Tips for Encouraging Readership on Your Blog

When comments are on
but participation is off,
it can be wildly discouraging
for a blogger.

Why isn’t anyone commenting?
you wonder.
Is it my writing?
Is it how much I post?

It can be hard
to know where to turn.

But thankfully,
you’ve found this post!

Hello! It’s a brand new day here on Living the Blogging Life, and we are delighted to welcome you back. If it’s your first time here, we’d like to encourage you to visit our Team page to get to know the writers a bit better! And if you ever have any blogging questions, they can be submitted here.

I’m Maggie from maggie’s doodles. I have been actively learning about encouraging readership on my blogs since early 2017! That’s nearly four years’ worth of tweaking my writing, posting style, etc., to find out what people really like to read and comment on. I’ll be sharing my top readership advice today! Here’s the blogging philosophy I write by:

Readership and comments should reflect how much other bloggers are enjoying your content!

Tips for Encouraging
Readership on Your Blog

Begin with the title — because that’s the first thing readers learn about your post

Working on developing a sense of unity in your titles will give your blog a streamlined feel! When titles are too different from each other, it causes a blogger’s content to look mismatched and irrelevant.

By coming up with your own titling style, you can use series names, separators (i.e. -, ~, and |), and similar sentence structure to bring them all together and really complement your blog!

Continue with the introduction — since it can be what makes or breaks readership

There are three ways to introduce your post: briefly, extensively, or not at all. I think this is a preference for all bloggers and readers, so just like with most things in blogging, it’s up to you! But typically, a sufficient, medium-length introduction (maybe even a short, helpful one) works best.

Lengthy beginnings can cause our attention span to wander, and posts that contain no introduction might be confusing and feel somewhat sudden. These are just a few things to think about when introducing your posts!

Formatting is next — make it visually pleasing!

My absolute favorite posts are the ones with lists, short paragraphs (3-5 sentences), vibrant photography, artistic dividers, explanatory headings, color blocks (headings/text with color background), and bold/italic points! They don’t have to contain all of these things, but if they have a few of these elements, you’ll be able to keep me interested for a while – even long posts with good formatting are easy to read!

Finish with the outro — pose some questions

This is VERY important. Give your readers some ideas for how they could strike up conversation with you! Some posts are easy to respond to, but with other ones, providing example questions will help readers to start their comment. I can’t tell you how many posts I’ve clicked away from even though I wanted to say something, because I wasn’t sure how to interact with the blogger.

Read your post back — if YOU were a reader, would you have anything to say?

This tip has saved my posts multiple times! While writing, I preview my draft in a separate tab and skim through it, looking to see what a potential reader would be able to take away from the post. This has helped me learn how to gear my writing toward the reader and encourage discussion!

Create harmony in your content — give bloggers something to keep coming back to your blog for

I LOVE it when a blogger has a weekly or monthly post they consistently share! It gives me a day of the week to look forward to, and I get to learn something more about the blogger on a regular basis. Consistency in a blog’s content builds readership and encourages followers to return, because if they love your posts and you frequently share new ones within that topic/niche, they’ll be excited for the latest installments!

Pay attention to popular comment hours — find out when your readers are online

This is one of those things that takes months of watching your stats and experiencing trial and error! I wouldn’t normally encourage a blogger to look at views and keep track of likes, but it can be really helpful for a while so you can find out when your readers typically comment. Some days of the week are more popular, and certain times of day will have more readers online.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you found some of these tips helpful. Building readership on your blog is something that takes time and effort, but the results are totally worth it! At the same time you’re learning how to gear your posts toward your audience, you also grow as a blogger, writer, and individual.

How do YOU encourage people to comment? What are some helpful things you’ve learned about readership? We’d love to hear from you!

On Living the Blogging Life, we’re happy to always encourage you to…

Maggie @ maggie’s doodles is a 20 year old girl who loves to sing, laugh, dance, and blog. She’s been blogging since 2010 and enjoys sharing what she’s learned with others!