lifestyle

How I Gained 4 Thousand Blog Followers In a Year

by Olivia

When I first started my blog, I never knew that I would ever gain 4 thousand blog followers let alone do it in under a year. If you have been around since Olivia Lucie Blake started in July 2020, you’d have seen how hard I worked and how fast my blog really took off. I came back to blogging with no expectations. And truly, I believe thats how things work out. If you go into something with no expectations you can’t be let down if they are not met.

I am so grateful for the community I have built on my blog. It’s been alot of hard work though. So if you’ve come to this post to find the secret to gaining blog followers and you expect it to be an easy fix, it won’t be. Like anything, if you want to see results you have to work hard for it.

Before I get into this post, please remember that no two blogs and no two people are the same. The results I have gotten from my own blogging strategy might not work for you. Each blog is different and so are their audiences. Me sharing that I have done to grow my blog is so that you can see how you can implement that I did into your own way and your own blog.

COLLABING WITH OTHER BLOGGERS

One of the very first things I did when I came back to blogging was reaching out to other bloggers for collabs. Whether it was me guest posting on their website, or getting involved in a blogger campaign they were doing, I was there and ready to work. Collabing with other bloggers is such a great way to be seen in the blogging community.

When you are a new blogger, it’s important that you get your name and your work out there as much as possible. Making connections and working with other creators is such a great way to build relationships and gain exposure. A new thing that people are doing right now is creating blogging groups. Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Blogging groups consist of a number of bloggers who decide to support and share each others content. It’s such a fun way to make friends and catch up with other bloggers work.

Learn from my mistakes though friends. Don’t just allow anybody to contribute work to your own website. Some people are out there for their own gain. I have had people want to guest post for me and have copied and pasted others work and submitted it to me as their own. Not everybody has good intentions. And people like that won’t get far in blogging.

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UTILISING SOCIAL MEDIA

Finding the right social media platform for your blog is crucial. Me and a number of other bloggers first started out using Instagram as a way to share and gain more traffic to our websites. Slowly though, you come to realise that Instagram isn’t the best platform to use for blogging. At first, I got a fair amount of traffic from there, but then after a while it died down. Most recently I have been using Twitter and have found its much better for bloggers and makes directing people to your blog easier.

Social media is really vital if you want your blog to succeed. You will find a whole new audience and group of people to connect with. My advice is, if you are going to use social media make sure you are consistent with it. Don’t just pop on there every now and then, share a link and leave. Its a two way street. Support other creatives and they will support you.

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POSTING CONSISTENTLY

I know, I know I am like a stuck record. I feel like every time I share a post like this, I am always telling you to post consistently. But, if I thought it wasn’t important I wouldn’t always remind you to do it.

Posting consistently and often is one of the main things I did which I believe helped me gain my following. I am no expert here, and I can only talk from personal experience but I truly believe it helped me so much. Making sure you have fresh new content out regularly means that new people and new potential followers can find you.

There is no hand book for gaining blog followers. You know your audience and you know what you want to post. Whatever it is, just make sure you are doing it often.

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PATIENCE

There have been so many times over the last year where I have wanted to give up. I became a serial stats checker and it really made me turn into a worrying mess about my stats. I wanted to give up when my stats dipped over the year and less and less people started coming to my blog. Giving up is the easy way out, and what separates the determined from the undetermined.

Having patience in this industry is vital. You won’t see results overnight, maybe not even in a month. But you have to keep pushing on. Imagine if I had given up at the first hurdle? I wouldn’t be here sharing this post with you. I wouldn’t have achieved so much over the last 12 months.

If you are at a point now where you feel like quitting, put yourself in my shoes where I am now. Imagine yourself a year from now, working with brands and your blog becoming your full time income. Quitting is easy, persevering is not. Keep going.

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BROADENING MY BLOGGING NICHE

When I first started blogging back in 2015 I solely did a beauty/makeup blog. When I came back I decided quite quickly that I wanted to change my content. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t exclude anybody, and that my content was for all. This is not me saying that having a smaller niche is bad, but for me I noticed that my beauty and makeup content only reached a certain demographic.

