Christa from Brown Sugar Toast emailed in three blogging questions that she’s given me permission to address as Q&A’s over the next three weeks. I thought some of you would find my advice to her helpful, so I’m posting my answers to her here.
Here’s her first question:
What are the best things you have done to grow your site? I suppose my main question is how to find women {or help them find me?} who “fit” in my blogging niche. The purpose statement of my blog is “to encourage women to live creative lives in Christ.” Should I be doing guest posts, participating in the dreaded linky parties ;), paying for advertising? Perhaps all of the above? -Christa
First off, the fact that you are asking questions and seeking to be intentional says a lot about your character, motivation, and drive. You have amazing potential, Christa! Your blog is beautiful and you have some fantastic ideas. Keep up the great work!
When I started MoneySavingMom.com, I had a huge advantage because I already had a mommy blog that I had grown to have around 4,000 to 5,000 pageviews per day (you can read the whole story on how I “fell into” blogging here). In addition, blogging was still pretty new so there weren’t so many incredible voices out there like there are today. Honestly, I think that’s one reason people read my blog — just because there weren’t that many others to choose from! 🙂
As far as specific things I did to grow my blog, here are some ideas:
1) I Set Big Goals
For years, I’ve been setting specific blogging goals. Not only detailed numbers that I wanted to grow my traffic and social media sites to each month and year, but how much income I wanted to make, features I wanted to add, series I wanted to write, people I wanted to network with, and more.
I haven’t always hit these goals, but they have motivated me to aim high, work hard, and think outside the box. Plus, they challenged me to step outside my comfort zone. It has well been said, “If your goals don’t scare you at least a little, they might not be big enough.”
2) I Linked to Others
You can never be too generous. So many, many people have graciously reached out and helped me — especially when I was first starting out.
I want to do the same for others. I can’t help everyone, but I do my best to try and help as many people as I can — especially when I see someone who is working really hard and being creative, not just hoping for someone to spoon feed them some success.
From the beginning, I’ve seen my blog as a conduit. I can’t meet everyone’s needs, but I hope that my blog can serve as a hub to point you in the direction of other sites, blogs, and resources that can be a huge help to you wherever you are at in life.
3) I Networked With Others
Building relationships with other bloggers, website owners, authors, and speakers is a great way to not only learn much, but also to open up doors for networking. Look for specific people whom you’d like to have a relationship with and then go out of your way to promote and encourage them. You never know what this might lead to.
Be creative. Think outside the box. Find ways to work with other bloggers that will be mutually beneficial. That’s what networking is all about!
4) I Wrote Guest Posts
Guest posts are a great way to get your name and writing in front of a new audience. Plus, they are a way to exercise new writing muscles and build up thick skin when you receive a rejection email.
Psst! I love to consider guest posts from my readers. See our guest post submission guidelines here.
5) I Didn’t Give Up
Honestly, I believe has been one of the main keys to my success. It’s so easy to want to give up. In fact, I still have days when I’m ready to close up shop (I had one just last week, in fact!). But if you stick with it and keep at it, eventually your efforts will pay off.
As far as what you should specifically be doing, Christa: I’d encourage you to make a list of all the ideas that come to your mind. These could be things like guest posting, commenting on other blogs, participating in Linky parties, experimenting with Pinterest, interacting on Twitter and Facebook, running giveaways on other blogs, and more.
Then, pick one or two ideas to experiment with for a few weeks. See what kind of response you get and track your results. Over time, you’ll start to learn things that work — and many things that don’t work. Chuck the things that flop and stick with the things that work.
Keep learning, keep asking questions, keep experimenting, and keep pressing on. I’m excited to see you succeed!
For more suggestions and ideas, be sure to check out my How to Make Money Blogging series. In the first few posts, I share some practical ideas for growing your blog traffic and setting up your blog for success.
Do you have a fun and frugal DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it 
aloud at lunch. Read three chapters of 
to Silas.
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