How do I get people to my blog? 22 February 2021 at 2:46PM in Boost your income 15 replies 631 views

musicblogger

Music has always been my passion but I accepted years ago that I wasn't going to have the music career I'd always dreamed of. Nobody I know has been a successful musician, but I've known people who do a bit of DJing, designing flyers etc and I thought I should do something constructive in music other than listening to it.

The most obvious thing was to start a blog. I set one up just over 5 years ago. I have 3 weekly features, 2 monthly features and have done various ad-hoc posts over the years. I've done around 800 posts overall. I set up adsense on it to make a bit of pocket money.

The problem is nobody visits it. The total number of views in the 5 years has been around 18,000 and I've not even reached the £50 needed to cash out. I set up a Twitter account to try and boost traffic but only have 43 followers, some of whom are friends who have no interest in the blog.

I'm pretty clueless what I can do to get visitors. I'd like to think that if enough people knew of it's existence then people will go to it. I keep thinking of shutting it down because it all seems pointless if nobody reads it.

Any ideas?

kp734

Post a link and you’ll get at least 1 more visitor!

Do people still read music blogs? I used to read a lot but a most of the best ones died out and a lot of music websites have gone the same way in the last few years. 

Its certainly not the case for me, but I get the impression that most people discover music mainly through the big streaming services these days rather than blogs and websites.

interested in peoples ideas on how to boost traffic. My wife is just about to start a blog for her new flower business.

Browntoa

You cannot post links to your own blogs or website anywhere on the forum

theoretica

Good self promotion in my experience starts with knowing yourself.  What does your blog have that the rest of the internet doesn't?  Who will keep coming back to your blog and why?  What else will they like and where will they hang out on the internet?  Are your tweets interesting enough for people to share them for their own sake?  You could do the same on facebook.

coffeehound

I hear that medium.com is the go-to conduit for blogger traffic

Neil_Jones

There are millions of blogs.  What makes yours different?  Is the question you need to ask yourself.  If the answer is "nothing", then you probably need to find a new angle for the blog.  Just writing on it "Wrong Uttered Charlie has released a new single, You're So Ugly, available now on iTunes" isn't going to attract anybody.

You need a hook to draw people in.  If you don't have one naturally from the subject matter you may have to make or shoehorn one in.  Much like fish don't spontaneously decide to get caught on your fishing hook, you draw them in with bait, and then they get hooked.  Your blog is much the same idea.

moneysavinghero

There are two main possible situations:

First - You enjoy making your music blog, but not many people enjoy it enough to take time out of their day to view it.
Second - You have an amazing music blog, and if people just knew about it would become a must view highlight of their weeks.

Bare in mind that there will be millions of people all over the world that want to do the same thing as you, so competition is high.

Which situation do you think best sums up your blog?

musicblogger

Thanks for the replies.

I would say my blog is unique, for example one of my weekly features is looking at records that peaked at 40 in the Top 40. There's plenty of websites looking at number 1s and even number 2s, but there isn't even a readily available list of number 40s that I can find, I spent a very long time trawling through the chart archives to find them myself.

I'd like to think the lack of numbers is down to lack of awareness, the few people who have commented on it have been positive. I even had a former member of a chart topping band follow me on Twitter after a post I made about said band. You would obviously have to be into music to want to read it, but there's a lot of music lovers out there.

I do enjoy making my blog to a certain extent, that's why I'm still doing it. It does take up a lot of my time though to the point it gets a bit too much sometimes and that's where the lack of numbers gets frustrating. 

Neil_Jones

Well I would argue that if there isn't already a readily available list of number 40s then that implies one of two things:  1) Nobody cares enough to make that list and thus there is no demand for it, or 2) It isn't the most requested feature of your blog, and something else is more popular.  You should have acccess to how popular certain pages are and that may tell you where you need to focus.

Sometimes what is unique doesn't always match with the demand, which may be a surprise to you.  Sometimes a bit of out of the box thinking is required.

theoretica

musicblogger said:

I even had a former member of a chart topping band follow me on Twitter after a post I made about said band.

That is an example of the band member doing publicity well.  Have you followed everyone who has made a positive comment or reaction to your posts?

Stenwold

I'd reach out to some local, unsigned bands. Do a piece about them, even a bit of a Q&A; it'll be in their interest to promote the blog, you might gain a few extra followers that way (plus it's always good to promote local music, anyway!).