Sex After Age 70 Is Increasing

By Mark Stibich, PhD

Updated September 08, 2019

Mark Bowden / Vetta / Getty Images

Is sex for older adults just as common, and just as satisfying, as it is for younger adults? In the past, not much research in this area existed. People assumed that, as people got older, sex became a thing of the past. Now, we know that people aged 70 and beyond are reporting having active, fulfilling sex lives.

Research on Sex After Age 70

Since 1970, researchers in Sweden have been surveying people over the age of 70 about their sex lives. One very interesting thing about the Swedish study is that we can compare this data from the 1970s to data we have today.

In 1971, only 52 percent of married men aged 70 and up reported that they were still sexually active. In more recent research, that figure increased to 68 percent.

Similarly, just 38 percent of married women over the age of 70 reported being sexually active in 1971, compared to 56 percent quoted in more recent research.

For unmarried older adults, there has been a similar increase in reported instances of sexual activity. 30 percent of single men and less than 1 percent of single women reported being sexually active in the context of that 1971 study. Now, 30 percent of single men and 12 percent of single women report that they are still having sex.

How Much Sex Are They Really Having?

Older adults are having more sex than you might think. Of all the sexually active older adults, 25 percent report having sex at least once a week (compared with 10 percent in the 1970s). Not only that, but at least half of the men and women said their relationships were “very happy.”

Which Older Adults Are More Likely to Be Sexually Active?

A further review of the data found these factors were most associated with being sexually active at age 70:

• Positive attitude toward sexuality
• Being married or cohabitating
• Having a very happy relationship
• Having a partner who was physically and mentally healthy
• Good physical and mental health
• Getting good sleep
• Drinking alcohol more than three times per week

At age 70, the study found people were less likely to be still sexually active if their partner was older or if they had diabetes, coronary heart disease, or depression.

Why Might Older Adults Be Having More Sex?

• People are living longer and are healthier. The average 70-year-old today is healthier than the average 70-year-old in 1970 and has a longer life expectancy.
• Sexual dysfunctions are readily treated. Men have access to a number of medications (like Viagra) to treat erectile dysfunction.
• The culture has changed. The expectations of older adults are different from what they were in the 1970s.

A Word From Verywell

You have a better chance than ever to enjoy sex long into your older years. Sex doesn't end at age 70, and the majority of those who reach that age in good health and in a relationship continue to have sex. Attitudes towards sex have changed over the past decades, and more people are entering older age expecting to continue to enjoy sex.

What Can You Expect From Your Sex Life as You Age?

10 Simple Steps to Increase Your Life Expectancy

By Mark Stibich, PhD

Updated November 04, 2019

Life expectancy can be increased with simple steps and changes. This guide will help you find ways to increase your life expectancy, improve your health, and feel great as you age. Let's start with the easiest: increase your life expectancy with sunlight.

1

Go Outside for a Longer Life Expectancy

Paul Bradbury / Getty Images

Life expectancy can be increased simply by going outside. See, what happens when you go outside is that your skin gets exposed to sunlight. That exposure triggers cells in your skin to produce vitamin D. This vitamin (really a prohormone, but let's not worry about that here) is essential for bone health and is turning out to be important in depression, heart disease, diabetes, and just about everything.

Some estimate that 50% of adults have low levels of vitamin D because we simply don't get outside that much (sitting by a window doesn't count, the glass filters too much of the sunlight). This is a shame because maintaining vitamin D levels has to be the easiest and cheapest way to improve your health and increase your life expectancy.

Getting outside for just 15 minutes a day and exposing your hands and face to sunlight is enough to maintain vitamin D levels in most cases.

If you are concerned about your vitamin D levels, your doctor can order a simple blood test that will tell you if your levels are low. If for some reason you can't get outside enough, there are vitamin D supplements that you can take (but getting outside is a better option, if you can).

Elderly people need to pay special attention to their vitamin D levels. If you are a caregiver, be sure to assist your loved one in getting outside just a little bit every day. Not only will with improve vitamin D levels, but it could also improve sleep because sunlight also regulates another hormone in the body called melatonin that controls your sleep cycle.

10 Ways You Might Be Sabotaging Your Health

2

Hang Out With Friends

Life expectancy can be increased by just hanging out with your friends and family. The more connected someone is, the better their overall health. Having positive relationships with a spouse, friends, and family is the best way to be connected.

We are not sure why relationships play a role in health and life expectancy. It could be that people in positive relationships are less likely to take on risky behaviors and are more likely to take care of themselves. It could be that having people around you reduces the impact of stress on your health.

People who are engaged in "meaningful" relationships have better health and better life expectancies.

One way of improving your relationships with people is to get in the habit of telling good stories. Stories are how we communicate with one another, and telling a good story strengthens communications. I can't count the number of times I've been on the phone with someone and was just talking about the weather or giving a dry update on my family. Instead, I should be telling a story about a funny thing my kids did or something crazy that happened at work. Stories keep relationships alive.

So make more time for friends and family. Go do things together (create stories together), and make a real effort to improve your communication with them (whether by e-mail, phone or in person) by having a good story always ready for the telling.

3

Improve Life Expectancy With Daily Exercise

Improve your life expectancy with a commitment to daily exercise. Why daily? Well, after carefully considering all the research and ​exercise recommendations out there and knowing a bit about how people form habits, I have to conclude that a daily exercise commitment is a great way to improve your life expectancy, your health, and your energy level. Here's why:

A study showed that people who exercise vigorously for around 3 hours a week had DNA and cells that were 9 years younger than nonexercisers. Three hours a week is a little more than 30 minutes a day.

Forget the study, though. What I know (from personal experience and from observing others) is that if you go more than 2 days without exercising, you are in grave danger of quitting your routine. Somehow it is way too easy to slip from three days of nonexercise to three weeks of nonexercise to three months of nonexercise.

The easiest way to create an exercise habit is through daily repetition. When you promise yourself to exercise daily, you may skip a day but then get back on the program the following day. If you are exercising three times a week and, say, skip Friday, then you would have gone from Wednesday to Monday without exercising – a total of 4 days with no exercise (very dangerous, from a habit-building perspective). For life expectancy, it is more important that you exercise year after year than go through fits and starts of intense exercise followed by no exercise.

The other reason I feel that daily exercise is important is that daily exercise will help improve your sleep and your energy level. It is important to just rev up your whole body each day. Remember, daily exercise doesn't have to mean going to the gym every day. Home exercises, such as yoga, stretching, free weights and more, can be incredibly effective.

4

Floss Daily for a Longer Life Expectancy

The fact that flossing daily can extend life expectancy falls in the weird-but-true category.

Flossing does two things: it prevents gum disease (that's rather obvious), and it prevents heart disease (not so obvious). Preventing both of these together is what adds years to your life.

When you floss, you help prevent your gums from becoming inflamed. That's a good thing. What is happening when your gums are inflamed is that you have a chronic bacterial infection in your mouth. This harms your arteries through two mechanisms: the bacteria find their way into your arteries and hang out (causing plaques), and your body mounts an immune response to the bacteria in your mouth, causing inflammation (which in turn can cause your arteries to narrow). This makes it hard for your heart to do its job and can lead to heart disease.

Facts About Gum Disease That May Surprise You

There is some debate about how many years you can gain with heart disease. Dr. Perls says 1.5 years, while Dr. Roizen says 6 years. Both of these doctors are gerontologists (aging docs) and have popular books on aging and life expectancy (see reviews: Living To 100, RealAge and You! Staying Young). Who is right? It doesn't matter. Flossing is good for your gums and good for your heart, so we should all just do it.

Of course, this is easier said than done. How do you get into a solid flossing habit? First, you need to make sure you have some floss. There are tons of different kinds of floss (flavored, unflavored, strings, ribbons and on and on). Pick some and give them a try. Next, you have to remember. Put your floss on top of your toothpaste. Hard to forget that way. Then just do it. You already have a habit of brushing your teeth at least twice daily (right? — please say yes), so just anchor your flossing habit to that.

5

More Sex for a Longer Life Expectancy

Your life expectancy may be increased by having more sex.

In one study, men with a high frequency of orgasms showed a 50% reduction in mortality.

This is good news, especially because issues around sex and aging are being taken more and more seriously by the medical community.

Why sex should be linked to life expectancy is something of a mystery. Of course, it could be that healthier people are more likely to have more sex and that the findings linking sex to life expectancy are reflecting this, but I think there is more to it.

We have seen elsewhere that having good relationships and being positive are linked to longer life expectancies. Maybe sex is a market for good, positive relationships. Of course, there could be a direct health benefit as well: sex triggers all sorts of endorphins and hormones in the body. Maybe these help with healthy aging and increasing life expectancy.

