Are you looking to build traffic for the blog, articles, or book that you have written? Many people suggest that you look to social media to find traffic, but that doesn’t always work.
The problem with that is that you, like me, sometimes don’t have a social media following with the people who are in your niche. Most of my friends and family aren’t always interested in what I’m interested in writing. The results were, I ended up connecting with people who are not necessarily my best customers.
Gain Knowledge from My Niche
I have always believed that the best way to know what’s good in your genre is to read about the topics that you write about. I like to get to know everything I can about what others have written within my genre. Reading within my genre helps get me to understand what has already been written. It gives me insights into my niche. It also helps me know what I know that others don’t and this tells me what is unique to me within my niche.
The other thing it does is it provides a way for me to get to know other writers’ audiences that are within my genre. I don’t just read the book, I learn about the author. I read that author’s blogs. I connect with them on social media, and, of course, read their books. When they have a new book out, I have an opportunity to help them while at the same time they will be helping me gain access to their audience.
When I read books in my niche, I am always looking for an influencer or at least a writer who is in my niche. I look for books on Amazon or other book-selling sites and find authors of books that are close to the subjects that I am writing and purchase that book. Often I can find eBooks are less costly or even offered as free books. When I started out, I read a lot of free method books to get some lower-hanging influencers (who aren’t influencers yet, but like penny stocks, they might be valuable in the future.) I read the book and wrote down what I liked about the book. If I found that I didn’t like the book, I usually didn’t take any more time with that book or author. Instead, I just moved on.
Write a Review
Once I found a book that I enjoyed, I connected with the author in some way. We can connect with the other author in many different ways. We can connect with them on social media. We can comment on their blogs. Another way I like to use is to write a review of the book that I read that an influencer has written.
Rather than writing the review on Amazon or some other review site, write the review on my own blog. Writing a review on my blog is simple. Once I have my review written, I contact that person via social media or email and let that person know that I enjoyed their book so much that I wrote a review of their book on my blog.
Sometimes I won’t get a response, but other times I do and if I do, my blog, article, or social media post is likely to be seen by that influencer’s audience. This is why I wrote reviews on lesser-known writers first. They are more likely to appreciate your review and are more apt to work with me. If not, I read other authors’ books, looking for other opportunities. Eventually, someone is thrilled that I have read and reviewed their book.
Guest Blogging
Once I’ve written a review for a writer, and they are responding to my review, the next thing I can do is ask them if they would be willing to guest blog on my blog. If they are also just starting out, they may want to do this because they know that they will have access to my blog as well as their own.
At the same time, I may request a trade. I make this sort of a mini-joint venture. They write a blog post on my blog and I guest post on theirs. The reason that I want to do this is so that both of us have access to each other’s audience. I include a link to my blog when you post on their blog and make sure that they have a post on my blog as well. This exchange is good for ranking as well.
Interview Other Writers
If the other author doesn’t want to exchange blogs, I may just want to do an interview of the other person on my blog. Often, I just ask them if I can interview them and then send them questions. I don’t necessarily need to speak to them in person. I do have a list of generic questions to ask, but I do also create an author and book-specific list of questions as well. Once I get the answers back and write up the interview, I can post the interview. Since I have already done a review of one of their books, I include a link to their review on my blog.
Again, I want to be sure that the other person has links to the interview that they can utilize on their social media and newsletters just as you will let your audience know about the interview. Often this is easier to do than exchanging blog posts because you’ll be doing most of the work. Because it’s all about them, they will let their audience know that you’ve done the interview. Their readers in turn will then have access to my blog as well as my readers and I get new readers this way.
As stated before, the Interviews don’t have to be in person either. They can be over the phone, or they can just as easily be done in writing. It can be as easy as sending them a bunch of questions and then I pick and choose which questions are the most interesting and post them. I send a copy of the interview to them, of course, to approve and I also discuss how they can best (and you will too) benefit from the interview.
I keep a template of various ways that the other writer can promote my post that is promoting them. That way I don’t have to reinvent it with the next author that I work with.
ARE YOU AN AUTHOR LOOKING TO BUILD AN AUDIENCE?
If you’re another author who would like to connect with me and do a blog exchange or would like to review my books and interview me, feel free to check out my link below to see if we’re a good fit.
Author Cygnet Brown 