People tend to think of blogs today the way that websites were thought of ten years ago: “All I have to do is get a site up and I’ll instantly get tons of traffic and my business will take off.” That was the case for a brief time with websites, but it’s no longer the case with blogs.

Here are 13 practical ways you can grow the readership of your blog to help it go viral:

1. First determine why you’re blogging - Who is your audience? What are your goals? What are your readers interested in? If you create compelling content for readers, readers will naturally come back to your blog to read more.

2. Do basic research - Go to Technorati and search for keywords related to your target audience and the topics you want to focus on. While there, try to answer these questions: Who are the influential bloggers in your space? Who is successful at getting in front of the readers you want to get in front of?Technorati is a great resource for this because it ranks recent blog posts based on their “authority,” or how many people link to that blog. High-ranking blogs are the ones you’ll want to check out. See what they write about, what people comment about… and while you’re at it, also note any posts you particularly like, because later you can link posts you write to those posts, which might generate return traffic through track backs.

3. Avoid sub domains - Never set up a blog under a sub-domain. Install your blog on your own domain as a sub-page, or if you don’t have a domain, get one.If you’re using Blogger as your blog platform, I recommend switching to WordPress. The reason is that while Blogger is free, your blog will be a sub-domain of Blogger (like myblogwentviral.blogspot.com), and people that visit your blog may never find your website.

4. Create a content schedule - Determine a steady schedule for how you’ll post, and plan ahead to create structure around your workload. If you plan to post on Tuesdays and Fridays, for example, put it on your calendar. While you’re at it, take the time to determine what topics you’ll cover on those days.

Whether you start with a schedule of one, two, or a dozen blog posts a week, stay on that schedule. The more scheduled and consistent your blog postings are, the better. You can also start out with occasional posts, but only if those posts are extremely thought-provoking – make sure each of those posts is a home run.If you plan on blogging frequently, stick to that plan. If you post regularly and then drift away for a few weeks, your readers will also quickly drift away. Your posting schedule in effect creates an expectation on the part of your readers (“Hey, it’s Tuesday, let’s see what she has to say today”) so make sure you meet that expectation. Don’t disappoint your audience.

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