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How do you grow your blog even if you have 0 views and 0 followers on social media?
A lot of people assume that you need to be super popular on social media or you need to already have a big following in order to grow a blog.
That is so far from the truth.
You absolutely don’t need to already have a big following on any platform in order to grow a successful blog.
I’m a full-time blogger and I wanted to share with you exactly what I would do if I were starting from scratch today.
If you have no idea how to start, how to get your blogging business up and running and how to get it to the next level where it’s actually a profitable business, then grab my free 12 Month Blog Plan.
It’s been downloaded by thousands of people who really love it, so it might be helpful for you too.
Let’s get into step by step how to grow your blog, even if you have no following whatsoever.
Can a blog be successful without social media?
Yes, you do not need social media in order to grow a successful blog.
You don’t need to use Instagram for this.
You don’t need to post on Facebook.
You don’t need to use TikTok or Instagram reels in order to grow a blog.
Social media can look so shiny, but it’s not the only way to make money online.
A lot of people assume that blogging is dead and that not a lot of people read blogs anymore, which is absolutely not true.
There’s so much potential out there for blogs and they can be so profitable as well.
I highly recommend people start a blog on the side of social media, even if you want to use social media for your business.
And that is because a blog is much steadier and it’s a much more reliable and consistent stream of income than Instagram, for example.
A blog is also a platform that you own, whereas you obviously don’t own Instagram.
You already know that on social media algorithms change all the time, which can be so frustrating. That’s not the case for your blog.
So a blog is definitely a good idea if that’s something that you’re passionate about.
How can I grow my blog from zero Without Social Media?
If I were starting from scratch, what would I do? Let’s dive into the step by step of how to grow a successful blog from zero.
Feel free to watch the video or keep reading below for all the deets:
1. Do your audience research
If I were starting from scratch, the first thing that I would do is I would try to really get to know my target audience and their pain points.
And really dive deep down into what they’re struggling with, what they need help with and what value I can provide with my knowledge and experience.
It’s such a powerful thing to do and it gets you started on the right track.
There are a few ways in which you can do this audience research. It doesn’t mean you need to already have an audience to survey. You can use audiences already available online.
For example, if your content is aimed at moms, you can go into mom Facebook groups for this audience research.
You don’t need to post on there, you can just go into the search function of that Facebook group and search for words like: struggle, problem, I don’t know how to, I’m not sure how to etc.
See what results pop up, read through them and find out what they’re actually struggling with in regards to your topic or niche you had in mind.
This will give you a really good idea of what you can include in your blog and what you can write on.
This process will allow you to find specific things that your target audience actually needs help with.
That’s the main purpose of a blog: to have valuable content for people, to have good resources for them and to provide value to them in your posts.
2. You don’t need to be stressed out about your niche
The second thing that I want you to know is that honestly niche is a bit outdated in the old sense of the word.
So many people say you need to have such a specific niche in order to grow.
But the truth is there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who don’t really have a super specific niche, but they are still successful online.
They still make a profit. They can still do this full-time.
So no, you don’t need to have a specific niche.
But I would try to focus on a specific type of person that you’re helping.
Because that in turn will help you out. It will help you create a business plan and a content plan for your blog.
But yes, you can still grow a successful blog even if you don’t put yourself in a box.
3. I wouldn’t focus on promoting my blog on Instagram stories or on Facebook
The third thing that I would do – or rather I wouldn’t do: I wouldn’t focus on promoting my content so much on social media. For example: on Instagram stories, my Facebook feed or anything like that.
Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that, but from my experience it’s not as effective and it can be a waste of your time.
If you’re spending a lot of time creating graphics for sharing your blog posts on Instagram stories and Facebook, then that is going to take up a lot of your time.
Time that you could instead be using doing something more productive.
The thing is: posting on your Instagram stories, for example, will not get you a lot of views to that blog post.
Yes, there will be a few people interested and they will click through, but it won’t be a steady increase in your traffic on your blog.
Do share your content on social media when you get a chance, but don’t make that your whole focus for driving traffic.
So what do you do instead for getting traffic?
This takes me to my next point.
4. Focus on writing content that can rank on Google
The real traffic growth on your blog will come from Google I would say, especially these days.
Google is much more reliable than Instagram and it also will give you a much higher volume of traffic.
