Building a Consistent Blog Readership

Many bloggers dream of writing that epic blog post. One that drives so much traffic, links and shares that the front page of Reddit is a foregone conclusion.

photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photopin cc

Common wisdom suggests that to write anything even kind of like that you must plan and toil and slave over the writing until you’ve packed so much in there people must flock to it.

Well, the reality is most people don’t need to blog to create uber-popular blog posts or become popular bloggers.

The utility in blogging for the majority of businesses is the eventual creation of a body of work that covers the chapters or keyword themes that attract readers, prospects and customers.

In that regard, consistency, usefulness, value, education and sturdiness all trump epic.

I recently revealed what I call a Total Content System that addresses a “themed” approach to mapping out monthly content, but today I want to talk about another element that can help establish a daily and weekly rhythm for your blogging.

One of the ways to develop a loyal following is a consistent pattern of content features that can help your readers know what to expect when they subscribe, share and look for your new posts.

An easy way to do this is to break your week down into standard features. You can go as far as describing or even naming your features or you can just use this idea as a loose framework for yourself.

Here’s an example of how I do this:

• Monday – Usually reserved for something bigger picture, theme related post – usually something that people need to digest and adapt to use.
• Tuesday – This is when I do my “5 Ways to Do X kind of post” or “How to use X kind of tool” – lots of links and teaching and usually pretty prescriptive. I publish an email newsletters on Wednesdays and I often use one of these first two posts as my featured article.
• Wednesday – This is podcast day. I publish a new episode and write some commentary related to the subject.
• Thursday – This is guest post day. I run a post written by someone I’ve invited to add a new perspective to the monthly theme
• Friday – I usually do something on the lighter side or at least not straight up marketing
• Saturday – I run a feature I call Weekend Favs. It’s just a quick highlight of three new tools I’ve discovered during the week. Funny, but I sometimes get more feedback on this than anything else I do
• Sunday – No post on this day, but truth be known I often work on Monday and Tuesday’s posts

One of my readers shared a routine he is planning for new site recently and I think it helps shed some light on how flexible this approach is.

Here’s how Bruno Coelho plans to break his daily posts down.

• A question worth answering
• An action worth doing
• A lesson worth learning
• An Online Dreampreneur worth following
• A week worth remembering

This aspect of a Total Content System further allows you to plan and build your content knowing that you need four lessons, questions, interviews, etc., each month.

But, perhaps the most important aspect is that it also allows your readers to get a feel for what to expect day in and day out.

Ask your readers or customers what they want, use tools like Survey Monkey, Wufoo or Qualaroo to gain insights into what people are looking for and then experiment until you get the mixture that feels right.

is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

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