An Introduction to Weblogs/Readership
Purpose and target readership
[edit | edit source]It is important to match the design of your blog to its target readership, for example, blogs aimed at teenagers might be expected to be bright and brash, whilst those aimed at corporate users or researchers would be a bit more businesslike and professional looking. There are a number of steps you can take to help attract the kind of reader you are looking for:
1. Focus on a specific topic and set yourself an editorial calendar to stay on topic, e.g.: post on a specific aspect of the topic each day of the week. For example, if your blog is about a local football team, and you post every weekday, you might want to organise your calendar as follows:
- Monday: a review of last weekend’s match.
- Tuesday: focus on a particular player.
- Wednesday: a review of a famous historical match.
- Thursday: review of recent activity in the league.
- Friday: information about the team you'll be playing this weekend
2. Visit and comment on other blogs. This allows you to make your voice known. If you make comments that other people find interesting, they’re more likely to visit your blog.
3. Contribute to blog carnivals. These are blog articles which contains links to other articles on a specific topic. Blog carnivals are usually hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors and help generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area. You can find out more about blog carnivals at: http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/06/blog-carnivals-and-future-of.html
4. Be passionate about your topic. The more enthusiastic you are about the topic, the more likely you are to generate enthusiasm in others.
5. Try some joint ventures. Ask other bloggers who write on similar topics to write an article for your blog and offer to do the same for them. This will hopefully attract some of their readers to your blog and vice versa.