

Another great way to grow your blog traffic is to guest blog on blogs that are bigger than you. Basically, you write an amazing blog post and then give it away to another blogger in return for getting in front of their audience.

Make sure that you do your due diligence before giving away your content to just anyone. If you get featured on the right blogs, it can help definitely help you grow your blog.

Related: Guest Posting Can Be Scary You Just Need to Do It

11. Seek Collaborations

Collaboration can definitely help you grow your blog. Many new bloggers make the mistake of looking at other bloggers as competitors.

If this sounds like you, stop that. Other bloggers are not your competitors, I truly believe there is enough space in this world for all of us to have success.

Start looking at your fellow bloggers as friends. Then sit down and make a list of 1-10 bloggers that you want to make friends with.

Make it a point to reach out to them on social media. You can also make it a point to visit their blog and comment and share their blog posts. After a while, you’ll start to get on their radar and they will start looking at you as a friend.

You’ll get farther with collaborations than you will all alone.

12. Spend Money

In order to turn your blog into a business, you’re going to have to spend some money. Many new bloggers are scared to spend money. They tend to believe that they can do everything for free.

I know that it’s hard to spend money on something that isn’t turning a profit yet. However, if you really want to create a profitable venture, you’re going to have to invest in the right online education.

This means that you’re going to have to buy online courses, eBooks and attend masterminds.

You don’t know everything and it’s a lot easier to learn from someone more successful than you. There’s no shame in investing in your online business.

It’s the faster track to success and that’s one of the reasons that I decided to invest in the Elite Blog Academy when this blog was 3 months old. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t make the same mistakes I’ve made in the past.

13. Use Google Analytics

When you first start blogging, chances are you won’t really know what your audience wants. Yes, you might know who you want to attract.

Once you start getting some visitors you can keep an eye on your Google Analytics to help you see what your audience loves. This will help you write more of that content.

Related: How to Setup Google Analytics

14. Blog With Integrity

Yes, I know that you want to become a full-time blogger. But don’t promote affiliate products on your blog if it’s crap. There’s B.S. online and we don’t need anymore.

Always keep in mind that your readers and subscribers are real people. These people have come to your blog because they need help with a specific problem.

Don’t try to sell them crap just in hopes of earning a commission. Put yourself in their shoes and treat them like you would want to be treated.

15. Establish Your Own Voice

As a new blogger it’s so easy to want to be like other successful bloggers. Maybe you’ve stalked other successful bloggers and are trying to copycat them.

I know that it’s easy to think that no one will follow me because I’m not cool. But the truth is that you don’t need or want everyone to follow you.

Just be yourself and the right people will be attracted to you. If you were to meet me offline, you would notice that I am the same offline as I am online.

I’m not trying to be someone that I am not. It would just be too tiring to keep up the facade. If you like me then you like me, if not that’s okay 🙂

16. Create Multiple Streams of Income

One of the first ways that most new bloggers start monetizing is by placing Google Adsense on their blog. While this is okay, don’t just rely on Ads to monetize your blog.

If you really want to turn your blog into a profitable venture, you need to focus on adding several income streams to your blog. You can do this by monetizing with affiliate products, Ads, your own digital products, membership sites, starting an e-commerce site and etc.

There are several ways to make money with your blog. It’s okay to start out with Google Adsense if you want, just know that you won’t make a lot of money unless you have a lot of page views.

Don’t be scared to add other monetization methods over time.

Related: How to Earn Passive Income Blogging In Your Spare Time

17. Post Helpful Content

There are over 75 million new blog posts published every day. (source)  It’s easy to think that there’s no room for your blog. But the truth is that there is always room for you to create a successful blog.

As long as you are creating helpful content that helps your audience, you will create a successful blog. If you’re going to create a blog post, make sure that it actually adds value.

Otherwise, don’t publish it. There are so many awesome blog posts online, yours has to be awesome as well, otherwise, no one is going to stop by and visit your blog.

Related: How to Write Your First Blog Post

Final Take Away

Learning how to get your blog noticed takes time. I’m a true believer that as long as you keep working on your blog and treating it like a business, you will see the success you want.

The only way that you won’t make money with your blog is if you quit. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to turn your blog into a full-time business.

Work your butt off in the beginning and keep testing and experimenting with your blog. Once your blog starts gaining traction and authority, you won’t have to work as hard as you did when you first started your blog.

Hand Picked Articles for You

• Pinterest for Bloggers: How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic To Your Blog
• 15 Types of Blog Posts That Will Help It Grow Like Crazy
• 13 Pinterest Tips and Tricks You Should Know By Now

When you started your blog, did you use any of these tips to get noticed on your blog? Which one did you use and why? Let me know, I’d love to hear your feedback.