How to attract new readers

To attract new readers to your blog, you need some way of spreading the word about it. The fastest way to do this is to have one of your blog posts reposted or referred to on other blogs. When this happens, the other blog’s readers are exposed to your content, which increases the chances of their visiting your blog and becoming your readers as well.
A blog post that lends itself to being shared easily because it is interesting or new in some way is said to be viral in nature. The word viral describes how it is passed on – someone who finds a post interesting might repost it on his or her own blog, and then readers of that blog may in turn repost the post or link to the post on their own blog. Like a virus, the blog post then spreads quickly in its exposure among increasing groups of people. Writing a blog post that is viral in nature means you quickly get traction beyond your own readers, which builds up your blog’s audience as a result of your original post.
So what does a post that’s viral look like? There is no single answer to this. Sometimes a post “sticks” simply because it taps into the zeitgeist of the moment – for example, you may be one of the first bloggers to talk about a hot topic that subsequently grows in popularity. At other times your post may simply be amusing to a large proportion of people who then share it with their own community. Overall, types of posts that tend to spread virally include:
Controversial or timely posts that talk about a current hot topic
Posts that consist of lists; these are easy to scan and often touch on real life examples
Humorous posts
Posts that give unique insights into a particular topic
Posts that talk about useful resources or tools for your readers
Contest posts, where readers are asked to provide input in return for the chance to win something
Since it’s hard to define what works and what won’t, especially among different industries, you’ll need to experiment with different types of posts to see what works. You won’t always be successful, but it’s worth the effort of writing twenty or thirty posts if only one of those becomes a viral success.