Indeed, the title reads, how to grow a blog with Legiit. But this piece contains much more than that, really. You can use the tips and hacks in this guide to grow your blog anywhere.

Before we delve into that (the tips and hacks), what does it mean to grow a blog? How long does it take? Why must you do it? Is blogging even worth your time to start?

This guide has all the answers!

Now would be the time to sit tight for a joy ride!

What Does It Mean To Grow A Blog?

Perhaps you think growing a blog means adding more pages or more posts to your archive. Is that it?

No!

Your blog is much more than your content and its pages. Yes, the two factors contribute to the richness of your offerings. Even at that, they are not what growing a blog means.

On the other hand, your blog growth is a measure of the traffic it gets. How many visitors are visiting your pages? Is the number increasing or decreasing?

Another thing to consider would be how long the visitors spend on your blog posts. But that’s even a topic for a different time.

In summary, what you grow for your blog is the audience.

In essence, when you grow your blog, you get more visitors to visit your pages, commit to your offerings, and ultimately improve your business and sales. Now, you might ask, to what ends?

Is growing a blog worth it? Why go through all the stress?

Should You Grow Your Blog?

Short answer: yes!

If today were 2010 or 2012, you probably wouldn’t be asking such a question. And that’s because blogging was quite a feature then.

But hey! Times have changed. Now, there is an explosive use of social media platforms – who needs a blog when you have Facebook and Twitter? Oh, there is still TikTok!

Even with all that, blogging remains a big catch. And if you want a fat catch for your business, then you should consider growing your blog.

However, you must be careful what niche you start your blog in; not all are equally profitable. Nonetheless, we have found these lots to be lucrative:

• Business
• DIY and home decor
• Fashion
• Financial management
• Fitness
• Food
• Parenting
• Productivity
• Spirituality

Summarily, start blogs on educational and informative niches. People like tips, tutorials, and guides; so, you give those crumbs to them, and growing your audience would be easy.

However, note that easy doesn’t mean quick. How so?

If you are just starting your blog, it might take you 3 – 6 months to grow it to a desirable audience. But as long as you put in the work, you will reap the benefits.

So, back to the question, should you grow your blog?

Yes, by all means. But ensure you are growing one in the right niche. When you do, it will all be worth your time and investment.

Or would you love to get off easy? Would you prefer to grow your blog audience incredibly and fast?

If yes, Legiit services can help; the tips below will guide you on how.

How To Grow A Blog With Legiit – The Step-by-step Guide

First off, know that growing a blog, either new or old, anywhere happens in two phases:

1. Initially, you will focus on getting as much traffic as possible to your blog.
2. Ultimately, you will work on sustaining your traffic – improve users’ experience. In other words, entice your visitors to come back to your blog – and repeatedly.

That said, this section will discuss how you can navigate the two phases to get the best results for your blog. And we did one even better; we added examples and links to how Legiit can help you all the way.

Shall we begin already?

5 Ways To Increase The Traffic To Your Blog, And Fast

Leverage On Existing Blogs And Their Owners

Like any business or even task, other people have once been in your position – wanting to grow their respective blogs. Fortunately, some have had beautiful success stories. Why not reach out to these shining lights?

Think about it; reaching out for help is a sure way to grow fast and network. How so?

When you start networking, other bloggers can share real-life tips to help you get started and what more your blog requires to be a hit.

More importantly, your sources of blog growth tips can also be aids for dispersal. They will visit your pages and posts. Then, they will proceed to share or comment on the content. When that happens, your blog will receive a boost to its traffic.

Sounds good, eh? You bet!

However, don’t network with just any blogger. Be selective; reach out to those in your niche and who are successful at blogging. When you find these top-tier players, network with them regularly.

Equally, know that the top-tier players are not messiahs. They need help too. So, find what they need and leverage that.

That way, you and the bloggers will be in a mutually beneficial relationship – nobody likes a parasite!

So, how can you get help without coming off as a parasite?

First, build relationships with your pick of the top bloggers. Here is how:

• Share the content of other bloggers
• Comment on resourceful blog posts and do it regularly till when the owner notices you. Even then, don’t stop!

Note: Ensure your comments are themselves top-notch, helpful, and void of backlinks.

• Join communities created by your prospective blogger friend, and watch for updates of posts and other developments.

Pro tip: Most blogs/websites have Facebook groups. So, click through and ensure you optimize your Facebook profile for what you do – blogging.

