If you are not getting enough readers, votes, comments, have you considered why someone would give you that attention?
Too often we think in terms of ourselves. What we want, what we need, rather than what is in it for the visitor, what they will get out of it, or why they might not find your content appealing.
There are four factors at play.
1. WIIFM
First is "What is in it for me".
What would someone get from reading your content, watching your video, listening to your podcast.
That has to be immediately obvious and it needs to be delivered on.
You will notice clickbait headlines often use intrigue and mystery, eg. "you will never guess what happens next!?". They are simply promising to close an open loop that they opened in your brain!
In the case of this series here I am promising tips that will help your blog grow.
2-4. Know, like & trust
In general, people like to connect with people who they know, like and trust.
One of the major reasons your blog will not grow is because nobody knows about it, which means you need to be linked to, reblogged, talked about, and so on.
Ever wondered why popular blogs get even more popular? It's because they are the ones people talk about, reblog, and ask for AMAs from!
You can increase your chances of being reblogged or linked to by working on the like and trust aspects.
- Make your personality shine through in the content, your comments, and the replies to comments of others
- Format your posts so they look good and are nice to skim/scan to get a feel for
- Be trustworthy - no spammy tricks, no blogging just for rewards
Most of all, get out into the community and comment. If you do all the above then when they follow you back you will get more people sticking around.
Final point: Consistency
One of the things working against my blog here and even big blogs like @themarkymark is the lack of consistent theme. We post whatever is of interest to us, which means there could be a film review followed by a Raspberry Pi post. If you want to gain solid traction it really helps to focus on one audience, one theme, one topic.
Hope these tips help. My blog here is not my main one so there is a lot of "do as I say, not as I do" hypocrisy going on, hope you will forgive that ;)
I purposely avoid a consistent theme due to the size of the audience here. If I was blogging for millions, I'd certainly keep it more focused.
That is a good point, you could also look at it as "more lines in the water" - just so long as the other topics don't put people off it can still work.
Many "lifestyle influencers" the only glue is their own personality
I would normally recommend staying on topic as that's why people come to see you sort of thing, but until we have mass adoption I don't think it is as critical.