Building Deeper Relationships with Readers

Welcome to the ProBlogger podcast, episode 5 and day 5 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is a simple one. It won’t take you long, but it has the potential to bring a lot of life to your blog, particularly if you build it into your daily blogging workflow. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/5.

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Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger and welcome to day 5 in 31 Days to Build a Better Blog where we’re going through 31 different activities that you can do to improve your blog. I’m giving you a little bit of teaching and then a challenge to go and do every day over this month.

Today’s task is probably one of the most simple things that you can do. In fact, it’s so simple that many people don’t do it because, well, it’s just a small action and what impact could it have? But I’m here today to tell you that this is one of the things that I did in the early days of my own blog that still has an impact today, 12 years later.

The challenge today is to email one of your readers. That’s it. Just shoot an email to one of your readers. It’s all about building community on your blog. Making an impression on a single reader by giving them some personal attention. It’s an exercise in building community on a micro level. You’re just reaching out to one person today.

This might sound a little bit too small. One reader, I want a thousand readers. We all want a thousand readers, but when you’re just starting out and even once you’ve been going for a while, those thousand readers are just single readers, a thousand of them. If you can build a deeper relationship with just a few of those, it can have a lasting impact.

In the early days of my blogs—my first blog, my first personal blog—any time anyone left a comment, I would do three things. Firstly, I would respond to that comment on my blog, really important. This is good because it shows that person, if they ever come back again, that you’ve responded, that you’re interested in but it also shows other people who might be reading your blog that you respond to comments too. Even though they might not come in, they are impressed by that. That has an impact. It also increases the comment count by another one as well. Instead of one comment, you’ve got two. Even though one of them’s yours.

The second thing I do is just email the person because they’ve left you their email address to leave that comment, just thanking them for reading, thanking them for commenting, and letting them know that I’d responded to their comment. I just give a simple link back to the post so they could go back and see the comment that I left. That gets them back to the site again, if possible, in that email.

The third thing I would do is just to make it a little bit personal. Reference something good that they said, just to show that your email to them isn’t an automated thing. It’s actually you. Sometimes, people are a bit suspicious of that. What I found is that by doing this simple thing and it used to just type me two or three minutes. If that, it had an impact.

What I found is that people were exponentially more likely to come back again and start engaging in a more enthusiastic manner on my blog. In fact, I know for a fact today that there are at least three or four people on ProBlogger as readers who read ProBlogger because I emailed them 10 or so years ago. I still get emails back from people saying, “Wow. I’ve left comments everywhere and no one’s ever emailed me before. Thanks.” Then, you just see them popping up in comments more and more often. This one by one paying attention to readers has a lasting impact.

Here’s the cool thing. If you get someone coming back as a loyal reader to your blog, perhaps it on a weekly basis, that’s 52 extra page views a year. Over 10 years, that’s 500. If you do this every day, 300 times a year, that’s potentially thousands of extra page views on your blog in a few years’ time. It actually does have an impact.

The other thing about it is that these people who you’re making an impression on, each have their own networks. Some of these readers who I know come back today. I know for a fact that there are others with them. They have blogs, they have social media accounts, and they regularly suggest my blog to their readers and to their networks. It has an impact. Maybe not overnight, but over time it has a massive impact.

There are also a few ways that you can extend this idea. If you’ve got an extra two or three minutes, instead of just emailing them, have a look and see if they also leave a link. Many of the people who are commenting on your blog probably have their own blogs. Click the link, go and visit their blog, and leave a comment on a post that they’ve written. That too makes an impression.

If they’re on social media, follow them. Build that relationship. You might just make a friend, you might just make an ally, another blogger in your industry, and you can grow together. You can also take this even further. If you’re on their blog, actually share some of their content on your social media accounts. Help them to achieve their goals and they’re much more likely to help you achieve yours.

If the person said something insightful in the comment on your blog, maybe ask them if he can use it in a future post as a quote, or ask them if they’d be interested in guest posting on your blog. You’ll never know unless you ask. 

These simple actions can have a profound impact, particularly if you do them regularly with lots of readers. A key with this particular exercise for them today is not just to do it once but to do it on a regular basis. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. It just takes a moment to do but it can create a loyal long-time reader for your blog. Do it at least once a day or set yourself a higher target and you’ll build your blog consistently, consistently over time. It might sound like a really small thing, but it has a big impact. 

Lastly, if you don’t have any comments yet on your blog, and I know many people are just starting out and perhaps haven’t had their first comment, that’s fine. Today, I challenge you to go and leave some comments on other people’s blogs. Don’t spam them, be useful, be genuine, interact with people, and you might just find that they come and check out your blog, too.

The show notes for today’s episode are at problogger.com/podcast/5 and you’ll see some links there mentioned in today’s show and also have the opportunity to let us know how you found the exercise. I’d love to hear how you found it. Did you get a response from a reader? What impact do you think it has? We’ll be doing this on a daily basis or building it into your workflow. Please let us know how you find the episode and any results that you get.

Also, I’d love to get your reviews and comments on this show in iTunes, if you could submit a review that would help to get the word out about what we’re doing. Lastly, a huge thank you to 99designs who are sponsoring today’s show. They’ve been sponsoring the episodes in this series so far. They’re a service that I’ve used numerous times over the years to create great graphics for my blogs and other projects.

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If you need something designed, whether it be a T-shirt, a logo, or a business card, head to 99designs.com/problogger and you’ll get a free $99 upgrade to use on your first design. Check them out today and I’ll see you tomorrow on day 6 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Thanks for listening.