Nine Creative Ways to Attract New Subscribers to Your Tree (er, Blog)

Picture yourself in the woods, expertly chopping down a huge tree until it falls—but there’s no one else around to hear it. No one else to say, “Hey! You’re really good at that! Can you chop down my tree, too?”

Now picture yourself blogging, posting regular articles full of valuable insights into your field—but there’s no one else reading them. Are you starting to get the picture?

Blogging is time-consuming, hard work, potentially costly, and like it or not, one of the very best ways to build your business. The upside is very, very up. Every time you post a new blog article, it’s an additional indexed page on your website, which means it’s one more opportunity for your company to show up organically in search engines and drive traffic to your website.

And the best blog posts do not disappear overnight, as you may think. Earlier this year HubSpot reported that 76 percent of its monthly blog views came from “old” posts (meaning posts published prior to that month). Once you create a body of content for your business, it will continue to work for you and promote your company even when it’s been up for a while.

But not only do you need to worry about posting content, you have to ensure that you’re regularly attracting new visitors to actually grow and scale your audience. There are three critical factors to establishing your blog: how you’re going to get new visitors to discover it; how you’re going to convert those visitors into subscribers; and how you can get those subscribers to share your content and attract new audiences.

[sc name=”book cta for HS” imageid=”26985″ ctatitle=’SIMPLE WAYS TO CAPTURE & CONVERT‘ copy=”Download our handbook on the most effective methods. High-Performance Lead Generation for Modern Marketers, compiles the best performing practices to reel in more quality leads.” url=”leadgen-guide-modern-marketers” button=”GET IT NOW” ]

Not sure where to start? This here blog post is about to make your life very simple.

Here are nine sure-fire ways to increase your blog’s subscriber base:

• Optimize your content to generate more traffic to your website. If no one is visiting your site where the subscriber sign-up form is, then you’re missing a huge opportunity to gain subscribers (the whole tree-falling-in-the-woods thing). Iron-clad search engine optimization will lead to delighted client testimonials, like this one Simply180 recently received:“I had a sunglass/watch manufacturer’s rep call me yesterday from Michigan looking for some retail display fixtures for the cruise industry. He said he found us with keywords “retail construction Miami” and we came up first! So great job keeping us up front and center!”
• Include shareable images and a catchy headline. Don’t take this personally, but most people only look at the pictures and read the headline when deciding whether or not to share an article on their social media. So have fun with it, and draw them in up front with eye-catching callouts and visuals. This Simply180 blog post for Cornerstone Recovery Center (not so fun, perhaps, but still) went viral on Facebook because of the headline and timeliness: 
• Share your blog’s content on social media to promote to your fans and followers. Encourage them to comment on or share your content by using copy or images from the blog post adapted to create a stir on Facebook or Pinterest. People are interested in shared content from friends.
• Add smart subscribe CTAs to your website. These CTAs will only show up for users who are not already subscribed to your blog. (Not all platforms offer this feature, but we’d recommend using one that does. People don’t like to be bothered to do something they’ve already done, and they’ll be tuning in for your fabulous posts quite often.) Install smart subscribe CTAs on your blog posts—especially your top-performing posts that are generating the most organic traffic—as well as your home page, and your “About” page, which, research shows, is often the most-visited page.
• Create a course or webinar. These modules give you a chance to introduce how valuable your services can be. Educating people establishes you as an expert, and if they find the information useful, they’ll become loyal followers of your blog.
• Create an appealing pop-up that broadcasts your brand personality to encourage people to subscribe to your blog or newsletter. Amuse, inspire, engage. Here’s an example from Simply180’s own website:
• Create a new landing page for social media and email visitors whose sole purpose is to advertise a can’t-live-without offer upon subscription. A dedicated landing page issimpler and more direct than hoping visitors sign up on your blog or another page on your site that has potential distractions. The “extra” should have genuine value and address a pain point for your audience (whitepaper, ebook, How to Chop Wood Like a Rockstar, etc.) Simply180 created an ebook for a local podiatry group about a debilitating condition of the extremities called neuropathy. People went to a landing page where they could sign up to receive the ebook and other helpful information.
• Look for guest-blogging opportunities on other sites with strong followings, and include a CTA to subscribe to your blog in the byline. Subscribers to a blog are already sold on it; therefore its tacit endorsement of your content means they’re more likely to sign up for your blog as well. It’s a great way to reach a whole new audience. Invite that company to guest blog for you, and let their followers know about it! Simply180’s client, a general contractor, contributed a blog post to the website for Fieldlens, a construction management tool; in other words, a related business with a potentially new subscriber base.
• Boost your content. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of social media, but boosting a post on Facebook or promoting a pin on Pinterest guarantees you a number of eyeballs. However, those eyeballs will only translate into subscribers if your content is interesting and provides value to the reader. It doesn’t have to be expensive. This Pinterest pin designed by Simply180 for a home design center received more than 3,000 impressions with a 2% effective engagement rate – and a budget of less than $50!

Chopping wood is hard. So is blogging.

Don’t go to the effort and expense unless your SEO is primed to expand and keep expanding your subscriber base. Ready to learn how? Call Simply180, not only can we help you put together a comprehensive content marketing plan but can help implement the plan. We have a team of strategists, SEO specialists, copywriters, and designers ready to help you propel revenue growth.