Growing a Personal Blog in Your Spare Time

Growing a blog isn’t as difficult as many people make it out to be. Sure, you probably won’t get thousands of viewers within your first few weeks unless you pour loads of money into it or you’re affiliated with another popular blogger or website, but there are plenty of simple ways to grow a personal blog in your spare time without any stress at all.

It’s rather simple; growing a blog is much like creating a business. There are things you need to consider, such as your audience or your reason for writing, before you’re able to get a solid audience. You also need to get involved with social media, so it does take awhile to start up but after you’ve put your foot in the door, it doesn’t take much to step inside the world of prestigious bloggers. If you’ve ever wanted to grow your personal blog or you’re just getting started, here are a few pointers that will help you improve your chances of success.

Forget the money… for now. No one wants to visit a new blog and be barraged by dozens of advertisements. Despite what you might think, blogging isn’t the money-generating machine that everyone thinks it is. The truth is, making money with a blog is difficult and you’re more likely to be spending money on growing it than actually making money from it. At least, that’s what it’s like at the beginning. Much like a business, you need to invest money into a blog in order for it to grow to a size that is actually capable of making money. In other words, you invest to grow your business and all the profits you make should be put back into your blog for the sake of growing it.

For instance, if you are reviewing video games then you can try to ask publishers for copies of the latest games to review, but ultimately you’re a nobody when it comes to the video game industry and you’re not likely to get many replies. So you need to invest money into buying new video game consoles and games in order to review and write about them. Once you get some traction and you make a bit of money from your advertisements or affiliate links, you need to continuously reinvest that money to buy new games in order to have a consistent stream of content for your viewers.

Consistency is key. No one likes a blog that is updated with basic and boring content every couple of days. You need to have a passion for writing if you want to grow a blog and you need to consistently put out content that is actually fun to read and interesting. If you keep making lists of your favorite games or the best games, then it’s not exactly interesting content for your viewers and they’re more likely to unsubscribe from your blog instead of actually reading your content. Let’s face it, if you put out bad content then no one is going to read it. You need to have a constant supply of ideas and information, so get out a notepad and write down all of your thoughts and plans and find ways to turn them into interesting content.

One of the best ways to put out consistent content is to plan ahead. At the start (or end) of each week, make a plan for the entire week and keep yourself to a schedule. Let’s say you are reviewing tech products. Keep a schedule of the latest releases and when you’re expected to receive a new product so that you can plan your content for when new things come out. If the new iPhone is coming out the next week, then reserve some time to get accustomed to it and plan out your “first impressions” style blog post for people to read, then in a couple of days or weeks time, plan a follow-up so that you can inform your readers about your experiences with the phone after some use.

Exposure is important. If you aren’t involved with communities that are relevant to your blogging material, then you’re not going to reach a very wide audience. You need to get involved in forums, discussions and social media if you want to advertise your blog and have people share your content. Another great way of advertising your blog is to look at a paid search service. As mentioned before, you need to invest money into something if you want to see it flourish and make money, so consider paying for advertisements.

Another great way of getting exposure is to connect with other bloggers that are writing similar material to you. It’s important not to think of them as competitors but friends. If you offer to write guest posts for other friendly bloggers, you’ll also get people wanting to write guest posts for you. It gives your readers lots of material to read and you’ll attract each other’s audiences, further improving your exposure and creating a large network of readers.

Focus on what you love. You need to be extremely passionate toward what you’re blogging about. If you haven’t picked a subject yet but you’re set on the idea of becoming a blogger, then make sure your subject material is something you are knowledgeable about, or it’s something that you want to learn and become proficient at. For instance, you could be an absolute beginner at playing the piano, but creating a blog that showcases your progress and writing about it makes for interesting content that will connect with readers who are also learning the piano. It’s a fun idea, it talks about something you love and it’s something that will give you plenty of ideas to write about.

Growing a blog in your spare time doesn’t take much effort at all. What’s important is that you actually focus on what you want to write, how to advertise and expose your blog, and generally how to spend your time efficiently. As long as you write quality content that you are passionate about and look for ways to increase your exposure, you’ll be able to grow your blog with little to no trouble at all. It’s a time-consuming process, but that’s just the nature of blogging.