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[Carson Dyle]

What are you writing about? There are many subjects where you're just not going to get many listeners.

I'm sure the anonymity thing will be a negative for many readers, unless you're a whistle blower or similar. If you're writing about dog grooming or celery farming, it's not going to win you any points. What you're marketing, more often than not is yourself, and being a person behind a mask doesn't sell very well.

 

[Burpo]

Web promotion tools..
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/10/21/social-media-promotion-tools

http://www.freebyte.com/free_website_promotion/

 

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[deadlyapp]

Blogs often languish for years and years until they pick up any sort of viewership, and since anyone can write a blog, you have to have content that is unique - find your niche. Eg your cooking, gaming, etc blogs - why are they any better or different than blogs that already exist in this space? If you're not bringing something unique to the table then there is absolutely no reason why I would want to read your blog.

With that said, it also is going to hinge significantly on if the content gets picked up by another aggregator or becomes viral on social media. This may have to come from advertising (although not in the traditional sense) if the content doesn't stand alone. Good writing doesn't matter if nobody cares about the content.

 

[sdifox]

Grow your hair long and get glasses. Those people get lots of views on youtube.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My goal with the blog is to be able to express myself and be accepted and acknowledged for my ideas, thoughts and feelings, hence I'm not interested in paid visitors.

The problem is that there are 7.6 billion people in the world, and we all have thoughts and feelings too.

Facebook works because they link together people who know each other, and are more likely to be interested in the thoughts of the linked people because of that. It's also an exchange: I'll look at pictures you took if you look at mine.

Blogs that get read and noticed most often do so because of hooks: the person is known for something or has access to others who are famous, the blog is linked to by someone who has a large number of followers, the blogger has (or creates) a persona that is interesting enough to get noticed over time, or the blog is featured on a site that already has readers. Just posting to a Wordpress page by itself is not going to work very often.

Also, thoughtful reading is not a growth industry. Much of the web is clickbait listicles, and many people watch YouTube videos or listen to podcasts instead of reading.

That doesn't mean you can't succeed, just that it seems unlikely for it to happen without you taking more active steps to bring people to your blogs.

 

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[lxskllr]

A podcast is just talking into a mic. You'd have to be good at public speaking, and have an engaging presentation. Not something I could do.

You could link to your blog on appropriate reddit subs. You have to use a light hand or it's considered spam, but it may get you some feedback on what people think of what you're doing.

 

[Red Squirrel]

SEO is your friend. I used to know lot of tricks, but I presume lot has changed and there are probably people into it that are way ahead of me now. Don't bother with those companies that claim to raise your SEO score, that's all scams. You want to learn the algorithms and do it yourself. It takes some experimentation. Basically if you can get your site to rank well in search engines then it's just the thing of ensuring you use keywords in your article. Think of what people might be searching for when they find it and try to incorporate those words in the article. Don't do anything spammy though, pretty sure the algorothms are smart enough to figure that out.

When I used to run my site iceteks.com full time I also used to email out new articles to other tech sites. Small ones and even big ons like [H] and Slashdot. Sometimes it gets posted, sometimes not. But that increased your SEO score. But I recall a change years back where the more sites that link to yours the lower your score is now instead of increases it... so things really have changed.

I've thought of doing a YT channel but I'm not really a public speaker type person so don't think I could really do it. I do have a channel but it's not vlog style like what is typically popular now days. It's just random.

If you're doing podcasts you could do Youtube along with any other platform and your own site. The trick with Youtube though is consistency. You want your channel to be focused on a topic, and release videos at a regular interval. I think twice a week is considered a golden rule, but consistency is important. So say you only do once a week, then do it every Monday or every Friday etc. There may even be a day that's better than others. I would think Friday is probably good as most people are off work the next day so they might stay up late to browse Youtube and stuff.

I sometimes think of doing a vlog type YT channel, but I'm not really one for public speaking which that basically is. But if you do well there is actually money to be made. It's not easy though. The big youtubers actually do it as their job and make enough money to not need a real job, but it also takes the time of a real job.

 

[Kaido]

So is it even possible for me to somehow get legitimate readership while keeping my anonymity and staying true to myself (I am not going to write what I am not passionate about or in a spammy way)? SEO didn't help, and I was really good at it (both backend and frontend).

