It's really common for bloggers to see their readership plateau after the first exciting couple of months of writing. Often, once you've reached out to everyone you know directly, you begin to realise just how tricky it is to find a wider audience. But these are just the normal growing pains of blogging - here are some tips to help you through them.

Give to the community 

The best way to establish yourself as a separate entity is to already have a recognisable name in the community you're reaching out to. Many bloggers tend to neglect contributions to their community hangout spaces once they're established. The understandable reason for this is that it can take too much time to develop your own blog and keep up with sharing sympathetic content across other blogs and message boards. But actually you should try to spend more time supporting the wider community and sharing content across other mediums than you do your own blog, especially early on it your career.

Respond to your readership 

Engaging with readers is hardly a revolutionary idea, but it's surprising how many bloggers neglect the basics of responding to questions, and even creating content based on reader's requests. Readers that feel acknowledged are much more likely to introduce others to your site, and it's also a great way of making sure you have your finger on the pulse when it comes to what people are talking about at the moment. Obviously it can be disheartening to engage with comments that are aggressively negative - the internet certainly breeds a lot of these - but the chances are you'll receive plenty of feedback that you can relate to as well, so make sure to let readers know you appreciate their time.

Keep up with email verification 

There are some more tedious areas of running a blog that many of us neglect. But you can really suffer for putting off your chores. A great example of this is having a subscriber list cluttered with false email addresses. Not only does it mean you're not reaching the people you think you are, but it also means you could be penalised by search engine providers. A simple solution is to implement real time email verification - preventing non-authentic addresses from spoiling things.

Ultimately blogging successfully is all about being authentic, and striking a chord with your community. But these tips might just help you get through those frustrating early stages, when you're still searching for recognition.