Ways to increase members/followers/subscribers?

[trulymyrtle]

Maybe I am just too impatient. My blog is getting hits, but not many are following - How quickly can you expect numbers to grow? Any ideas how?

By the way I am here. Ideas welcome!

My blog is in a different area to yours (and is also very new, and I haven't checked my stats but imagine they are currently vanishingly small!) but I have a plan of a kind, to get my profile up slowly with other blogs in a similar area to mine. Long-term, if I could get together something good, I'd like to get it featured in somewhere like Apartment Therapy, which I think could drive a lot of traffic. In the meantime, I'm starting small, both here, and also by trying to leave more comments on other blogs.
BTW I have just bumped my thread on headers, on which you were the only responder, to see if we can get any info from anyone!

I should probably add that I know being featured in Apartment Therapy is hilariously unlikely! Just that it's something to aim for. I'll probably try to get featured on other, smaller-scale blogs first.
Oh god, I need a proper plan....

Thanks gus
I have the same plan - well, I don't really have much of a plan either, just start and hopefully build it up over the next year, and see where it takes me. I'd love to do something with crafts for a real job and this seems like a good place to start. Felt like it was do-able for now...
I think I am feeling a bit intimidated by the big guns out there!

A good way that I have found to find more readers is to comment on lots and lots of other blogs. It's a good way of helping people to find you, and also to find people writing similar blogs to yourself. Then you can start to build up relationships with others and perhaps find people that you could offer to exchange guest posts with.

Also joining Twitter works for many people, although you need to spend time getting to know the others in the community and make the effort to join in. You can also start to take part in the various memes and linkys that take place (for example where you write a themed post which you link up to lots of others). You'll soon find out about these if you start to read blogs in your niche as you will find other people taking part in them. Don't be shy to join in!

I only have a little readership which has grown slowly over time, but it has grown.

Thanks Jennifer - I'm trying some of that, so maybe it is just time!!!

I agree with the advice given but would add a few too. Here's what I have found useful:
1 - comment on and follow popular blogs in your niche
2 - set up a facebook fan page
3 - set up a twitter account. Follow as many potential readers as you can and they may automatically follow you back
4 - share all your blog posts to the facebook page and twitter account
5 - take part in the link parties mentioned above
6 - find a popular blog related to your niche and offer to guest post for them
7 - submit your content to other sites like totally tutorials etc
8 - make sure you have easy to find social media following buttons on your site
9 - add a 'tweet this' button to your posts
10 - add a 'pin this' button to your posts

Good luck!
Rachael

Oh flip Rachael that is awesome! I'm off to digest this and take a peek over at your blog

This was a useful post