Audience, where are you?
You've built the most awesome website ever. You finally perfected the design, the links, the structure; you put it out there on the Internet.
Then you wait.
And possibly, wait and wait.
You need to get people to look at your site -- but how?
I feel your pain. My blog here is a complete restart of the past 6 years of blogging. I started cold, and haven't alerted anyone to its presence. I need the right eyes to see it.
There are a lot of ways to get them. Then when you get them, you'll still need links....maybe we will save that part for later though.
Here are some ways to be sure you get eyeballs:
PERFECT THE CONTENT
Make sure you have headers, lists, and bullet points whenever you can. The search engines love this (and they're the ones who are ultimately responsible for getting those eyeballs for you).
Fix your grammar. It is true that the normal writing tools don't contain great grammar checkers. If you write directly into Wordpress, use this plugin and check all the boxes under the Proofreading section. That will check both grammar and spelling.
Dumb it down. Have you heard of the Flesch-Kincaid readability score? It tells how difficult your content is to read. If you are overdoing it, meaning your post sounds like a PhD candidate's paper, simplify your writing. If they can't understand what you write, they certainly aren't going to hang around. You can paste some content in here and it will return the score. Update: Dude, I just pasted this one in. It returned an 82.2 -- that's too LOW! Like every test you ever took, you want to score high on this test. You want to write to the 10-11 age range, so get 90 or above.
PUT THE RIGHT FACE ON IT
Focus on the right platform. Your followers may be on Facebook while you're concentrating on Blogger. Or vice versa. Or all your peeps are on Twitter. Figure out where your followers live and take your content there.
Be personal whenever possible. By that I mean interact with the minions. Respond to comments; like their posts on your Facebook account; offer a solution when it makes sense. Be their friend. It's a way of building your future.
