Starting a website is hard work, but that is only the beginning. Regardless of what web host you pick, if you choose a shared package or VPS hosting, or what platform you choose to use, you still need to build an audience for your website.
The good news is there is an audience for every topic. The bad news is it is hard to reach the right audience and the competition is strong. All this really means is that after you have created your website, you still have a long way to go. Here are some tips that can help you build an audience for your new website.
Be Passionate About the Topic
Before you even start, you need to make sure you are passionate about the topic your website covers. If you plan on making a website about computer parts, you better love computer parts. Not only will you be creating content for it, your readers will certainly be able to tell if you actually like the topic you write about.
Over the years, everything changes and as a content creator that is focusing on a specific topic, it is your responsibility to know everything about said topic. If you don’t come off as someone who genuinely likes the topic, how can you expect visitors to like your content?
Be An Expert
One of the biggest appeals of adding a blog section to a website is that it makes your website look like an expert. Imagine a computer part website. If you stumbled on a website that just sells computer parts with no content and another website that writes detailed blogs about said computer parts, which would you buy from?
If you are like the average online shopper, you will buy from the one that has blogs. Why is that? Because they look more knowledgeable than the competition. Half of the battle of building an audience is making sure your audience trusts what you have to say.
Diversify
As a website, it should be your goal to appeal to the largest number of visitors possible and if you do not properly diversify your website’s content, it can be challenging. For example, you will reach a much broader audience if instead of focusing your website on one video game, you chose to focus it on gaming as a whole.
Instead of limiting your content to one game, you can now cover every game that gets released and create content for them. See the difference? You should always avoid limiting your website’s potential content when starting out. While mainly focusing on one topic may help establish your brand, continuing down that path will limit your audience size.
Marketing Is King
It’s 2019, no one can say they haven’t seen an ad online. Advertising your website is a great way to get attention, but you need a clear target. For example, if you want to target gamers, you need to advertise on websites they would normally visit. However, marketing isn’t free and focusing too much on paid marketing is where beginners make mistakes. Have you ever heard of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media website?
Social media has completely revolutionized how marketing works. Create your website’s Facebook page, Twitter account and so on. The more social media accounts you can maintain, the better. Use these as tools to share your new content. In fact, it is so common that there are multiple social media plugins on platforms like WordPress that can automatically update your social media accounts when you release new content.
Why is this so effective? So, you have a few followers on Facebook that are all into gaming. When they like your post, their friends will see it and guess what, it is very likely that their friends will also be into similar topics. This approach works for any topic and it is free to do. However, you can go one step further and pay for actual marketing on these social media platforms.
This is hands down, the best way to reach a very specific group of individuals.
It’s Not Easy
If you own a website, you already know this. Growth does not come easily or quickly. In fact, for the most part you will lose money for the first year when you start a new website. The biggest factor in determining the success of your website is how you target your audience.
If you target a very specific group, you will have a much harder time than targeting a broader group. It is simply a numbers game. If you can target 10% of a group, would you target the group with 100 people or 1000 people?