What I would do if I were starting from scratch – and it’s actually what I do these days anyway – is I would focus on writing content that can rank on Google.
This is really key for consistent growth year after year.
You might feel like you post a blog post now and it’s useless because it’s not getting a lot of traffic yet. But the thing about Google is that a blog post can actually get traffic months or years down the line.
Think about this. If you have a portfolio of 100 blog posts and suddenly a lot of them start ranking in Google, that will be a really massive increase in your blog traffic.
That is what has happened to my blog as well.
I wrote here about how to rank your blog posts in Google, if you need more help with this.
5. Create pins for Pinterest for each post
The next thing I would do is I would create pins for Pinterest for every single blog post that I write.
You can create 3, 5, 10 different pins for that same blog post and that will be completely fine, as long as it’s a different pin image.
This will give your blog post more of a boost. It will get more traffic in time.
Pinterest goes the same as Google.
Even if you don’t see results right away from your pins, keep going and keep pinning consistently. Because even pins on Pinterest can get picked up months, so that can give you a massive increase in your traffic too.
Another thing you can do here is to actually create updated pins for blog posts that have done well for you in the past. Or for older blog posts that you want to revive.
You can incorporate that into your Pinterest strategy. We cover a lot more in depth what works and what doesn’t work on Pinterest these days in my Blogging Secrets course.
6. Start an email list from the beginning
Next thing I would do is to start an email list from the very beginning or as soon as possible.
Starting an email list has honestly been one of the best things I’ve done for my blog.
It has grown my business the most and it’s one of the main things I use to make money in my blogging business.
Starting an email list is so important because it gives you more security.
For example, if you have an Instagram following of 1,000 followers, you don’t actually own that list of people. Your Instagram could get hacked and you could lose access to all those people who followed you.
There are so many things that could happen to an Instagram account and you just won’t have those followers back.
But if you have an email list of 1,000 subscribers, those are people you actually do have access to, because you have their email address.
You can always create a backup of that list of email addresses and have it just in case something happens to your email service provider, for example.
It’s much more reliable and it actually has higher engagement and conversion rates than an Instagram following.
An email list can be so powerful, especially when it comes to monetising a blog.
I know sending weekly or monthly email newsletters seems so daunting for a lot of people, but it’s actually not that hard.
You can use templates and share your new blog post that you’ve written. You might have some new valuable content on your blog and you can share that with your email subscribers.
It doesn’t have to be something brand new just for your email list all the time.
Sharing those new pieces of content in your email newsletters will actually get traffic back to your blog whenever you send out a newsletter.
That will be a really good way for you to grow your blog traffic and to gain a loyal readership. This is something that I actually did in those first few months and has really boosted my traffic as well.
7. Create a schedule and post consistently
The next thing I would do is I would create a schedule and try to post as consistently as I can.
On a blog, it doesn’t really matter if you post on a Monday or a Friday, or if you post every single day or every two weeks.
It doesn’t really matter as long as you are consistent and you post fresh content as frequently as you can. There’s no algorithm like the one on social media.
Obviously the more, the better. And the faster you will see results.
Because the more pieces of content you have out there, you have a higher chance of ranking in Google and getting more traffic to each blog post.
Your blog will grow the more effort you put into it.
8. Update old posts
The last thing I would do is I would actually go back and update some old blog posts.
If you’ve just started your blog, you might not have older content for you to be able to do this.
But even if you have a blog post that’s a few months old, you can always go back and update it. By updating old blog posts I don’t mean you need to completely rewrite it. I mean edit parts that may be outdated, try to include more valuable information, include things that can help you rank in Google search.
You can add new fresh images, create new pin images and overall just make it more valuable.
This way, you can actually turn that old blog post that’s not getting any traffic into a blog post that can rank in Google search and start bringing in views.
I actually didn’t know about this practice of updating old blog posts for so long in my journey. I would constantly focus on creating new content, but actually updating your old content is just as powerful.
Those are the main things I would do to grow my blog from zero, even if I had no following on social media.
Honestly, blogging doesn’t have to be that hard. It’s just about creating valuable content on topics that people need help with.
Where are you currently at in your blogging journey? Comment below and let us know!
Thank you for this post it’s given me some really useful pointers . I’m currently only using Pinterest to promote my blog and i don’t have any interest in Facebook or Instagram so want to try and grow my blog without them . Thank you for the encouragement .