Blogging is a cool way to make a community. Community means a group of people who live at a particular place and work together. Each member of community pushes the work of other members by small contribution in a community. To make a community in your blog every blogger should associate themselves with a reader. Without talking to readers no one really knows what reader wants in real.
From my past experience of blogging, I have pointed out some cool ways to associate our self with readers. Here I am sharing those points with you:
1. Write something personal
People love personal post, if you write something about your goals, your achievement, how much money you made online then people get attracted towards your articles. I wrote an article Blogtechnika Completed 1000 Comments-Achievements And Goals. This article got tremendous response. Most of the people want to know how this blog is going and what the goals of this blog are.
2. Write Something Controversial
People love to give their suggestions on controversial post. Write something which creates wave among other; try to choose a topic on which everyone associates themselves. I wrote an article 20 Most Popular Technical and Professional Bloggers of India. This article got a spectacular response by readers. The reason behind this is everyone wants to know the name attached with this list. And this post has some controversies also because there are few names absent who deserves this list.
3. Reply all the comments
I think this is the best way to communicate with the readers. Try to answer all the questions of the curious readers. Don’t underestimate any comment. Every comment adds value to the post. Try to express your emotions by replying the comment. Your each reply is valuable to readers.
4. Send an IM chat request
This is a technique I use to talk directly to my loyal readers. Whenever anyone leaves comment, I trace the email ID and send a chat request to that person. Most of the readers accept my request. I speak to them on Gtalk and try to know their views about my work and my blog. Most of the readers tell my weakness and strength to me.
Note: It is not possible to connect with every reader. Select some efficient readers and make an approach to connect with them.
5. Analyze trackbacks
Do you get trackbacks on your blog post? If your answer is yes then definitely you write a good content and people read your blog and never forget to give a back link at your post. Track those readers and try to ask them question about your work.
6. Try Polls on Blogs
This is a method I have never used on my blog but I am going to start a poll on my blog soon. I saw some great blogs like Problogger and Dailyblogtips. They ask questions from their readers and readers love to answer those questions. Use WP-Polls WordPress plugin to organize a poll on your blog or you can ask question in a single blog post also.
7. Use popular post plugin
Popular post WordPress plugin allows you to add a new widget to your sidebar displaying the most popular articles on your blog. This plugin is helpful to show the most recognized articles on your blog. Here is a little description about the plugin
Popularity Contest keeps a count of your post, category and archive views, comments, trackbacks, etc. and uses them to determine which of your posts are most popular. There are numerical values assigned to each type of view and feedback; these are used to create a ‘popularity score’ for each post.
The values assigned to each view and feedback type are editable and can be changed at any time. When you change any of these values, the ‘popularity score’ for all posts are updated immediately to reflect the new values.
