Review
Over time, if you have followed the suggestions listed above, you will gain readers. I guarantee it. How many readers vary depending on the choice of topics (let’s face it: soccer is more popular than the philosophy) and how well you express yourself. But it may very well have a reasonable readership.
But do not kid yourself. After a year or so you can have dozens, perhaps hundreds, of readers.
That may not seem like much. But keep in mind, these are people reading what they write every day. And more importantly, these are people who know what you have written and pass it to their readers.
To put this into perspective: I have (about) five thousand readers (this is after being on the net for over ten years, blogs and more than seven years). But any article I write (maybe even this one!) Can reach an audience of hundreds of thousands of readers – some of my works have reached a wide audience.
How? Well, simply having a network of even a few hundred readers is enough to get your content to spread in the blogosphere as a whole. Because people link, and those who pass along the links, and so on.
The size of your readers is not the size of their audience. Its footprint reaches far beyond the people who check in on it every day or every few days.
As you progress in your blog, your readers will pull you along. When I started, a couple of hundred people signed up immediately when I started my blog. It is hard to write every day. But it is amazing how much easier it is to get motivated when you have many more readers.
Listen to your readers. Respect your readers. If you send email, reply (even if it takes 46 days, as it did for me a reader in New Zealand recently – I really feel about it). If they make comments on your blog, read their comments, and where appropriate, respond to them. Always thank them – they are giving something.
Listen to their suggestions. When a significant number of readers maple brown said it’s a bad color, the plan to change it. If they complain that the font is too small, which is larger. Not reactive to change things – wait at least more than one complaint, because there is always someone who will complain. Plan changes before implementing them. If you use a new software, make sure it works before you implement it (I learned this first hand).
That said – do not lose sight of who you are and why you’re writing. Stay true to your purpose. You are not a trade publication, you need to fall in order to gain a wide audience. There is no reward to be the simple life of the blogs.
And if he ever stops being fun, quit. Life is too short to do things you do not like to do.
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