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Although overall traffic to your WordPress blog is important, never underestimate the power of your loyal subscribers.  These are the visitors who’ll stick with you through thick and thin, keeping your traffic up and providing a constant measure of your blog’s success.  From day 1 you need to value your subscribers and take care of this loyal group of visitors.  By the end of the first year, a goal of 6000 subscribers should be on the agenda for any new WordPress blog.  Here’s how to do it.

1. Be specialized! Find a niche and deliver great content.  Don’t try to write about everything because this will just put people off.  Choose something you know a lot about, for example dog training, how to build a shed, acrylic nails or how to customize vintage clothes.  If you specialize you can focus your promotional efforts on your exact target market and pull in a larger segment of that specific market.
2. Post on other forums: find forums in your niche area and use your writing to develop a following that will lead them back to your website.
3. Cross-promotion: find a blog with related content that’s not in direct competition with your own.  You can then agree to cross promote each other using RSS feeds, again supported with the Feedvertising plug-in.
4. Invite readers to subscribe: this may sound obvious, but it’s okay to ask!  At the end of your posts, add a line recommending people subscribe for more of the same great content.  Don’t forget a link to your subscription page too!
5. Show how popular you are: if people see that over 500 people are already subscribing, it’s good sign that there’s something worth coming back for.
6. Keep your blog active: you need to keep updating your content to make readers want to come back again.   You should be adding fresh content 3 to 5 times per week to keep your blog’s traffic growing and your visitors happy.
7. Feed to Twitter: some people like receiving their feeds direct to Twitter.  You can also use Twitter and other social sites to publicize your blog and spread links to your network and beyond. Twitter Feed, ShareThis and Sociable are really useful WordPress plug-ins to do this and are available on our resources and plug ins page.
8. Content is King! Finally don’t forget without great content that’s meaningful to your subscribers, they simply won’t come back for more.  It’s easy to create great content using a free website builder.  Just choose your niche, do your research and find out what people what to read about.