After you establish relationships with your prospects, proceed to contribute to their blogs. And this is where the work lies. So, prepare!

Note: Ensure you only contribute to blogs with desirable traffic and engagement. Else, you are better off eating Lima beans and throwing a hail Mary.

But, how do you prepare?

• Read through the blogger’s pages and post. Even better, check if they have a submission guide – read those too.
• Next, do keyword research for related posts that can help the blogger. Once you have the easy-to-rank cherries, form a topic around them.

Pro tip: Use one of the keyword research services on Legiit to save yourself the stress.

• Now, create a unique pitch that is all about the owner of the blog. Since you already have a relationship with him, that should be easy.

Note: Your pitch should be as straightforward as possible. Blog owners receive way too many requests, so much so, they discard poorly formatted and researched ideas.

• Still on the pitch, write like a copywriter instead of a blog writer. That way, you will be persuasive. But if you don’t have copywriting skills, try the experts at Legiit, and shoot your shot.
• If the prospect accepts your pitch, get to work, and write your best post yet. But shouldn’t your “best” be only for your blog?

No!

All your blog posts should ooze class, regardless of where you eventually send them. You are a unique genie; so, let all your work reflect your ingenuity. In other words, don’t hold back your quality – never!

You have written, sent, and gotten your signature quality post published. Now, your blog will receive awareness and a bit of traffic. But don’t stop there; leverage on the opportunity even more. How?

• Create an email list that features bloggers who love your work and look forward to getting more. More importantly, use the list to get even more leads for growing your blog.

Pro tip: Always include auto opt-in links to your mails for your newsletters and updates of new blog posts.

Suggested reading:

How To Grow Your Email List

• Interact with the comments on your guest posts. While the blog owner might rarely reply to comments, you should at least do so for your submitted and published posts. When you do, you add more views and engagement to your post, and the chances of growing your blog will improve.
• Lastly, grow your guest post too. Yes, that will be helping the blog owner. Remember, you are in a mutually beneficial relationship. In other words, it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Enough of growing other bloggers’ blogs, what next?

Explore Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms can also be a tool to grow your blog almost similarly to guest posting. It could be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even Instagram. Whichever one you use, know that these channels fit different purposes.

About that, stick to channels that allow you to share your content and make it easy for others to do so. One such platform is Triberr – a tribe of seasoned and starter bloggers in diverse niches.

The best part: Triberr is somewhat streamlined for bloggers. And that’s another window to connect, network, and grow your already budding influence.

So, how does Triberr work? How can you get the best results from it fast and with ease?

• Research tribes that fit the niche of your blog and topics. Once you have a list, we will advise you to select 2-3 tribes with the most participants and posts – join them.
• On joining a tribe, you start as a follower and get all the updates from the group. Depending on your activity, the chief will elevate your status to a full member.
• When you become a full member of a tribe, you can start uploading your blog posts there. Now is when the membership will be beneficial – the bigger the group, the more chances of traffic and engagement.
• Watch those that like, share, or comment on your posts. Engage with these bloggers and keep doing till you create your tribe – and even after!
• Now that you have your “tribe,” invite your faithfuls. Since they already know you from your various posts across different tribes, your tribe will grow, and so will your blog. Everybody wins!

Here is the fun part: the hacks above are not limited to Triberr. You can use them even on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Try it, and you’d see it works – like a chain.

Join-learn-engage-build!

Overall, know that all the chain work and leveraging on other bloggers would only be as resourceful as your input to your blog. So, what have you done?

Regardless of your input, appropriate these concluding three tips:

Make Your Blog Posts All About Your Audience

Like we had stated earlier, your blog matters. If you fill it with poorly-written content, your growth hacks so far might work against you.

But beyond structure and quality, your blog posts and entire content strategy should use a bottom-up approach. What?

Don’t just populate your blog with what you felt like writing. Instead, do so based on what your audience would love. And to be honest with you, that’s the core of growing anything, really. If the target doesn’t feel you, your marketing or promotions are useless.

But we understand you’ve invested a lot already. We wouldn’t want you to waste it all. That said, let’s guide you on how you can know what your audience would love.

