Promoting a niche blog

[lucille]

My blog is almost six months old. Traffic has increased and I still have a ton of work to do in adding content and a long list of other things.
Here's my questions. Since my blog is sort of a niche blog what are the best ways to find or connect with more people that would be interested in the content?
I looked at my most recent stats and much of the traffic is coming from a couple of pages that happened to turn up in related search terms via Google and AOL search so that was helpful and I will also probably work on improving search engine availability too.

If you want to check out the blog in question:
http://darkstyleblog.blogspot.com/

[AlmostFrugal]

Hi Lucille,

First off, you have some really beautiful pictures on your blog, and as someone who often travels from France to the US I am now tempted to check out the Queen Mary. But back to the subject at hand...

Your blog is about design, specifically design that is older fashion and dark/more romantic. So maybe you could back up a step in who you are targeting and target design blogs. That seems like less of a niche to me.

For example, I blog about frugality from the perspective of an American living in France. Well, as far as I know I'm the only person talking about this subject and the number of people interested in exactly that niche is pretty small. But there are plenty of people interested in France and plenty of people interested in frugality and a good number of those people overlap. I've been targeting the frugal segment, and it seems to be working.

So, long story short, if I were you, I would identify a larger audience and target them as well.

HTH,
Kelly

[Greg]

Hi Penny,

Nice blog! I think you're well on course to have a highly successful niche blog. Your content (quality and quantity) is already awesome, and that's like 80% of a blog's success.

Off the top of my head, here's a few things that might help you build your audience.

1. Where is your target audience hanging out? Who are they reading?

Find the forums, blogs, websites where your target audience is already hanging out.... and make yourself known there.

Every insanely useful/interesting/insightful post you make, you'll build your reputation and gain ever more readres.

Here an article I wrote with 12 tips for highly successful (forum) community marketing. The article is specifically about forums, but I think it applies to all online communities.

The take home message: Build your reputation (and win fans) by being helpful, playing by the community rules, and not spamming (constant self-promotion).

2. Add a blogroll to your sidebar to link to those relevant niche sites.

And when you do, mention it to the linked site, and maybe they'll add you to their list of related sites. (Linkbacks! Yay!)

3. A few easy tweaks to make your blog more sticky when people visit:

By making these small tweaks, you can make your blog more sticky for first time visitors. This will lead to more repeat visitors, and maybe a few fans (regular readers).

1. Add an "about me" and/or "about this blog" page.
   
   Then link to it prominently. The "about" page is the first thing I read when I visit a new blog. I want to know what to expect, and if the blog looks interesting to me, I'll add it to my feeds.
2. Move the subscribe link to the top of your sidebar.
   
   Push your feed/email subscription whenever you can.
   
   Tip: Another good place to put a call to action (ask readers to subscribe) is at the end of articles.
   
   These days, a blog's subscriber count is a proxy for how "influential" a blogger is. It's an important metric, and building a loyal readership (ie., subscribers) may be as important as getting a ton of page views. When you have more than 100 subscribers, make that stat public.
   
   Building a subscriber list takes (a) great content, (b) frequent calls to action (ask readers to subscribe), and (c) social proof (the more subscribers you get, the more easily you'll sign up future subscribers).

Hope this helps! Do let us know what works for you and what doesn't.

I'd love to hear what others have tried as well.

Best,
Greg

[Will]

Beautiful site Penny. I'm a sucker for great pictures.

To find more bloggers to connect with, try Google Blog Search, Technorati Blog Search, and Blogline search. You can find forums for designers by searching through Board Reader, Big Boards, and Board Tracker.

Like Kelly pointed out, you may want to try a larger set of keywords beyond just "dark design." What are some specific design styles that are traditionally darker in tone?

You can also try posting one of your pictures on Notcot. A lot of designers hang out there.

[lucille]

Thanks everyone for the good ideas and leads! I already implemented a few. I worked in marketing and online design for years but sometimes the whole blog world reminds me how different they are.