But who really cares about the reason? The simple fact is that having more sex is healthy. 

How Sex Can Improve Life Expectancy

6

Be Like A Vegetarian for Your Life Expectancy

Life expectancy can be linked to three factors that vegetarians excel at fewer bad fats, more antioxidants, and lower weight. Before we go into how being a vegetarian can help your life expectancy, though, we have to define what we mean by a vegetarian.

There are some vegetarians who are "junk food vegetarians." These types of vegetarians eat cheese pizzas and ice cream all day long. That is not good for health or life expectancy. What we mean is the person who is eating lots of vegetables prepared in healthy fats (such as olive oil) while limiting animal products, such as cheese and cream. We'll call this type of vegetarian a "whole foods vegetarian."

The leading cause of death and the number one shortener of life expectancy in the U.S. is heart disease. As your heart ages, there can be a build of gunk in your arteries and your arteries themselves can become harder. This causes your blood pressure to rise and your heart to work harder, leaving you at risk for heart disease. Vegetarians (whole foods vegetarians) have some of the best arteries around because eating healthy vegetables avoids bad fats and other unhealthy foods.

People who eat lots of vegetables also take in lots of antioxidants.

Antioxidants help your body repair some of the damage caused by aging. The more plants you eat (and the greater variety) the more raw materials your body has to make repairs. 

Finally, vegetables simply fill you up with very few calories (if prepared without creams, butter or cheese). A healthy vegetarian diet should help maintain or lose weight. A healthy weight is tied to a longer life expectancy.

So be more like a vegetarian to increase your life expectancy and live healthier.

Top 10 Anti-Aging Foods to Fit Into Your Diet

7

Destress for a Longer Life Expectancy

Life expectancy can be messed up by stress in two major ways. The first way is through the direct, unhealthy effects of stress on your body in the long term. The second way stress may shorten your life expectancy is through the negative behaviors that being stressed triggers. These behaviors include comfort eating and smoking. Learn to relax through de-stressing techniques or meditation to keep your life expectancy up where it should be.

Stress has been linked to dozens of health conditions, including heart disease or cancer.

Stress has also been linked (no surprise) to feeling irritable and not sleeping well. By focusing on stress, you can improve your quality of life right now while improving your long-term health and life expectancy too. That's a pretty good deal.

You can de-stress through a wide range of stress reduction techniques. My personal favorite is called the "relaxation response." This is a scientifically proven breathing technique that will help train your body not to respond to the stressful events in your life.

My other more long-term relaxation technique is meditation. By learning how to meditate, you not only calm your body, but you begin to train your mind. This is great for mental fitness, concentration, and (of course) relaxation.

8

Extend Your Life Expectancy Through Screenings and Tests

Improving your life expectancy through medical tests and health screenings is certainly not one of the "fun ways to live longer," but it is, without a doubt, one of the most effective ways to add healthy years on to your life.

Medical tests and screenings can help treat diseases early, when they are more treatable, and extend life expectancy even with an illness or disease.

Of course, the challenge is figuring out what tests to take when. Only your doctor can really tell you 100% (every individual is different in terms of risk factors and family history).

I like to think of health screenings as part of a disease prevention program. Preventing diseases (or catching them early) is probably the single best way to add years to your life expectancy. Make a plan today to prevent disease, get everything checked and feel good that you are doing everything you can for a longer life expectancy.

9

Turn Off Your TV for a Longer Life Expectancy

If life expectancy and television watching aren't linked, I'd be shocked. Of course, I can't prove that TV and life expectancy are linked (no one has done a study comparing the life expectancy of TV-watchers and non-watchers, probably because they can't find enough non-watchers for a good study). I really do think that cutting back on television watching would improve most people's health and (therefore) increase their life expectancy. Here are ​a couple of reasons:

• Watching TV makes you inactive. You just sit there burning as few calories as possible, which could lead to weight problems.
• TV makes you eat more junk food. People who are watching TV eat more than those who don't. It's a fact.
• TV makes you antisocial. You are at home, zoned in, instead of talking with real people, face-to-face.
• TV is stressful. The news and many shows are filled with stressful stories. Avoid these, and you may feel things are not so bad after all.
• TV keeps you from doing other things. This is the big one for me. The average person watches something like four hours of TV every day. That is 28 hours a week or more than 1,400 hours a year. If we all just put that time ​into something else (exercise, volunteering, talking with our children), think of what a different world it would be.

Of course, I can't tell you how many years of life you will gain if you quit watching TV (it depends on your weight and what you do with the extra time), but I can tell you that you will gain back around 1,400 hours each year (on average).

10

Avoiding Risks Increases Life Expectancy

Life expectancy can be protected by making sure that you don't take any unnecessary risks. For young people, the biggest causes of death aren't diseases or age-related problems.

The most common causes of death for young people are accidents, injuries, and violence.

When you add certain behaviors (such as smoking) to that list (which shortens life expectancy by up to 14 years), you get a list of things to avoid to protect your life expectancy.

Here's the list (I know, it sounds like nagging, but do these things anyway): wear your seat belt, drive defensively, avoid situations that may lead to injury, avoid risky sex, avoid violent situations, don't smoke (or quit smoking if you do smoke) and maintain a healthy weight.

If you can do those things, then you are already increasing your life expectancy. Focus on avoiding obvious risks and dangers. Your body is pretty amazing and will keep going for a long time as long as you keep it out of trouble.

How Lifestyle and Habits Affect Biological Aging

10 Daily Habits You Didn't Know Sabotage Your Health

By Amy Morin, LCSW

Updated September 02, 2019

Medically reviewed by Richard N. Fogoros, MD on October 05, 2017

While most people know that smoking is bad for your health and eating too much junk food isn’t good for the waistline, there are many other subtle bad habits that can also sabotage your life.

Some of these habits can be hard to recognize, especially if they're part of your normal routine. You won’t notice any harmful effects right away. But over time they will take a serious toll on your relationships, physical health, and psychological well-being. See if you do any of these on a consistent basis.

1

Rehashing Stressful Events

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

Thinking about a stressful event from your past—whether it was five years ago or five minutes ago—isn’t good for your psychological well-being.

A 2017 study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy found that ruminating (compulsively focusing on one's distress as opposed to figuring out solutions) leads to increased depressive symptoms. The more people thought about a stressful event, the more likely they were to grow depressed. Researchers found that decreasing rumination helped alleviate depressed mood.

Be aware of how much time you spend thinking about the stressful events in your life. Rather than rehash things you can’t change, commit to putting your energy into more worthwhile causes—like planning for the future or enjoying the moment.

2

Venting to Your Friends

Along similar lines, you might think that calling a friend to complain about your bad day helps release pent up negative emotions. But rather than releasing bad feelings, studies show venting is more likely to amplify your negative emotions.

A 2011 study published in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology found a link between co-rumination (the behavior in which a peer relationship focused on negatively oriented conversations) and depression. Children who tend to rehash their problems with peers were more likely to be diagnosed with depression.

Of course, venting isn’t just bad for kids. A 2008 study published in Hormones and Behavior found that talking about problems with friends increased stress hormone levels in women.

So while you may think that talking about your problems with friends reduces stress, rehashing your hardships may actually be increasing your negative emotions and keeping you stuck in a bad mood.

3

Using Self-Criticism

Whether you call yourself stupid every time you make a mistake or you point out every flaw you see when you pass a mirror, harsh self-criticism can be a lifelong habit.

Beating yourself up and putting yourself down is bad for your mental health. A 2014 study published in Personality and Individual Differences found that harsh self-criticism increases depressive symptoms.

Self-compassion, on the other hand, has been linked to greater psychological health and resilience.

Changing the way you think could help you to feel better. It’s a tough habit to break, but with a concerted effort, you can learn to develop a kinder inner dialogue.

4

Mindlessly Scrolling Through Social Media

Whether you’re scrolling through Facebook or you enjoy playing on Pinterest, spending time on social media may be bad for your mental health.

Ironically, studies have found that social media leads to feelings of isolation. The more time people spend on social media sites, the more isolated they perceived themselves to be. And social isolation is bad for your mental and physical well-being.

Whether it’s a vacation photo or a picture of a new car, looking at other people’s social media posts may also cause you to conclude your life doesn’t measure up to your friend’s lives. And research shows envying your friends on social media can increase your risk of depression.

Additionally, studies show most people think social media will help them feel better—so they keep going back for more. But, in reality, researchers have found time spent on social media decreases people’s moods.

Instead of spending hours scrolling through social media, you’re better off investing your time and energy into in-person interactions. Have lunch with a friend, call someone on the phone, or schedule a dinner with your extended family. Real-life social interactions can greatly improve your well-being.