• First, define your ideal readers and how you plan to help them. About that, it’s best you consider your strengths too!
• Once you understand the aim of your blog and your audience, decide what topics would be most helpful.
• In our opinion, evergreen content will always remain relevant. There will always be ideas that readers in your niche will forever crave – and that is constant. You might want to start with that!
• Outside evergreen content, you can write about emerging trends. Innovations will always spring, and people would want to know how to use and adapt them. So, monitor these trends and post about them as soon as they start. However, remember to stick to the goals of your blog.

For example, if you’re a wedding blog, don’t be talking about the recent development in tech. Instead, talk about trendy wedding inspiration.

• Still on trendy topics, you can get help with streamlining tools. One of such is Google alerts. With Google alerts, you will know whenever another blogger writes a piece in your niche. That way, you will stay on top of explosive content because they happen.
• Even with the keenest eyes, the chances are that you would miss out on some trends. Worse: you might misjudge an idea to hit the doldrums, and then it becomes the heat. In any case, you can always make amends.

And thanks to tools like BuzzSumo, you will see what posts are popular in your niche. Even better, you will see what is working for similar bloggers in your niche.

The only sideline is that BuzzSumo can be pricey. Good news: you can try the affordable but equally effective audit services on Legiit.

• Lastly, and most importantly, focus your posts on helping your audience. They come first, and as soon as they realize you know that, your effort will yield incredible results.

Note: A once in a blue moon post wouldn’t do much to grow your blog. You should publish quality articles consistently – perhaps with a content calendar.

Suggested reading:

How To Plan a Content Calendar With Legiit

Bottom line: You might need help from freelance writers, especially if you own multiple blogs. This guide will help you choose the cream of the crops:

How To Hire Bloggers: The Definite Guide To Outsourcing Your Blog

Drive More Social Shares To Your Blog

By now, you have published posts that your audience loves. That would mean you have their attention. In that case, why not extract the opportunity for all juice it has? How?

Get social shares from your readers!

Perhaps you don’t know the importance of social shares. Let’s enlighten you.

Imagine a reader loves your post and shares that on his Facebook, for example. Say he has about 1000 friends. That means your blog will likely receive *1000 additional views.

What if you have about 500 readers with at least 1000 friends each? Imagine the traffic such numbers could pull!

The best part: the readers’ friends could even share your content still. What if every viewer shares again? When that happens, your blog will keep receiving waves of traffic.

Aren’t social shares just incredible?

Maybe if there were a better word, social shares would get that. They create a ripple effect that incredibly jolts your posts’ traffic up. And that is why they are vital to growing your blog.

But we have to warn you; getting people to share your posts can be quite a work. Know that you can’t nag nor come off as disturbing. If you do, you will reduce your chances of getting shares to almost never. What then?

You can only encourage people to share your posts. And the only way to do that is to create an enabling environment for social shares. How?

• Find a social share tool that is robust but easy to use. Once you find that, add its button to your blog posts.

Pro tip: Try Social Snap if you’re using a WP site. The best part: you can outsource all your WP site needs on Legiit.

• Don’t bug your readers with way too many share buttons. We get that you wanted to add links to all social media platforms. But don’t!

Instead, key into C.J. Langenhoven’s quote: friends should be like books, few, but hand-selected. In the same vein, let your social share buttons be few and only the most used networks.

More so, the more buttons you add, the more chances readers would ignore all and bounce off your posts.

• Perhaps having many share buttons can be manageable – don’t do it still. Most importantly, never show your share counts. What if you have loads of it?

No one will believe you; they might think it is a tweak to make them do the same.

Worse case: revealing a low share count. A low share count is just never good enough for social proof – it is negative. As such, it might turn off your audience.

In essence, just turn off your share counts. It’s the safest approach. No one will judge what they can’t see.

• Don’t always wait till the end of your post before you add a share button. We get that it is conventional but dare to be different: include your share button (click to tweet) within your post. But do it only strategically. Add the buttons only where there is a short quote, at the introduction or summary of your article, or when you throw a funny shade at a popular idea – make them subtle.
• People love visuals. So, give them the option to have that. Create share buttons for images too. Remember the in-post buttons we talked about; you can make a few of those pictures. When you do, your blog will drive traffic even from Pinterest.

Pro tip: Engage Legiit designers for enticing images that your readers would love to share.

Now, you’ve driven more engagement and traffic to your posts. But you can still do better and make your blog the envy of your tribe. How?

Incorporate Promotion Into Your Blogging Process

Growing your blog is a never-ending process. You can’t just stop once you’ve gotten tons of social shares. Surprisingly, that is even when you should put in more work.

