Breaking into a niche and accumulating critical mass quickly for your blog is not an easy task. While popular blogs in your niche have established brands, it is possible to ’steal’ their mindshare and build a strong readership of your own.
The success of a blog often depends on its audience size. When many people read your blog regularly, your content will potentially be circulated widely, which grows your site faster.
So what’s the secret to building a large blog readership? Content dissemination and the development of a supportive core audience. And that’s really the key. It’s not just about the quality of your content. It’s about having broad distribution channels.
Once again, readership growth doesn’t only depend on the merit of your blog posts, but rather their circulation reach. It’s about how much attention your content receives.
The value of content is subjective and much of its eventual impact actually depends on distribution more than anything. Top quality link bait will be impotent if only three people get to see it. On the other hand, a mediocre article can become massively popular if 100 bloggers see and write about it.
The same scenario occurs even when you hold content quality to be equal. Here’s an example: An Associated Press news story on Yahoo News hits the Digg frontpage and receives many citation links from many bloggers.
The exact same AP story can be found on sites like Google News or the Huffington Post, but they didn’t get any exposure on Digg and hence, didn’t receive as much attention from the blogosphere.
Having people who see and distribute your content is vital for readership growth.
If you can expand your distribution channels, you can even develop perceived authority and brand strength, just purely from your ubiquitous presence. People will naturally talk about what they see regularly or the brands they are familiar with, instead of something unknown to them. This is known as mindshare.
With that in mind, let’s examine the benefits of a core audience and how you develop such a network to increase your distributive power.
The Importance of Having a Supportive Core Audience
Image Credit: Roman Graffiti..
If you want to build a large readership or be regarded as an authority on any topic, you need to develop a core group of supporters. This is important because these people allow your content to spiral outwards beyond your existing readership.
The core group of supporters should have some or all of the following characteristics:
They are bloggers, each with their own audience.
They are influential thought leaders in their niche.
They have the ability to send you links and traffic.
They are loyal readers who value your content and opinions.
They will follow your blog regularly and read most of what you write.
They may also be the target audience for your content
Whenever you publish an important article, these are the people who will talk about it and disseminate it by sharing it with others. This brings more targeted visitors into your site, some of whom may subscribe and follow your blog, before eventually becoming a member of your supportive audience as well.
The only way for a blog to grow fast is to put out valuable content (something worth talking about) and have it spread through a core audience with the ability to link or influence links (people who talk about it). This is an unparalleled strategy that will easily help you to establish a consistently growing blog readership.
The Value of Core Supporters: An Example of Content Dissemination
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The success of a blog often depends on its audience size. When many people read your blog regularly, your content will potentially be circulated widely, which grows your site faster.
So what’s the secret to building a large blog readership? Content dissemination and the development of a supportive core audience. And that’s really the key. It’s not just about the quality of your content. It’s about having broad distribution channels.
Once again, readership growth doesn’t only depend on the merit of your blog posts, but rather their circulation reach. It’s about how much attention your content receives.
The value of content is subjective and much of its eventual impact actually depends on distribution more than anything. Top quality link bait will be impotent if only three people get to see it. On the other hand, a mediocre article can become massively popular if 100 bloggers see and write about it.
The same scenario occurs even when you hold content quality to be equal. Here’s an example: An Associated Press news story on Yahoo News hits the Digg frontpage and receives many citation links from many bloggers.
The exact same AP story can be found on sites like Google News or the Huffington Post, but they didn’t get any exposure on Digg and hence, didn’t receive as much attention from the blogosphere.
Having people who see and distribute your content is vital for readership growth.
If you can expand your distribution channels, you can even develop perceived authority and brand strength, just purely from your ubiquitous presence. People will naturally talk about what they see regularly or the brands they are familiar with, instead of something unknown to them. This is known as mindshare.
With that in mind, let’s examine the benefits of a core audience and how you develop such a network to increase your distributive power.
The Importance of Having a Supportive Core Audience
Image Credit: Roman Graffiti..
If you want to build a large readership or be regarded as an authority on any topic, you need to develop a core group of supporters. This is important because these people allow your content to spiral outwards beyond your existing readership.
The core group of supporters should have some or all of the following characteristics:
They are bloggers, each with their own audience.
They are influential thought leaders in their niche.
They have the ability to send you links and traffic.
They are loyal readers who value your content and opinions.
They will follow your blog regularly and read most of what you write.
They may also be the target audience for your content
Whenever you publish an important article, these are the people who will talk about it and disseminate it by sharing it with others. This brings more targeted visitors into your site, some of whom may subscribe and follow your blog, before eventually becoming a member of your supportive audience as well.
The only way for a blog to grow fast is to put out valuable content (something worth talking about) and have it spread through a core audience with the ability to link or influence links (people who talk about it). This is an unparalleled strategy that will easily help you to establish a consistently growing blog readership.
The Value of Core Supporters: An Example of Content Dissemination
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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