It’s totally your choice what you want your niche to be, but me choosing lifestyle really helped me to write about anything and everything I wanted to. Don’t be afraid to change your niche either. I know many people who have changed their niche. Sometimes it works out better for you and your blog.

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How have you gained your blog followers? What strategies have you used to gain your blog followers?

Thanks so much as always for the love and support. I hope you find this post helpful!

Olivia x 
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54 thoughts on “How I Gained 4 Thousand Blog Followers In a Year”

  1. Hi Olivia – as always, wonderful post!! It’s always so inspiring to read about your growth and learn some of your tips. It’s been so amazing to see what a huge and successful blogger you have become it is a true inspiration!! I am really awful with social media so one of my strategies is definitely consistent posting, trying to do collabs and things like blogmas but I definitely plan on taking a look at my strategies a bit more over this summer to boost views and engagement. Lots of love xxx

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    1. Trying to get people to click onto your blog from Instagram is really hard. And Instagram make it harder with only allowing swipe up access to accounts with 10k+ followers. It really is difficult to get any traffic from there.

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    2. Hi Victoria,
      I can totally relate! I find posting personal pictures on IG get more engagement than posts about my blog or excerpts from a new blog post.

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  3. Hi Olivia! What an incredible achievement!! What a goal to reach in only a year, you should be so proud of yourself. Can’t wait to see what your blog will bring going forward, excited for it, Alicia

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  9. Amazing post, useful for the beginner and experts alike. Quick question: would you say that posting frequently gets more views, or commenting on others’ blogs? Thanks in advance, Olivia!

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    1. I think a mixture of both! Get yourself out there by engaging with other bloggers, but also post frequently too! its hard work but its a great way to gain more exposure

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  10. Hi Olivia,
    More great advice! Especially the reminders re consistency and the social media piece. Honestly, I didn’t have much interest in frequently engaging on social media platforms before blogging so learning to switch gears and consistently engage about new blog posts has been challenging. The tip re Twitter vs Instagram is a huge help. Thank you!

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  11. Hi Olivia! You’re right. It’s not that easy to gain followers, but I am here in wordpress to express myself genuinely and entice the readers with my stories. I know, blogging/writing is one of the pretty ways to let myself grow better. People have no idea how really satisfied I am and happy I am when I’m writing. BLOGGING IS LIFE AND I LOVE IT ❤

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  12. It’s really an inspiring post, Olivia! The way you’ve addressed all your work around to the social media platforms and the tips which has been listed down are quite impressive! I’m sure it’s very helpful to many others here and I would personally consider this as an evergreen post from your side till date! Thank you so much for sharing this with us!

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  13. I’ll say you’ve done a really great job and pushed for the best. Congratulations and many more wins

    Just a question
    How can I connect with writers on social media?

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  15. You have done amazing, I love getting my notifications and readying your thoughts. Blogging groups sound amazing to support each other. If anyone is wanting to create one I’d be happy and willing to join. I love supporting fello bloggers. I do on Instagram already so would love to start on blogs too. Xxx

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  20. Such great points. I’ve loved watching your journey and am so excited to see it lying off for you! Thanks for sharing these tips!

    Jacqueline | Jacqueline-of-all-trades.com

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  21. Candid and superb way of sharing your experience. Truly impressed by your approach of putting things up just the way they are,relevant and relatable. Congratulations for what your and the likes of you truly deserve, The count matters but the spirit matters more ,😊

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  22. Big ups on getting many followers Olivia.

    I’m following your footsteps too, I still have 14 followers on my Men’s Fashion & Style Blog😁

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  31. I love reading blog posts about this topic because I am definitely one of the bloggers thinking that growing a following is so so difficult. But then again I’ve only been doing this for two months now.

    I currently use Pinterest as my form of social media and am trying my best to consistently write with basic SEO (I’m still learning as I go.) I think I might start thinking about collaborations with other bloggers since you’re another blogger saying that collaboration is a good idea. I need to learn how to do that too. I think interacting with other blogs and their posts through comments is a great start.

    I love your blog by the way! Yours is a great example of what I hope my blog to be one day! I’ve only recently started following you but I get excited when you post now.

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  32. Pingback: How To Start a Blog That Makes You Money - Olivia Lucie Blake

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