5

Staying Up Late

You might think pushing off bedtime for another 30 minutes will help you accomplish a few more tasks before bed. And maybe you think you’ll still get plenty of rest because you’ll sleep in a little later tomorrow.

But studies show that when you sleep might be almost as important as how much you sleep. Staying up late and sleeping later in the morning may increase the chances that you’ll make poor health decisions throughout the day.

A 2016 study published in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that late sleep timing was associated with higher fast-food consumption and lower vegetable intake, especially among men. In addition, people who went to bed later and slept later were less likely to get physical activity.

Going to bed at a reasonable hour and getting up early may be hard to get used to at first if you’re a night owl. But over time, you’ll adjust to your new schedule and it could help you make healthier decisions for yourself throughout the day.

6

Spending Money

While an impulse purchase at the grocery store or late night online shopping may make you feel better for a moment, blowing your budget may have harmful effects in the long-term. And the effects may expand beyond the confines of your bank account.

A 2013 study published in Clinical Psychology Review found a correlation between mental illness and financial problems. Researchers concluded the likelihood of having a mental health problem is three times higher among people who have debt.

There was even a higher link between suicide and debt. People who complete suicide are eight times more likely to be in debt.

Of course, a correlational study doesn’t prove causation. Does debt contribute to mental illness? Or does mental illness contribute to debt? No one knows for sure. But what is certain is that debt can lead to high levels of stress. And too much stress can be bad for your health.

So take control of your finances by creating a budget. Getting your finances in order—and spending within your limits—could have a positive impact on your overall life satisfaction.

7

Watching TV

While most people know that becoming a couch potato is bad for your body, research shows watching too much TV is also bad for your brain.

A 2016 study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that high television viewing and low physical activity in early adulthood was associated with worse midlife executive function and processing speed in midlife.

Researchers found that people who averaged more than 3 hours of TV per day for 25 years performed poorly on cognitive tests compared to people who watched less TV.

Exchanging TV time for physical activity could be key to brain health. So rather than plopping on the couch after a hard day at the office, go for a walk or hit the gym. It’ll be good for your body as well as your brain.

8

Skipping Meals

Whether you dash out the door without eating breakfast or you skip lunch in hopes of trimming your waistline, skipping meals could be more harmful than you might think.

A 2007 study published in Metabolism found that skipping a meal didn’t mean fewer calories. Most people eat more at the next meal to make up for the meal they skipped.

Missing a meal created potentially risky metabolic changes. After skipping a meal, people experienced elevated fasting glucose levels and a delayed insulin response—conditions that could eventually lead to diabetes.

Make time for meals and stick to a healthy diet. Eating at regular intervals can help you stay energized and focused throughout the day, while also helping you to maintain a healthy body weight.

9

Eating When You’re Not Hungry

There are many reasons you might reach for a snack or serve yourself a second portion when you’re not actually hungry. Emotional eating, nighttime eating, or overdoing it at social events are just a few reasons you might eat more than you need.

Consuming extra calories may cause you to become overweight. And excess weight increases the risk of a variety of health problems such as:

• Type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Heart disease and strokes
• Osteoarthritis
• Sleep apnea
• Certain types of cancers
• Kidney disease

To maintain a healthy weight, it’s important to use food to fuel your body, rather than to use it as a form of entertainment or stress reduction. Pay attention to times when eating doesn’t stem from biological hunger.

Try going for a walk, engaging in a leisure activity, or meditating as a way to cope with uncomfortable feelings or as a way to calm your body. Reducing your caloric intake could help you live a longer, healthier life.

10

Sitting Too Much

If you work in an office setting, there’s a good chance you spend a lot of time sitting. And sitting for prolonged periods can be bad for your health.

Sedentary behaviors have been associated with an increased risk of physical health issues such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Spending too much time in the office chair may also be bad for your mental health. Studies show people who sit too much are at a higher risk of depression.

Getting at least one hour of vigorous activity each day can help counter the effects of too much sitting. Try moving around for a few minutes every half hour to keep your body and your mind in better shape.

20 Ways To Get More Traffic to Your Blog

20 Ways To Get More Traffic to Your Blog

Note: Get a free course at the end of the article.

Increasing readership of your blog is both art and science. Take a look at these 20 quick ways you can drive traffic and attract the audience you want.

Every business owner who’s ever hosted a blog has experienced the frustration of trying to gain readership. Though we’d all like it if readers just magically came to us, the reality is, it takes some work to build an audience.

