Your Compelling Reason Why

What does it take to grow an audience for your blog? How do you attract thousands, or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of readers to your site?

It all starts with having a compelling answer to one simple but very important question. It’s a question that very few bloggers ever even think about. Here it is:

Why should someone read your blog?

Before you raise your hand with an answer, let me reframe this in a way that might help you understand the real meaning behind this question.

Why should someone read your blog… instead of the likely hundreds or thousands of other good blogs that already exist on similar topics?

You see, It’s incredibly easy to start a blog these days. That’s why there are hundreds of millions of blogs in existence. It’s easy to start a blog, but it’s hard to start a good blog. And it’s even harder to start a great blog, or a blog that truly matters.

And one of the core elements of a blog that matters is this: In order to attract an audience, you need to create a compelling reason for people to read your site. It isn’t enough just to publish, you have to publish with purpose.

It isn’t enough just to publish, you have to publish with purpose.

Back when I ran a blog called Think Traffic, we worked hard to help people grow thriving audiences for their websites. The thing that frustrated me most was the tendency people had to put tactics before foundation. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “putting lipstick on a pig” before? That phrase painfully describes how most people try (and fail) to build an audience on the web.

People tend to focus on tactics before foundation. Tactics to get more traffic, get more clicks, get more subscribers… these are just lipstick. The foundation of a great blog is finding the compelling reason why a visitor should read and subscribe.

Here’s the thing: all the promotional tactics in the world won’t make your site popular if your content sucks. You have to write things that make people think. Inspire people. Change lives. Create value. Blow people away with your usefulness.

This might seem like we’re setting the bar high, and we are because you’re not guaranteed success; it will take insight and work to make your blog succeed. But there are two things that work in your favor here, two advantages you have:

First, even though there are an incredible number of blogs in existence, there aren’t really that many great blogs on each topic. Most people aren’t willing to put in the effort to create the kind of content it takes to grow a thriving audience.

And second, you don’t have to expect to start your blog and immediately be writing at a level of epic, viral content. Most great sites start modestly and only become great over time as the author learns and grows and adapts. This should be your goal.

So we’re not going to focus on tactics and try to get away with putting lipstick on a pig. We’re going to set a solid foundation to publish with purpose. And you’ve got these two advantages on your side, which should take away some of that pressure. Because you get to start just where you are and grow over time. You can out work, you can out-insight, you can care more than the other sleepy bloggers out there.

But in order to do so you have to deeply understand the compelling reason WHY a visitor should read and subscribe to your blog.

So your action in this lesson is to do just that, to find and write down the compelling reason why a visitor should read and subscribe to your blog.

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OK, when you’re done with this lesson’s exercise, I’ll see you in the next lesson where we’ll talk about the second question most bloggers don’t ask until it’s too late.