15 Ways to Hook Readers into Your Blog
This post is based on Episode 35 of the ProBlogger podcast.
With so many blogs (not to mention all other types of sites), you only have a few seconds to convince a first-time reader that yours is worth going back to.
How you do that? By quickly linking them to the design and content of your blog. And here are 15 ways you can do it.
1. Provide ways to subscribe, track, and connect people
You might think this is so obvious it isn’t even worth mentioning. But while there are so many options – email, RSS feeds, social media, and so on – you’ll be amazed how many bloggers don’t offer their readers an easy way to keep in touch.
The first thing you should do is figure out which option works best. I prefer email simply because it gives me complete control. All you have to do is look at what is currently happening to Facebook in Australia to see what can happen if you rely on a platform that you use Not Control.
Once you’ve decided which method is best for you, incorporate it into your blog design as much as possible. While we have links to our various social media channels on our blogs, we have several places where we ask about subscribers – in popups, in our design, and even at the bottom of our blog posts.
Which is a nice introduction to my next point.
2. Ask people to subscribe to your content
One of the best places to ask your readers to subscribe is to read your content. This is equivalent to casual discussion during a conversation, and the chances are people will be more than willing to agree – especially if you’ve only provided them with useful content.
When Twitter first hit the market, we made a number of usage posts at the Digital Photography School. And it was the perfect place to ask people to follow us. “We told you all about it on Twitter. Why don’t you try it yourself? You can start by following us and see how we use it. “
3. Make a great first impression with your blog
When people first come to your blog, they want to know what it is about and if it is relevant to them. If they can’t figure it out, they’ll move on quickly.
And I mean quickly, like in a matter of seconds.
So make sure they can quickly get this information from the design, title, tagline, categories, and navigation areas of your blog.
Speaking of design …
4. Pay attention to the design of your blog
While your content will ultimately cause your readers to keep coming back to your blog, design is also important. People will be quick to judge whether your blog is professional, relevant, and branded to them based on what they see.
And like I said before, if you don’t like what you see, you will move on quickly.
So make sure your blog is easy on the eye. Use images, headings, sub-headings, and formatting to make your posts look inviting. Keep your paragraphs relatively short so that you don’t hit a wall of text.
And don’t forget that these people read your blog on mobile. How does it look on your phone? Are the images too big, forcing people to scroll through pages to get to your content? Or is the balance between text, images and spaces just right?
5. Build up anticipation
Think about the blogs that you have subscribed to or that you follow on social media. Do you remember why you signed up in the first place? They probably provided great content and you didn’t want to risk missing out on any more of it.
A great way to build that sense of anticipation on your blog is to write a series of posts that address a specific topic. And at the end of each one explain what you will cover in the next post. There’s a good chance your readers will come back and / or sign up so they don’t miss out on what to cover next.
Another option is to have some sort of post that gets published on a regular basis. For example, every Friday at the digital photography school we challenge our readers: “Go away and take a picture on this subject. Then come back and share it. “We have some readers who come back every week to read these posts (and just these posts).
6. Link back to previous posts
If a reader has just read your post on a particular topic, they would probably like to read more about it. So if you have contributed to this topic in the past, be sure to provide a link on these topics. The more useful the content on your blog, the more likely it is that they will subscribe to it.
You can link to these articles as part of the conversation with your reader. Or, you can create a “Further Reading” section at the end of your posts that includes a list of links. There are even tools and plugins that can do this for you automatically and pull other posts in the same category or even your most popular posts.
7. Create a sneeze page
If you have a lot of posts on a particular topic, consider making a sneeze page for that topic.
On a sneeze page, you’ll find a list of all of the posts (or perhaps the most popular ones) dealing with that particular topic. It’s kind of a one-stop shop for newcomers that brings all the information they need together in one place like ours Digital photography tips and tutorials for beginners Page on Digital Photography School.
But while it can be great for your readers, it can be great for you too. Chances are you’ve got a lot of great content buried deep in your archives that people may not know about. On a sneeze page, you can bring these posts back to the surface, so to speak.
8. Use social evidence
Just as people are more likely to consider eating at a restaurant that is full of diners, if a lot of people comment on your posts and follow you on social media, people are more likely to read your blog.
So make sure you see how many comments each post has, how many followers you have on Facebook, and how many people have subscribed to your emails. And if you’re still building your numbers, try to highlight the interaction you get.
Speaking of interaction …
9. Encourage people to interact
It’s much more likely that people will return to your blog after they’ve interacted in any way, whether they’re leaving a comment, taking a survey, or entering a competition.
So make sure you encourage people to interact at every opportunity. At the end of your posts, ask your readers what they think about the topic or idea you came up with. WordPress has a number of plugins that you can install to let people know when someone has replied to a comment.
And of course you should respond to any comments too.
10. Get personal
People are more likely to bond with you if they see you as a person rather than a brand. So try to be as personal as possible.
It can be as easy as taking a photo of yourself, which I do a lot with ProBlogger. But you can also share personal stories about yourself and show that you are just as human as your readers.
You can go a step further and create podcasts or videos so people can hear your voice and even see you “live”.
11. Remove the date from old posts
Some people judge a post by how old it is and find that it cannot possibly be useful if it is not relatively current.
And in some cases they are right. There is a lot of talk in ProBlogger about blogging tools and techniques, and what worked a year ago may not work as well (if at all) today. It is therefore important to show when these posts were made.
However, in the Digital Photography School we often talk about concepts that never change. I’m still referring to a post about aperture that I wrote over a decade ago.
If you have similar evergreen posts, you might want to consider hiding them once they’re written so that people aren’t put off by it.
12. Give people an incentive to subscribe
A great way to convince people to subscribe to your blog is to give them something in return.
One way is to offer a free PDF brochure or guide to each subscriber. Unfortunately, some people will subscribe to receive their giveaway and then immediately unsubscribe once they have it.
A better option might be to provide an ongoing benefit, e.g. For example, a free course on a specific topic delivered through a series of emails. That way, they’re more likely to stay for a while.
13. Work on your info page
One of the most read pages on a blog is the About page. People use it to find out:
- What is your blog about?
- Who are you
- whether you know what you are talking about.
So make sure your info page makes these details clear.
It’s also a great place to show off a little personality so that people will consider you a person rather than a faceless brand and be more likely to bond with you.
14. Target different readers with different messages
Not everyone comes to your blog the same way or for the same reason. Hence, you may want to customize your message based on where it’s from and what they want.
There are some great tools that you can use to deliver a different message, depending on whether it’s from Google, Twitter, Facebook, or some other location.
For example, in ProBlogger we use OptinMonster so we can customize our call to action based on where people come from. And since people who come from Google often leave very quickly, our calls to action tend to be a bit stronger for these visitors
15. Pay attention to where your traffic is coming from
If a particular post or page on your blog has a lot of traffic (possibly because it got a lot of media attention or went viral), make the most of it.
At the very least, make sure it includes an invitation to subscribe to your blog. (If not, add one.) You may also want to create a “Further Reading” section so that you can get people to see more of your posts.
You may even want to create a follow-up post and then create a link to it.
Time to captivate these readers
What are you going to do to appeal to readers? Your Blog? Let us know in the comments.
Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash
