4 Tips to Grow your Blog Building Strong Relationships (Part 1)

Learn how you can grow your blog at a deeper level by building meaningful and strong relationships with these simple and daily life tips.

Maybe not many of you know that I got into the blogging world by accident LOL. I shared my experience in a blog post “My Experience Blogging So Far” over at the sister site The Crafting Nook.

It’s been hard but at the same time, it’s been worth it every second of this journey. That’s why I thought I would write this post and share with you a few tips so you can grow your blog or any online business based on my own experiences.

4 Tips to Grow your Blog Building Strong Relationships

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Building Solid Relationships Helps you Grow Your Blog

I’m not posting this as an expert in the field {I’m not even close} but I do want to share with you all the things I’ve done intuitively or that I have learned that have worked for me on my way making connections, friends or any kind of relationships.

It’s well known that to grow your blog and have a successful blogging business (or any online business) you need to rank high on Google or any search engine but that’s not the only way. I’m a true believer in the power of relationships.

I’m not saying you don’t need SEO and all that tech stuff, you definitely do. What I’m saying is that besides all that, you also need to create a niche, a community of loyal people on your corner. For that, you need to build strong relationships.

I’m going to start explaining why I call it relationships.

You might think that some of us never get to actually meet fellow bloggers so where is the “relationship” here? Right?

Well, I had the luck to have met Adrienne Smith from AdrienneSmith.net (sadly she closed her website) when I was just starting this business. She is a very special person and I learned so much with her. She taught me that we all are more than just blogs, we are still people behind blogs or websites.

We have names and faces and the blogs are just our offices. To me, that made so much sense because I really felt and still feel like I’m talking to people and not just blogs or just readers.

But most importantly, she made me understand that we can’t do it all by ourselves and alone, we need a community, friends, and partners. We need to support others and have support from other bloggers in our niche to make it work, just like in real life.

We might not blog for bloggers and our target might be regular people but we still need to create strong relationships with other like-minded bloggers to grow and improve our businesses.

How can we make relationships that last and matter in the online world?

It is not that difficult you know?

It’s just about understanding that we are people and we are connecting with people.

So le’s connect.

Always remember this:

“People connect with people”

There are two key factors for this and they are caring and being yourself.

Yes, that’s right, caring.

Caring genuinely about others, their lives, their feelings, their businesses, caring about what they have to say or share…

Just caring.

That simple!

How do we show that we care?

How do you build strong relationships to grow your blog?

1. Not pretending.

We don’t need to pretend we care or that we are something we are not. At some point, this veil falls and we lose all our work and credibility.

Being trustful and genuine is the best way to gain people’s and other blogger’s attention. In our Blogland, readers are looking for inspiration, for tips that can make life easier, for other bloggers that share the same situations and experiences. And most important they are looking for people to trust and that really care about what they have to share.

As silly as it seems, feelings can actually run through our bandwidth and get to our reader’s hearts. When you are genuine, people can tell what you are feeling.

2. Being Persistent.

Blogging can be frustrating many times. We feel like our comments never get replies, that people don’t care. Even that we are wasting our time.

The thing is that this is just like friendships; usually, we have to work on getting attention, gaining trust and a place in people’s hearts.

This is like a huge party and there are thousands of people trying to reach the same thing: The attention. The attention of normal readers and other big bloggers. And it’s not wrong it’s just more difficult and it requires persistence.

What I’ve learned is that you can make many awesome friends looking for other blogs about the same size and age of ours. Since we share the same experiences and expectations and we can help each other.

It doesn’t mean it’s easier, we still need to be persistent, Just a “Hi I’m here and love your blog” is not enough to make good friends. Bloggy friends are no different from real-life friends.

We need to be there day by day, help and ask for help when needed, share, invite, introduce to others. I don’t mean like every day, every minute. But every now and then give some love and let them feel you are there.

When you find a blog/blogger that you love, either big or small the persistence is what will get you the friendship you want and will bring them to your blogs. This might inspire them to connect and even to share our content and therefore grow your blog.

That sometimes takes a lot of time and patience. In my case, I’ve made quite good relationships with big and small bloggers.

I’ve been loyal and caring unconditionally and when I get a notification that any of them started following me back or visited me and left a comment, OMG it’s so exciting that I even make my happy dance! LOL.

Of course, this doesn’t end here, we need to keep the friendship alive. That’s even more hard work but that will bring great rewards in the long run.

I can assure you that!

3. Commenting.

You all have heard this advice before right?.

This is one of the hardest parts of blogging. Being a good commenter is not easy but it’s the most important aspect to start relationships. We should comment a lot. But we should also ALWAYS RESPOND TO COMMENTS!

As commenters, being a returning visitor that leaves valuable comments is the key. Valuable doesn’t mean loooooooong comments. It means showing your opinion, feedback, and love for that specific content.

I love commenting but let’s face it, sometimes we just don’t have the time to give great long comments to every blog post we love. But here’s the thing:

Sometimes leaving a quick note so I let them know I was there reading and loved their content is all you need. But hey! Never leave just a “thanks for sharing this” comment or “great to know”.

At the very least, I like to relate to something about the post. Something that reveals that you actually read the post. Sometimes it sounds repetitive but if it’s a specific craft and I haven’t done it or seen it and I love it I just say it, sometimes there is not much more to say but my “I LOOOOOVE it” + whatever I loved the most is genuine.

I know in our DIY niche it can be difficult because if the post is just a craft or recipe can be hard not to say “Yummmy, delicious, I want to try this” when you haven’t heard of it or it’s a new kind. And it’s ok, at least people were interested enough to stop by and let us know they were here.

The thing is that sometimes we share something else, something deeper on the post or about the recipe or the craft and there we have something to make the comment richer and sweeter.

It’s important to add some value to our comments, show them we read and care and put the extra effort in to let the blogger know that we read and love their blogs as well. This is not easy but at least I always TRY.

The most important thing is not leaving a comment just for the sake of commenting, if we are not related to the post or just don’t agree or like, it’s better to just leave. But if we do then let’s give them something that will put a smile on their faces.

Of course, when WE get those comments, the best and right thing to do is firstly, REPLY, always reply to those comments.

Then go and check their blogs and give them back great replies full of love and gratitude either on their blogs or replying by mail because sometimes they don’t get notified that you replied directly on the blog post.

By being a great commenter and a caring blogger who respond to comments in a warm and friendly way you grow your blog because you show people you care, and people will want to return the love.

4. Making it Personal.

Names and faces are so important to build relationships.

I always try to know the name of the bloggers I visit. Remember we are relating with people not only blogs so when commenting, most of the time I use their names. I try to find it through their profile photo widgets or on their about pages.

On my websites, I always set Hi! I’m Cami! right at the top of my sidebars along with my photo. That way people feel welcome and reading from someone, not a machine.

There are so many blogs and bloggers, so it’s difficult to keep track of every single one of them. But, we have our favorite ones and we are loyal to them, so by calling them by their name we are showing how much we care.

I always try to say “Cami from The Crafting Nook” or “Cami from TCN Design Studio” when talking about my websites because I LOVE when people call me Cami. When they call me Cami, I feel like they know me. Names, believe it or not, are important and do matter.

Our faces are important and personal as well. Since we relate with people we like to see other faces and not just icons or logos. It’s important to set a profile picture or a Gravatar for our websites. This makes us have a face on every comment we leave.

If you don’t know how to set a Gravatar you can go to http://en.gravatar.com/ and set up your account and Pic so you wouldn’t be monsters or grey faceless faces anymore.