Launching a new blog in never easy, but with a lot of work and a few tips, you can quickly get positive results. One year ago, I launched WpRecipes.com, a blog about WordPress which managed to get recognition from the community in a short amount of time.
In this article, you’ll learn in details what I did to get 1000+ RSS readers in less than two months, and more than 6000 in a year.
All starts with a good idea
When I launched WpRecipes, I thought it was a good idea, but I didn’t expected that so much people will think the same. Even on the first days, I received many emails from readers telling me they really enjoyed the idea and the concept of “small, precise and concise recipes”.At the time, there already was lots of blogs about WordPress, some of them being really good and interesting. I innovate because WpRecipes focused only on providing hacks and code snippets. Nothing more, nothing less. It was unique, and filling a gap was definitely something which helped me to get quick recognition.
Visual identity
When I was thinking about WpRecipes design, it was obvious than I had to create a cat mascot, just like I did on Cats Who Code.
As most of you already know, a drawing of my cat is my mascot. Creating a branding and a relation between the new WpRecipes and the already existing blog Cats Who Code helped me to get Cats Who Code readers subscribe to WpRecipes feed too.
Friends and connections with other bloggers
A the time when I launched WpRecipes, I was a frequent guest author on the popular WordPress-related blog WpHacks. So, I wrote a short post to introduce WpRecipes to WpHacks readers. My feedburner counter increased 150% in 3 days, providing a loyal and qualified readership. Having the opportunity to promote my own blog on an established blog was definitely a very good thing in the quest of readers.
Blogger friends are very important, because they can help you and you help them back.
Reviews
Following the publishing of my post on WpHacks, some important blogs as such as Weblog Tools Collection, WpCandy, Web Designer Wall and Vandelay Design talked about WpRecipes. Sure, spreading the word around is very good to gain popularity and bring new readers to your blog.
Guest Blogging
The last thing that helped me to introduce my new blog to a lot of potential readers was definitely guest blogging for the super popular blog Smashing Magazine. So, I asked Smashing Magazine if I should write a guest post for them. They accepted, and two weeks later, they published the first post I wrote for them, entitled “10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPress“. This post wasn’t an announcement about WpRecipes, but I cited my blog as a source for some hacks, and added a small “About me” paragraph at the end of the article.
Here’s the story of WpRecipes launching and promotion. And you, what about your blog? How did you promoted it?
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The advices from this post are really good, but the problem is that you have to already be an established blogger to do so. For example, how can an absolute beginner can publish stuff on blogs as such as Smashing Magazine?
@Pedro : You’re right, it may be difficult for a 100% novice to approach a big blog like Smashing Magazine. But you can apply the same technique to a smaller blog.
In a near future I’ll write a post about guest blogging and how to bring traffic to your own blog using writing for others. So, stay tuned and get our rss feed so you’ll not miss the post!
Interesting =) I wish I had more knowledges of blogging so I can open my own blog!
I’ve two other issues on my specific case:
A blog that has quite no other potential-partners cannot rely on them, because they doesn’t exists. Or, the few that exists, see the a blog like mine as a “competitor” and not as a partner.
Therefore, I should try to gather users on my own (either users or RSS subscribers).
There are other options. I’ve tried, for instance, with a Fan Page on Facebook and now I have 1.100+ users there… but not on my blog: when a post is published, users comment on Facebook Page and not on the blog
Twitter: the few blog’s users that also uses Twitter, are there and no one else.
The bottom line (Facebook is another story, after all) is that, unless you have a blog that talks about IT-related stuffs or about a world-wide topic (mine is a “regional” blog), is quite hard to “use” other similar blogs or the word of “mouth”.
@Andrea : Thanks for the interesting comment. I do not have any “regional” blog, but I own a blog in French language about visiting New York City. That’s quite similar to your case: I can’t use my other blogs to promote it due to the very different content.
But small, “niche” oriented blog can also be a real bargain. I’ll talk about them soon here on cats Who Blog, so don’t hesitate to grab our RSS feed if you’d like!
JBJ,
These are some great tips, but I think you forgot to add the #1 ingredient for success and that is all the hard work you’ve put into creating a terrific product!
@Kyle Eslick : Thanks for stopping by! Sure, the hard work is the most essential ingredient to success. Being a blogger means that you have to be ready to work a lot to realize your dreams!
First off, congrats. I remember that article I wrote on WLTC
But for Pedro, the thing about WPRecipes was that it was a unique and cool idea. Instead of big long tutorials, it was short, concise, and the whole recipe thing was a natural fit. Although the site just started, no doubt established sites within the niche which took notice and link to WPRecipes help him out. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to get the momentum flowing your way.
@Jeffro : Thanks you for the compliments! It’s cool to see you on here and I’m glad you’re enjoying WpRecipes
you might want to fix that link to wprecipes.com to start with http instead of htpp
@Mihai Secasiu : Thanks
@Pedro – I hear you man! You are absolutely correct… Jean had an angle…
BUT…
He created it for himself, over years of hard work!
It takes a certain amount of experience to create yourself an “angle.” You’ll get there. I’ll be right behind you.
wprecipes is a stroke of genius, to be sure.
@Dave Doolin : Thanks for the compliment about WpRecipes! I’m really glad to read such things about my work.
And yes, I started from zero. This require lots of time, efforts and hard work, but ANYONE who is motivated can succeed
Great stuff here. I definitely want to continue growing my RSS readers and work on gaining more followers at my site. These are all great tips and I appreciate your taking the time to put this together. Thanks.
Hi Nicholas, and glad to see you on here! I was just browsing your blog earlier today, and enjoyed it
I am pretty sure you’ll grow your RSS subscribers base quickly!
Networking with other bloggers and writing guest post are the proven ways to make your presence online and to get more followers or subscribers for you.
A good online brand and quality posts are worth far more than the cynical made for adsense splogs that are springing up.
I would suggest a call to action at the bottom of each blog posts… keep up with us by subscribing to our RSS feed. This exponentially increased subscribers on one of my blogs.