7 Tips for Making Your Blog Grow and Flourish Naturally

There are quite a few things we need to take into account when thinking of natural and organic blog growth, like I discussed in my post – the road to success – about the foundations of blogging, I will be taking a look at some ways of increasing your visibility across the wide web.

It’s absolutely important to follow some sort of conduct that allows us to build a blog and a name for ourselves that people will want to look at again and again.

We have to make sure that whatever techniques and methods we use, we are doing it for the long-term. The more we think about the long-term success, the easier it becomes to grow and flourish naturally.

There are roughly 3 million new blog posts being written and published on the web ever day, you’ve got to make sure that you can manage to stand out – otherwise all that time spent working and researching is for nothing.

Internet Stats Today

Opportunity for bloggers is always there, I’m a blogger and I understand how difficult it can sometimes get, when you’ve got to meet new deadlines and there is always the need to generate new and unique ideas. I know that making your blog grow in organic ways is not the easiest of roads, but then again:

[Tweet “One should never take the easy road, but rather the right road, no matter how long the travel.”]

You’ve got the content, the ideas and the marketing plan in place. What else can you do in order to grow your blog? What other steps you need to take a look at, and perhaps integrate within your strategy? These are the tips I have found to be working the best for me, and I hope they’ll be of great service to you as well.

Regular Content Updates

What better way to grow than by having a regular posting schedule set in place?

In fact, it has been long known that regular content updates mean that the search engines – your main source of organic traffic – will come back and crawl your blog / website more often, leading to increased search rankings over the long-term.

For Quick & Steady Growth

Regular Content UpdatesTo have a steady flow of traffic, it is recommended to post anywhere from 2 to 7 new blog posts every day. You might think it’s a lot, but if you consider the amount of news and other smaller topics that can be published within that frame, it makes perfect sense.

This applies to real bloggers who are serious about what they do, and what they want to achieve, don’t do this if you’re not experienced enough.

For Average Growth

I would say to grow on the average rate, you’d have to publish at least one blog post per day, and spend at least 2 hours a day on creating it. This means that you’ll have enough time to do some research and find the right images in order to give out only the best.

It’s important to remember that you should be blogging and publishing content only if you feel confident about it. Full-time blogging is something that requires commitment, and a lot of time on your hands. The career choice is of course wonderful, but if you cannot manage to squeeze out at least one post per day when working full-time, what is the point?

Explore New Ideas

Getting stuck with the same routine can be painful, it can really be painful, as it makes you think that there is nothing else left to explore and learn about in this world. I’ve been there myself a couple of times, and that is why I expanded my blog to write about things like startups and infographics, all of which bring me very good quality traffic.

Think of ways you could learn more about something and how you could give it back to your blog readers. It’s okay to go out of your boundaries, and don’t be too hard on yourself about creating content that you didn’t intend to in the first place. We often find that it was exactly what we needed to get us going again.

Web Design Matters A Lot

The first theme I used on this blog was ‘Premium Style‘, I made drastic changes to it, to be more appealing to what I thought was a good design standard.

Have You Seen This Yeti

After a couple of short weeks, I decided that I need to improve my design quickly, as I was starting to gain quite a bit of attention and I didn’t want new visitors to think that my blog is ‘just another blog’. You should think (or at least try to) the same way and look at ways of how you can improve the overall user experience for your readers. You should try and follow these 5 steps on creating a better user experience of your design.

Steal the Idea, Not the Content

It means that you are more than welcome to take ideas from other people, but you should always remember to be unique and bring your own vibe into the discussion. Generally, duplicate content is against Google’s and other search engine rules, but even then – blatantly copying word by word is by itself a pathetic gesture that will quickly be realized, and people will simply leave you alone whether you like it or not.

Try to write about things that you know you can write about, and then bring in your own special touch. It can come in any form. I’m not even sure in what form it comes out as for me, I think I just naturally was meant to be blogging as it comes so easily to me. It could be different to you, but try to find that special spark that will help to convert visitors in community members.

Give Credit Where It’s Due

I have written about mentioning influential bloggers in your posts before, though it’s not only the influential people we should be giving credit to. Whenever you write something and you start doing research, you’re going to be borrowing and/or expanding upon someone else’s concept – it’s always a good idea to link back to this person and give him some credit for helping you come up with the best possible post.

Give Credit Where It's Due

It also goes to show that you care and that you respect others work, and who knows – they might start linking back to you in the near future. It’s a win-win situation, as the users themselves will be able to expand more upon your initial thoughts.

Be Open, Yet Professional

You never know where your blogging career is going to take you. And because it’s such a strange and unpredictable space to be working from, it’s best that we keep some of the things we want to say to ourselves, or at least try and make them to sound as professional as possible. There is often the need to say something in a manner that it might hurt others or touch their feelings in the wrong way. Just think how you would feel in the same situation.

Bring in your personality into everything you do. We all act different both online and offline, whether we like to admit it or not. It’s quite possible that one day you’re going to start meeting those “online bloggers” offline and it’s best to be prepared by not having to back yourself up on claims and accusations.

Think About Advertising Strategies

You might or might not have noticed that this blog at the writing of this post does not contain any advertisements. I’m not a huge fan of putting widgets around my blog that will most of the time display the same ads over and over again to my readers. If anything, I’m more interested in private sponsorship and partnerships that will give some value to my readers, while also help me pay the bills.

Think About Advertising Strategies

I think that traditional advertising is slowly dying and we’re going to see different modules and opportunities arise, and not just for bloggers.

The worst kind of advertising happens when it is forced upon the visitor. I hate that. I think you should too.

Making Your Blog Grow and Flourish Naturally

We’ve learned quite a lot in this post, most importantly – we’ve learned how to make our blogs grow and flourishing organically, which is the most important part of any growth strategy. Natural growth doesn’t require money, it only requires commitment.

To sum it up, we covered these seven areas:

  • Regular Content Updates
  • Explore New Ideas
  • Web Design Matters A Lot
  • Steal the Idea, Not the Content
  • Give Credits Where It’s Due
  • Be Open, Yet Professional
  • Think About Advertising Strategies

Which of these have you been using and which of them have been working the best for you? Do you plan on integrating any of the given techniques and tips into your own strategy? I would love to hear about it, and I would definitely love to see some reports in the coming weeks – showing the success of these tips, and the success of making your blog grow in natural manner! :)