Aside from spammy SEO stuff, the first question is: what value do you offer your customers? What is unique about what you create & what is the draw for people? What is your target demographic? What are you offering that other people aren't? Or what do you do better than other people already offer? Stuff tends to go viral within the targeted community if the content is good. I mean, just look at all of the books that have come out of fan fiction. Even the Wicked broadway play was a fanfic of the Wizard of Oz.

One good example is that most little kids I know watch FGTeeV on Youtube. The channel is run by a seemingly hyperactive dad who plays video games & comments on them in a Weird Al sort of way. It's very annoying, but also very addicting to young kids who play video games. Their primary Youtube channel alone rakes in $13,000...per day:

http://naibuzz.com/2017/04/29/much-money-fgteev-makes-youtube-net-worth-2/

They don't advertise at all that I know of...they just have good content (for their demographic) & it has grown from there. It's important to know your target audience & how they use social media because Youtubers want to watch Youtube videos, redditors want to use reddit, others want to use SoundCloud, Deviant Art, Patreon, Facebook pages, etc.

So who are you trying to get interested & what unique offering do you have to give them?

 

[FeuerFrei]

YouTube is rewarding vlogs these days. They offer a good deal more money per view basically, so that encourages content creators there to go the vlog route. Even though a vlog is not going to generate the most views, due to viewer lack of interest, comparatively. Various creators stash the vlogs on a separate dedicated channel so it doesn't ruin subscriber expectations for the main channel content. Vlogging is usually less polished, and more mundane and personal - even boring, so uploading that style video to a main channel is going to get a lot of "thumbs down."

If you do vlog keep switching between camera angles, slow zooms, and even use musical accompaniment at key points. Anything to dispel the boring and prevent people from disengaging. If the video is a static shot of you seated, looking/speaking into a tripod-ed camera for 20 minutes, you may as well not record video, just audio.

(Just wanted to comment on vlogs since the subject was broached. I realize OP is more of a writer. )

 

[Mad_Roger]

Have you triend distributing them on social network group related to your article? Maybe reddit will help as well.

 

[Deleted member 314246]

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[lxskllr]

What's the best way to research subreddits and use Reddit? To be honest, I never understood it, I just read threads that Google finds when I'm looking for something else. I also will not be an active user there as a commentator or "liker", though I would definitely love to hear some comments on my content or website and answer to them.

Search reddit with a relevant term("cooking with olive oil", "linux administration", "hotrodding smart cars", whatever...), and see if there's a community for what you write about(reddit.com/r/smarthotrodding :^P). If you find something, read to get a feel of the community, and if it's suitable, post a link to your blog entry.

 

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[Red Squirrel]

Worth a shot, though Reddit tends to hate original content, they think you're spamming your own channel. But it's still worth trying. you only need a couple upvotes to hopefully keep it visible at the very least, if not get lot more. If it gets downvoted immediately, then delete it and post it again later. If something gets downvoted right away then it never gets seen. But if it gets even one upvote then people are less likely to downvote.

 

[mindless1]

In what way could I do YouTube videos without showing my face?

Talking animal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJLvCaoIEBw

or just showing your hands https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZfYF9aIO7U

 

[Red Squirrel]

AvE is great! And yeah don't think he's ever showed his face actually...

 

[Darwin333]

Get a few local viewers and give them a free blowjob for every 10 new viewers they bring in view word of mouth. Basically an even trade, your mouth for theirs.

 

[brianmanahan]

link your blog posts on related subreddits

 

[Deleted member 314246]

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[mindless1]

I watched that video and he does curse. So do I in normal conversations in English. Though isn't it forbidden in YouTube unless you jump a few hoops, make your channel unavailable to non-logged in users and such? That's just in case someone here knows, as I do see people do that, I see others avoiding it and using substitutes that I'd feel weird saying even in my head, I also read YouTube policy on it, but I still don't get it, because I still see people curse while their channel is available for non-logged in users, there's no warning, etc..

Probably has a lot to do with how overt the topic is or how offensive, if it gets complaints. If videos don't meet certain guidelines and they notice that (think of how many videos are uploaded daily), they'll demonetize the video, not display the ads. Try to censor too much and you just drive people away.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278

 

[MrSquished]

write a blog on ways to fix your teeth. then start a gofundme page.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah avoid cursing on YT, as you get demoniteized, but it's very random... and even videos that DON'T curse sometimes get demonetized. It's kind of a huge mess right now. But if you don't care too much about that, ex: you're not trying to make a living off it, then it's not a big deal to curse.