When you reach the levels you have always wanted, you must sustain them. And the way to do that is to infuse promotions as crucial parts of your blogging process. How?

Plan your promotion along with your keyword research, content strategy & structure, and the writing itself. Particularly, create a checklist for this purpose. Why a checklist?

A blog post promotion checklist helps you to stay on track, know the format of your promo texts and where to send them. Most importantly, it saves you the time you’d better spend on writing and replying to your readers’ comments.

That said, what can you include in your promotion checklist?

• First, ensure you sorted the basics for each of the blog posts you intend to promote. These basics include the headline, post description and excerpts, social media profile of the people mentioned in the article, and the shortened URL.
• After, appropriate your promotion channels. So, which should you use? Should you do multiple promotions or do just one?

No one answer fits all. But we can tell you that it’s best to try all the channels possible. And some of such are using the mail addresses of your subscribers, your social media platforms, and niche & popular bookmarking sites.

Overall, keep an open mind. If one channel doesn’t work, tweak and recombine until you see results. Besides, that a blog promotion hack didn’t work the first time doesn’t mean it won’t again. In other words, don’t give up.

And now, you have completed phase 1 of growing your blog. Let’s treat phase 2: enticing your audience to return to your pages.

Need Help Planning Your Content? Check out how to plan a content calendar with Legiit

5 Ways To Sustain Your Blog Growth And Turn Your Audience Into Regulars

Improve Your Blog’s User Experience

Beyond wanting to grow your visitors and writing content your audience loves reading, check the feel of your entire blog. Are the processes as easy as possible? What about the speed? Would you enjoy your site if you were a visitor?

Get answers to the questions, and you will be able to tell at an instant if your blog experience is excellent. If it’s not, you needn’t fret. You only need to simplify the processes.

About simplification, you can start from the elements of your blog. Do you need that much? Are they beneficial in any way?

If you answer no, delete the particular element and appropriate the following tips:

• A page is enough for your about, career, and submission guidelines. And make it as straightforward as possible. That way, your audience can focus on what truly matters: your blog posts.
• Make your navigation menu simple. There is no need to add items that wouldn’t add to the essence of your blog. If at all you must add extra info or links, put them in your footer.
• Like your navigation items, trim your ads and other clusters that might deter your blog growth. Look at the sidebar and footer; it should be neat and appealing. When they are not, then the chances are you probably have a feature that you necessarily don’t need. Remove such clutter!
• If your clustered features keep denting your user experience, revisit the design of your blog. Is it visually appealing? How about functionality? And by the way, who designed your site?

If you used a rookie, that would be a total miss for your blog. In our opinion, you are better off with an expert web designer. Thankfully, we know how and where to get one:

Related: How to Hire a Web designer on Legiit

• While adjusting the look and feel of your blog, ensure that the functionality doesn’t suffer. In particular, watch out for your page speed. How was it? Do your pages load fast?

If you answer no, you’d better change your web host. Page loading times are critical to user experience. And that’s not all; they can affect your bounce rate and ultimately negate your SEO efforts.

Perhaps you can’t afford expensive hosts. In that case, you can engage page speed gurus on Legiit.

Now that your blog is appealing, let’s bring back from the ashes:

Add RSS Subscription, And Make It Easy

First things first, against what you might think or heard, RSS, Rich Site Summary, still rocks. Indeed, it might not be as popular as before, but many readers still use it. So, it’s best to tap into the ashes and extract all the benefits you can get.

The best part: you only need to simplify how readers find your RSS feed URL. Do that, and you can enjoy the benefits of a recognizable system.

Now, you might argue that WordPress and its plugins automatically handle your RSS feed URL. Even at that, it’s good to know it and let your readers know too.

Don’t know your WP RSS Feed?

Just add “/feed” behind your blog URL, and voilà, there it is!

Note: We are not talking down on other syndication tools like Feedly and Netvibes. They are vital aids. Yet, we feel RSS is what most people are used to and easily understand.

That said, let’s talk about your audience!

Bring Your Readers To Your Social Media Platforms

Adding tweaks to your blog feel and using RSS would improve users’ experience. But you wouldn’t have directly forced the hand of your audience. Here is what you need to do:

Encourage your readers to take action. That might be through comments and social shares. But you can do more; you can get your readers to build a community on your social networks. That way, you can leverage them to gain new followers.

