How to grow your online audience

Posted by Adam Franklin

Updated on October 20th, 2019

[Canberra CBD, ACT, Australia]

Today’s Question: How do you grow your readership and audience?

VIDEO – How to grow your online audience

TRANSCRIPT:

Good afternoon. Adam Franklin here, coming to you from Canberra. Today we are going to talk about how to grow your readership and audience — especially if you’re starting a digital marketing from scratch.

The mistake I was making with my online audience

One of the mistakes I made when I was starting out in terms of building my audience and readership for our blog, is that I did all my blogging on my own blog. I was wondering why I wasn’t getting a increase in readers.

What I eventually discovered is that I actually syndicated one of my articles to an authority blog.  That exact same article on my blog got barely any traffic and only a few shares, but when I syndicated that exact same article to an authority blog, it suddenly got way more shares, way more comments, and way more eyeballs. That was quite relieving in one respect because I realised it wasn’t necessarily my bad quality writing, but it was the fact that I wasn’t putting content in a place where there were even eyeballs to start with.

Publish more on other blogs

If you learn from my lesson, what I wish I’d done is published way more content on other people’s blog where there’s an existing audience. When I did discover this, I actually started doing a guest contribution post for StartupSmart, because StartupSmart had an existing audience, and I could then write a regular weekly feature for them, which put my content in front of an existing audience. What that helped me do was drive people back to my website, so it increased traffic.

Increased Profile and Authority

It also increased my profile because I was writing on a recognised authority blog. It also helped me increase my email list, because at the end of each article I would have a call to action to download one of our marketing templates. What that did is it allowed me to build my own email list. In doing so, then when I did gradually build up my own Bluewire blog, or our own Bluewire blog, it meant that I could email people the articles and that helped it build traction.

If I was starting my online audience again…

Looking back, if you’re starting out, and I wish I had done this earlier, but start publishing at least 90% of your content on external blogs for people that have an existing audience. This is going to help put you in front of new audiences and get their attention. In doing so, most of the time you can actually be taking that article that you wrote for another company, for another blog.  Then one or two weeks later actually put that on your own blog with a backlink attributing that it was originally published there.

If you do that, what you’re going to do is have content for your own blog. But more importantly, you’re going to have your content out there in front of other people, helping you build your readership and your audience and increasing your email list.

Grow your online audience on authority blogs

Folks, that is my tip to grow your audience and readership quickly, especially if you’re starting from scratch. Look for a high authority blog with lots of readers and get a guest contribution spot on there. Ideally, if you do get traffic, stick to the ones that work, like test out a couple. For me, StartupSmart worked really well and so I continued writing for them and did a regular weekly spot for many, many years.

All right, if you’re interested in marketing templates or anything else, let us know. Just type yes in the comments, or leave me a question which I’m going to answer on a future Facebook Live.

Doing workshops

If you’re watching this and it’s before Thursday, October the 5th, and you can make it to Brisbane, I’m running my One Day Doing workshop. I think there’s only about four or five tickets left. If you’re interested in a day where we roll up the sleeves and get stuff done. We will write landing pages, uncover flagship content (or lead magnets), and we’ll write email marketing sequences. If that appeals and you’re in Brisbane, the tickets are available.

That’s a wrap

Thanks for joining me. If you’ve got friends in marketing who want to grow an audience, or readership, share this with them.

All right, folks, I’ll catch you on the next Facebook Live. See you.

MY MARKETING METHODOLOGY

PS. When you're ready, here are 6 ways we help consultants & advisors grow:

1. Web Strategy Planning Template (PDF). Our flagship 1-page tool we co-created with David Meerman Scott. It’s been downloaded over 1 million times and featured on Forbes.

2. Read a free chapter from our book. Web Marketing That Works --- an Amazon #1 best seller.

3. Join the private group on Facebook. Access free training resources, and hang out with 2,300+ peers.

4. Discover your marketing score. Take the 40 point Marketing Scorecard (in < 6mins) and get a customised report.

5. DIY for $7. Get the Complete 50+ Script Library for connecting with people to winning clients.

• About the Author
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About Adam Franklin

Adam Franklin is the bestselling author of Web Marketing That Works. He is an international social media speaker and CEO of Bluewire Media.  His blog was Australia's #1 Business Blog and his podcast was #9 on the top marketing podcasts in Entrepreneur magazine. His work has featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Huffington Post and iTunes. Download the popular Web Strategy Planning Template which has been used by hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. His weekly 'Bluewire News' email goes out to over 32,000 readers.

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