10 Easy Ways to Get Subscribers to a New Blog (Without Spending a Dime on Ads)
Promoting a blog with paid advertising is one of the biggest ongoing trends in digital marketing today. More and more small businesses and solopreneurs are attempting to grow their new blogs, using paid services like Facebook Ads and Google Ads. While these methods can be excellent for traffic and lead generation, they tend to work best when you're proficient at setting up targeted ads or you've already established a following for your blog. Otherwise, you could quickly spend a small fortune advertising on these platforms with little to show for your time, effort, and hard earned money. In fact, one survey by Small Business Trends showed that 62% of small business owners think Facebook ads are ineffective.
Luckily, there are organic ways to reel in more subscriptions for your new blog without having to empty out your wallet. Let’s take a look at some of them, shall we?
How to Get Subscribers for Your Blog Without Breaking the Bank
1. Know who your audience is.
Figuring out who your audience is will make the content creation and marketing process for your blog a lot more straightforward. You can more readily create content with the right tone and imagery, speaking directly to the interest of the people in your niche or industry. Here are some fundamental questions you should ask yourself when narrowing down your audience:
- What industry is your audience in?
- Which are the demographics of your audience?
- What’s their persona?
> Before attempting to build a list of subscribers, first learn > How to Find Your Blogs Target Audience.
2. Have an SEO strategy.
In a nutshell, search engine optimization or SEO is a term for methods used to increase your “free” or “organic” website traffic. This involves using keywords in content and optimizing your site’s layout, among other things. Essentially, you take steps that will get your web pages to rank high in search engines like Google. More people will see your site and subscribe to you if you’re closer to the first page. However, different businesses have different needs, and you might need SEO services to help you with planning.
3. Create content with care.
Your audience is a driving factor in what you’re writing for your blog. If they don’t find your content useful, they’re not going to take you seriously, much less subscribe. Quality is the key to successful content. You want it to draw your readers further into your blog. Making your format easy to digest, using short, jargon-free sentences, short paragraphs, bullet points, and crisp relevant images will help keep their attention for your entire post.
And don’t forget to sprinkle in your keywords! Your blog posts won’t rank high in the search results if you don’t include keywords in them.
4. Plan a posting schedule.
While the quality of your blog posts are crucial for attracting subscribers, the quantity and timing of your posts are also important factors to consider. Posting too much could annoy your audience. Post too little, however, and you could lose their attention. You'll need to strike the right balance.
Also, research what times your audience is most likely to be online to view your new content and schedule your posts to publish at that time. That way you'll reach more people.
5. Promote on social media.
Some businesses struggle to increase their blog subscriptions but have a much easier time building up a following on social media. If this is the case with your business, use it to your advantage. You can tell your followers, “Hey, why don’t you check my blog out?” or let them know that you’ve posted something new. You can also share your blog posts to groups that you’re in — as long as they’re related to your industry, of course.
> Find out How to Grow Your Blog Using Social Media.
6. Work on your networking.
No man is an island, even in the world of blogging. Seek the help of other bloggers who can help increase your subscriber count by linking back to you on their blog posts. You can do the favor of linking back to them too. Most bloggers link to content at their discretion, but you can take a proactive approach to getting a link by politely asking for it. This method works best if your posts offer a lot of value-rich information for readers. The more high-quality blogs that link to your site, the better your search rankings will be.
7. Start guest posting.
Guest posting is when you write an article and publish it on a website that is more popular than your own. The guest post also has a link leading back to your blog. Implementing this strategy can significantly boost your online presence since you’ll be reaching a wider audience. By contributing something relevant to the site’s community, you gain favor with the readers there, which can earn you more subscriptions.
> Find out How to Get More Traffic with Guest Blogging
8. Give them an incentive.
One surefire way of attracting new followers to your blog is to offer something in return for their subscription. Some common examples include member-only discounts or a free eBook. Whatever you choose, freebies and perks are always tempting for readers.
>Use these 7 Freebies to Get More Blog Subscribers.
9. Use subscription widgets and landing pages.
How are you going to get more subscriptions if readers don’t know where to subscribe? Having a subscription or registration box ready in your blog posts eliminates the need to search for the Subscribe page. You can usually see them at the end of an article with a Call To Action, telling readers to sign up to the site or asking for your email address.
You’ll also want a landing page to pop up when someone visits your website for the first time, not just to your blog posts. Landing pages are used for requesting a visitor’s contact details in exchange for something useful, like a discount on a blog writing service.
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10. Don’t forget your CTA.
But of course, if you want people to hit that subscribe button, you’ll need to say something convincing to them. CTAs or Calls To Action are phrases used in marketing that tell the audience to do something in particular. Examples include downloading an app, scheduling a free consultation, or in your case, subscribing to your blog. No beating around the bush with CTAs — you should be as obvious and straightforward with what you’re offering to the reader.
It can be something like this one right here:
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