Top Ten Ways To Nurture Your Pet Blog In 2013

Guest post by Blog Manager Robbi Hess

As the year comes quickly to a close, I usually take some time to see what I did that worked in the current year and what I can do to either make changes or make what worked even better. Here are my top ten tips for nurturing your pet blog, gaining followers and finding raving fans:

1. Write, write, write. In blogging, less is not more. You should publish frequently. If you simply don't have the time to publish frequenly, make an effort to publish consistently. Pick a day of the week and let your readers know that you will be posting every Wednesday, for example.

Write for others. Look for a blog on which you can be a guest blogger. Don't forget to seek out guest bloggers for your site. Share the love and spread the word. 

Make the most of your social media time. Be involved in the BlogPaws Community. Connect with us on Facebook. Use your own Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter pages to announce news from your blog. 

Comment frequently. Whether you have time to pen your own blog post, you should at least make time to comment on the blog posts of others; it's a great way to build community and a following. Set aside a specific amount of time daily, if possible, to leave comments on blogs you enjoy reading. 

Nurture those who comment on your blog. Respond to their comments. Thank them for reading and commenting. Start a dialogue. 

Be consistent in your pet blogging efforts. Readers come to your blog for a reason whether it's your posts about pet health, traveling with your pet or social media related to pet writing. Give 'em what they want! 

Don't always be in sales mode on your blog. Even if you have a product or service to sell your readers likely already know that and they don't really want to read blog posts that are filled with "buy me, buy me" info. 

Run a contest. If you have the opportunity to run a giveaway, do so. If you're looking to highlight those who comment on your blog, run a contest for the "best commentor of the month."

Ride the wave. If you post a blog that garners a lot of comments and is ranking high on Google searches, ride the wave of its popularity and run a follow up post. Keep the commentary coming! 

Don't slack off. Just as quickly as a pet lover finds and comments on your blog, she can leave your site and find another if you don't continue to deliver the content that drew her there in the first place. (this harkens back to #1 -- write, write, write. 

How will you nurture your blog in 2013? 

Comments

[Mary Hone]

I will nurturing my blog by writing, commenting, and all the social media stuff. I am going to set new goals for the year, and implement those too.

[Carol Bryant]

Goal setting, goal achieving, revamping what does and does not work and I bought a blogging calendar. Look out world, woot. LOL Great ideas here!

[Jen@MyBrownNewfies]

One of our goals for 2013 is to nurture, nurture and nurture some more!

[caren gittleman]

These were great! I do many of these already but there is one that I have to do and Robbi I think you know what that is! THE GUEST BLOGGING! EEEK!! (as in ME being a guest blogger!)

[Christie Zizo]

I definitely need to work on doing more in the community. I need to guest blog, I need to comment on more blogs, that sort of thing.

[Colby]

The number 1 thing for me is number 1 on your list. I need to get back to writing. Of course everything on your top 10 list is important, but over the past 2 months I've been so busy with work I haven't had much time to write to my pet blog or visit my pet blogger friends. I plan on changing that in 2013.

[Tom Grady]

I'm working on building more readership for the Pack Mentality Blog - through more posting and re-tweeting on Twitter.

Tom Grady

[Steph]

Just came across the Blogpaws community and delighted that you will be here to keep me focused on building the profile of my dog walking business.

[Clifton]

Yes! Finally something about wordpress.

[volkan]

very good