Besides, people generally spend time on social platforms. That means your updates won’t come off as a bug. Instead, it will be like another part of their usual schedule.

However, note that social follow buttons can also be a source of distraction. Once readers follow through, they might move away from your page soon and start scrolling through statuses and other trends on their timelines.

In that case, you might want to add your social buttons only at your footer.

Even better, you can combine your social networks with your email promotions by including links of the former within the latter. Or why not create a “special” mail that solicits for social networking? You can make that a kind of autoresponder.

Lastly, you can use your email promotions to encourage your readers to join your social platform without including any link within the mails. How?

Instead of adding links to your mail, you can adopt a confirmation page. Once readers subscribe to your email promotions, take them to the “thank you” or “email confirmed” page. There, you can subtly add buttons to your social networks.

While social networks are great tools, don’t forget to get your audience on your email list too.

Make It Easy For Audience To Join Your Email List

We already talked about the importance of building an email list while guest blogging. It is even more crucial now that you have garnered attention on your blog. And that is because email promotions are the ultimate method and reminder to glue readers to your posts.

However, ensure that the onboarding process is easy and encouraging. Else, no reader would feel obliged to receive your mails, let alone subscribe to them.

That said, how can you simplify an effective email promotion onboarding process for your audience?

• First, give your readers as many opportunities as possible to subscribe to your email. For that purpose, you can add opt-in buttons to your pages. Remember that the goal is to be subtle. So, don’t litter your blog with email opt-in, else you’d come off as a nag.

Pro tip: Get plugins like thrive leads. They can be effective for adding email opt-in to your blog posts.

• Ditch feed delivery services and embrace email providers instead. With one, you can automate how you send mails to your readers.

Even better, email providers allow you to tweak the looks of your mails. Most importantly, they offer analytics on who reads your messages or clicks on your links. With such information, you can test several methods until you’ve reached a desirable outcome.

• People love free things, that’s why discounts always work. But you are a blogger; you might not necessarily be selling a product. So, what can you offer?

Offer to send free checklists, templates, or workbooks. Those options would make excellent click baits to get your readers to subscribe to your email. However, ensure you deliver on your promise – send what you promise.

• Lastly, you can start adopting the sales funnel approach to get more email subscribers. By that, we mean you should create a super-effective landing page with a single goal of encouraging your audience to join your mailing list.

The best part: landing pages are straightforward. They come with no absurd navigation pages or overloaded sidebar; they just convert. In other words, these pages make it easy to onboard your audience – and with incredible odds too.

Pro tip: Once you have a landing page, drive traffic to it with your social media platforms. If you have the money, you can even try ads.

And now to the ultimate goal – the secret recipe to growing your blog:

You Must Connect With Your Audience

Like bloggers, you can also build relationships with your audience. Humans are social beings, and no one likes rigid robotic processes. So, connect with your readers, engage with them, and your blog will grow sustainably.

Perhaps you don’t believe in building relationships. We, Legiit, are direct beneficiaries and proof that it works. Every month, our marketplace reaches new heights because of the engagement we create with our audience.

So, be like Legiit, connect with your audience, and watch how your blog grows incredibly. But how can you engage the lots? Does engagement mean being best friends with each of your blog readers?

No! Check the tips below for help:

• First, you should be available and accessible. If you plan to convert your blog to a cash cow, availability is quintessential. By that, we mean getting your contact in the faces of your audience. More importantly, avoid noreply emails; you’re not a robot.
• Secondly, react to your audience’s reactions. That’s a big chunk of availability, really. Once a reader leaves a comment, be ready to reply. It would be a daunting task, agreed. But it is crucial to building engagement and sustaining your blog growth.
• Lastly, actively involve your readers. Create polls of suggested topic ideas; let them have a say in what they read. Even better, engage some of them to write for you. And you can even do some recognition awards monthly, like the most active reader.

There is no end to engaging your audience. Reach out to your blogger buddies and see what they are doing. Just be creative and intentional – you’d see desirable results.

Verdict

Growing a blog is a time-consuming task, but it’s worth all the stress. Because in the end, when you start seeing the engagement and impact of your posts, your thrills will be on cloud nine.

And on a business level, those engagements can pull in consistent streams of cool cash. When that happens, you need to be even more proactive about your blog. Get helping hands and spread your wings even more.

And know this: whichever plan you have, our experts at Legiit are always on the ground to help.

Cheers!