4 Easy Steps to Spice Up Your Blog Life
When you first started your blog chances are everything was exciting, fresh and new. Comments on your page gave you butterflies and re-tweets had you swooning. But as time has progressed daily routines paired with outside distractions may have turned your once steamy blog life, stale. Below are 4 quick and easy steps that will shake the spice back into your pages.
Invite a Guest Blogger to Join You
Keeping a monogamous relationship between just you and your readers can cause things to become a little, well, underwhelming. Turn up the heat by opening your blog up to guest contributors. In addition to refreshing your readers by providing them a twist in perspective and voice, you also have granted the opportunity for your blog to be exposed to an entirely new audience, creating a win-win relationship between you and your guest blogger.
Afford yourself this opportunity by announcing (via twitter, maybe) that you are accepting guest post submissions. You could even try reaching out to a blogger that you admire. Word to the wise: save yourself some headaches and in addition to this announcement, establish some guest post guidelines before you commit.
Establish rules for guest bloggers, highlighting:
- What you deem are appropriate topics
- Your desired audience
- Preferred word count
- Feelings toward external links
- Your position as editor-in-chief
- What else they’ll need to include with their draft (pictures, author bio, etc.)
Role Play
Taking on your niche from a different perspective is an easy way to freshen things up. One way to do this is to feature interviews on your blog site, highlighting the different roles within your field. For example, if you run a small business blog interviews could be conducted from the viewpoints of the CEO, the social media expert, the intern, the client, etc.
By sharing different roles, readers will be able to get cross insights into the individual people that make up a collective effort. Engaging in these types of posts will likely increase communication and comments from people on the other side of the fence.
Related: 5 Free & Legal Ways To Get Pictures For Your Blog
Start a New Routine
Not all routines are a bad thing. Brand your blog by establishing a special series within your weekly posts. In keeping with the example that you run a small business blog, start sharing business success stories every Friday, or spotlight companies that give back to their local community every Monday. The material will always be fresh but by branding some of your posts you can increase reader loyalty and their desire to routinely keep coming back for more.
Your audience’s most popular questions and comments are a great way to figure out what they want more of. When embarking on a special series, announce it to your readers in hopes to stir up discussion and input. Keep them updated and most importantly be consistent. If you plan on strategically featuring something special, commit to always deliver.
Build Anticipation and Be Adventurous
Take your blog for a walk on the wild side by hosting a contest. A contest is a great way to generate interaction on your site while rewarding your devoted readers.
3 quick tips for a successful contest:
- Offer an alluring prize. Can’t afford one? Offer your services. Better yet, try to get a giveaway prize donated to you by a sponsor in exchange for the advertizing.
- Keep your rules simple and straightforward. From entry guidelines to how the winner will be determined, participants will want to know the who, what, where and when.
- Keep the contest alive with updates on its progress and be sure to wrap things up by announcing the winner!
Before implementing a contest on your site, first have a conversation with yourself determining the goals and desired outcome. You can ask yourself the “five whys” before continuing. You’ll also want to be sure have a promotional plan and a timeline in place. This will allow you to keep up with the rest of your life while also retaining your reader’s interest in the contest.
What other ways can you keep your blog alive? Let us know in the comment section below!
