Boost Blog Viewers with Facebook Groups.

I found something that increased the visitors to my blog over 400%. Full disclaimer though, my numbers were pretty low before that!! This is because, If you are like me, and stats suggest that’s about 90% of us out there who have tried blogging for a hobby, your motivation goes up and down as does your posting frequency.

I started this website back in April 2019 as a place to hold a privacy policy for the educational apps and games i make.

Later i thought i would add to it, or share some of the knowledge and tips i have gained after teaching in Asia, the vast majority of those in Hong Kong, over the last thirteen or so years. Well, despite taking a year off to travel and do just that life got in the way, turns out Penang in Malaysia is a great place to live, prehaps to good as I let my work ethic drift.

Now i find myself wanting to pick up the pace again, and only a month or so into posting regularly, mainly for me personally, but its always nice to get comments (hint hint), I stumbled on something some of you may have already found out or know, but it was so useful for me as a new blog to drive up my motivation and viewing figures i thought it would be wrong not to share it.

My website is primarily an Education based website, with tips and resources for teaches of English and some STEM ( science) lessons. It also has Education apps on it that draw most of my views. It was getting about 10 to 30 views a day from Google search and people coming from inside the apps. So very small and very steady.

I started adding some of the content I already have from my teaching in December 2019 and it still remained pretty steady. Then i read online, buried in the middle of a list of 50 things all blogs or new blogs should do.

Join relevant Facebook groups

Simple enough, I thought and much easier than figuring out SEO and Keywords for my small site (even though i do know a little about SEO and ASO from dealing with Google PlayStore and Itunes)

So i did, i searched in Facebook for some ESL (English as Second Language and TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) groups and applied to join.

For my niche they often have questions to answer, so you have to wait for an Admin to approve, and then some times wait for your post to be approved. However, what you have just done, and what i discovered to my amazement, was place your content right in front of the eyes of people who have actually been proactive to search it out.

I did this over night, so when i woke up the next morning instead of the usual 13 people visiting my site, it had turned into over 300, just on that one Facebook post. It continued, the next day 500 views, again coming from one little post i had put into a like minded group.

I have got a full months views in two days, and of course i am now sorting through the resources and articles to see what else might drive traffic to me, and of course be useful to those groups.

After 8 months of stagnation, seeing a jump in visitors is certainly good for motivation, and hopefully i have enough good content that keeps people coming , and coming back.

Of course, if you have monetized the site, then all these extra eyes, and clicks will start to add up. I am not that worried about making money yet as its a very, very new site. At some point though i would like to think it may provide a revenue stream. Just to show you the difference a boost like this makes the chart is below, i have left out my RPM, mainly because frankly its embarrassing, but also because i think its not allowed to share it?

I have some tips from my vast experience (the last 2 days worth :P) Which worked for me, so hopefully work for you as well.

• Search out groups in your niche on Facebook and apply to join.
• Choose both big ones and small ones as in big ones your content can go down the post list pretty quick, it should stay closer to the top in the smaller groups
• Don’t spam the groups, i am going to post one blog post, or one resource a day, group owners don’t like someone who comes in and takes over.
• Be helpful in the group and offer advice, it is a valuable resource and everyone in there could be a potential visitor. That and its a nice thing to do.
• Keep it relevant, post information that will be useful to the group.
• Follow the groups rules, you want to stay part of it don’t you!
• Consider starting your own group on Facebook. I just have, and got my first member as i was writing this! Feel free to join if you have an interest in teaching.
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/2850937491634158/?source_id=1069038656575588
• Say thank you when people comment of Facebook, it shows manners, and may keep your post closer to the top with the activity as well.

There are likely lots of other tips, and if you have any please share them below. We are all in this together!