Assalamualaikum wbt.
"How to reach an audience through blogging?". What is blog actually? To me, blog is like an electronic pen, where we can express and share the feelings, experiences, curiosity, knowledge and even our unsatisfactory about something to the readers, which are human being of course, just like us. The words can be sharper than a sword!!
So how can we reach them through blogs, a media without an eyes, ear, heart and feeling like a human being? Actually it's not something that is impossible to be done although it might sound so. The first image will give first impression. In this case, the website will represent the writer. Try to not use too crowded layouts. It's a norm of human being, people tend to like something simple compared to something complex. Be creative, try to make the blog interesting to be read and not to make the reader feel annoyed or bored when reading it. Widgets can be added to make the website more attractive but be careful not to put too much of it as it may cause overcrowding.
The easiest way to attract readers, in my opinion is through interesting blog title. So, be creative on it. Bloggers can specified the theme of their blog such as healthy, finance, politics et cetera. Bloggers must try to use proper language which can be understood by various range of age. The issues chosen also must be appropriate, not to be too sensitive which can hurt feeling of others or worse, cause catastrophe outside such as issue on races or religious. Blog is the way to express yourself. So when writing, try to write something from your heart or point of view, and be sincere towards the readers but bloggers must be really careful when criticized to avoid misconception.
The readers normally tend to leave their comments after reading the posts. Bloggers can attract them by responding to the comments, and try not to be too criticized on them, although some of the comments might hurt your feeling. Just accept the comments and critics as a challenge to write something better in the future. Bloggers also must manage and read through their blog first before posting them to make sure the post is well-arranged, so that the readers won't have difficulty trying to understand what you try to tell them.
As conclusion, blog can be an effective way for human being to communicate as long as it is manage in a proper way. Criticized is allowed but be sure to do it in a well mannered way and not hurting others. Furthermore, if the blog is used properly, it can actually help people to widen their network of relationship or a media for them to create a better world for tomorrow.
Insyaallah.
Wassalam..