It’s easy to get frustrated and just give up on blogging, but once you experience the benefits, you’ll understand that your blog can have a tremendous impact on your business by attracting traffic to your site, helping you build a social media audience and making an impression on prospects and clients alike.

Following are 20 proven strategies that can help you boost readership and increase traffic to your blog.

1. Write more.

Studies show that the more often you update your blog, the more traffic it will receive. Google gives higher priority to websites with fresh content, so if you want to get more attention from the search engines, update your blog at least twice a week.

2. Promote with social media.

Share each new blog post across your social media networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. If you spend time cultivating your networks and share great content, social media sites can become some of your top traffic sources.

3. Write better titles.

The titles for your blog posts are almost more important than the content itself. That’s because titles help potential readers decide whether they should click and read more. Pay attention to the article titles you see on magazine covers. They entice readers with promises and solutions. When you do the same, your readership will increase.

4. Know your niche.

While you may be interested in sea life, exotic travel destinations, Little League baseball and weight loss, you’ll confuse your audience if your content doesn’t follow a clear theme. Decide who your target audience is, what they want to read and what specific messages you want to convey.

5. Include photos.

Studies have shown that photos in blog posts boost readership. Not only does a photo make the post more visually appealing, but you can also include keywords in the Alt Image tag on the photo, boosting search engine optimization (SEO) for your site. Keep in mind that you can’t just pull any photo from Google because you risk violating copyright laws. Instead, locate royalty-free images from a site like Unsplash.com.

6. Incorporate keywords.

Speaking of SEO, keywords are at the heart of SEO. One of the easiest ways to generate more traffic to your website is to ensure that every page on your site has a keyword strategy. So for each blog post you write, choose one key phrase that you believe readers would use to find that post. Next, incorporate that phrase into the title of the post, the headline on the page, within the content on the page at least two times, in a featured image on the page and also as part of the page link. Keyword concentration helps Google understand what that page is about, which can ultimately lead to more traffic from the search engines.

7. Incorporate links.

When you mention another company’s product or service in a blog post, include a link to that company’s page. Not only does Google like to see outbound links on your site, the company you mention may also notice your post and link back to you. Plus, readers appreciate it when you provide resources to make it easier for them to find the things they’re looking for.

8. Add social sharing buttons.

At the top and bottom of your blog posts, make sure you include social sharing buttons for Twitter, LinkedIn and the other major social networks. Make it easy for readers to spread the word.

9. Retweet past content.

We aren’t all looking at Twitter at the same time, so when you share a new blog post link, the majority of your fan base won’t see it the first time. Repeat your tweets, and don’t be afraid to share past content. Readers don’t care when it was written as long as it’s still relevant.

10. Invite guest contributors.

When others write for your blog, you add more content that you didn’t have to write yourself. As a bonus, those contributors will also share with their networks and may ask you to write for them, opening up new readership avenues for you.

11. Add video.

Google owns YouTube, which is one of the many reasons that videos can drive more traffic to your site. Supplement the written content on your blog with short videos that are informative and entertaining.

12. Invest in promotion.

If you believe your audience is spending time on Facebook, occasionally invest in sponsored posts. For as little as $10, you can “Boost” a post and increase its reach significantly.

13. Conduct give-away events.

Create fun theme days such as “Free Book Fridays” where your readers can win a prize by submitting a comment or sharing your link via social media. You can provide prizes yourself or invite companies to donate or sponsor these promotions.

14. Write guest posts.

Locate other blogs that reach your target audience, and offer to contribute guest blog posts. If the site has a substantial audience, you can bet that readers will in turn want to engage with more of your content.

15. Cross-promote to your mailing list.

Instead of writing all new content for your electronic newsletter, share the first paragraph from several recent blog posts and include a link to continue reading on the site. Not everyone is taking the time to read your blog each week, so this will help get your subscribers invested in your blog.

In addition to the tips above, the following smart strategies will also help increase readership:

16. Make your content easy to read by using plenty of subheads, bullets and numbered lists.

17. Promote your blog in your email signature and your bio in any online profiles.

18. Make it easy for blog visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed.

19. Invite readers to leave a comment, then respond and let them know you’re engaged.

20. Finally, have fun with your blog. If it feels like drudgery, your readers will notice. But if you enjoy producing the content, that will come across and have a tremendous impact on your success.

You can use this cheatsheet which I personally use Here!