All you have to do is check your bounce rates in Google Analytics to see how often people visit and then leave your blog. And that’s a shame because you probably have a lot of time and energy to create your content. So you need to quickly give them a reason to stay with them.
The tips that I will pass on are mainly aimed at first-time readers who know nothing about your brand and have already visited your blog. I will show you how to get their attention, interest them in your activities, and show them that what you do is relevant to them.
Tip 1: Make a big promise
If someone ends up on your blog and you make a big promise that is relevant to them, they are guaranteed to stay for a while.
But what should you promise them?
Think of your ideal reader. What are your pain points? What problems are they facing? What challenges do you have? Make a big promise now that you will help alleviate one of these weaknesses, solve one of your problems, or overcome one of these challenges.
And use this promise everywhere – on your homepage, on your About page, in your slogan and wherever you are likely to find it.
You could also think about what they want to achieve, what they dream of, how they want to be successful, and make a big promise that you will help them fulfill these desires.
A big promise that we make at ProBlogger is that we help our readers create sources of income through their blogging. And we know that our readers are looking for it in our blog.
If someone comes to your blog with a certain pain point or goal that they want to reach and you make a great promise, they will definitely look twice
Tip 2: Differentiate yourself in some way
Another way to get people to look at your blog twice is to differentiate yourself by doing things a little differently.
The most obvious way to demonstrate your difference is the content you write. You can choose to be more contrarian than everyone else. Or maybe you reveal more secrets and are more transparent than everyone else. You could choose to be more generous, useful, informed, and humorous. All of this can help you differentiate yourself from everyone else.
You can also weave this difference into a branding. They can differ in your slogan, design, or maybe the welcome video that people see when they first land on your website.
How can you show readers that you do things differently? Your Blog?
Tip 3: Give your readers a quick profit
Ever read a blog post or listen to a podcast and immediately think, “That’s exactly what I had to hear.” You have searched for this information for a long time and have now finally found it. It makes you so happy that you make a little fist pump.
We all love to win so quickly. And if you give your readers a quick win, you can safely bring them back for another visit.
As much as you want people to start their journey on your homepage, they’ll likely get to your blog from a post they found on Google, social media, or a link sent by a friend. And so you want as much of your content as possible to be “fist pump” content. Because even if you find it on your homepage, it will quickly disappear if you add more content.
I have written content on ProBlogger that is called How to start a blog. For me it was the content of the hand pump. It gave people a five-step process to start their own blog. And it wasn’t long before I received emails saying, “Thank you for this blog post. It helped me start my first blog.”
But two weeks later it was gone from the front page. And my archives are like a black hole. People often find what they’re looking for there, but sometimes they don’t. So not only do you need to create content for fist pumps, you also need to find a way to make it easily accessible. And that means that you …
Tip 4: Bring your readers to the right place
To avoid the black hole archive problem, you need to point people to the content that will help them meet their needs and fulfill your big promise.
A relatively easy way is to optimize the navigation of your website. Ask yourself How can I lead people to the content that best suits their needs?
Don’t rely on your blog’s search box as there is no guarantee that your readers will find what they’re looking for. Fortunately, there are other ways to get the right people to the right content at the right time (for them).
One way is to create home pages. Create a page that focuses on a specific topic, then fill it with links to all posts related to that topic. (I talked about home pages Episode 111 of the ProBlogger podcast).
You can also create “portals”, which we did on the ProBlogger homepage. After the words “I need help to …”, there are eight icons that lead to pages that correspond to the eight most important reasons why our readers come to ProBlogger. And how did we find out what these eight main reasons were? By asking our readers to tell us about the challenges they faced, what they needed most, and what were their biggest weaknesses.
Sounds familiar?
We have no portals for the Digital Photography School. However, we have included some dropdown menus in the navigation that provide users with part of our fist pump content.
No matter which method you choose (or maybe you can think of a better one), use it to get the right content to the right people as often as possible.
Tip 5: become personal
Another thing where people give your blog more than a glimpse is to make your content more personal.
And while you can do this by changing the way you write your content to make it more historical, you should also consider adding videos to your website.
Video almost always makes people look twice, especially live videos. Live streaming has become particularly popular with brands and influencers because it motivates people to get involved.
I remember scrolling through my news feed until my eyes went glassy. But then I saw a friend doing a live video and immediately clicked the link. (It was Mike O’Neil who made a live stream of him racing his car a distance.)
If you feel comfortable in front of the camera, I strongly recommend trying live streaming. Even if you prefer to record offline and then upload the result to Facebook or YouTube, it is still worthwhile to include videos in your content.
Even inserting photos can make your content more attractive. When my wife started blogging, she found it uncomfortable to put her face or even use her name on her blog. But one day, she took the courage to upload a selfie to her blog and used her name for the first time. She also became more personal with her content.
And as Google Analytics has shown, people came back. Much.
Tip 6: Provide social evidence
My last tip to get people interested in your blog is using social proofs.
It can be an expert, a celebrity, or someone with influence in your industry who says something nice about you. The front page of Leadpages contains a quote from Amy Porterfield about why she likes Leadpages. And whoever lands on this page sees the quote (and her photo) and thinks: Oh, there is Amy Porterfield. I know you. She is this online marketing expert. Oh, she uses lead pages.
This is social evidence.
You can do the same with contacts in your industry who have credibility or influence. If they said something nice about you in an article they wrote, ask them if you can use that quote on your blog.
It can also come from one of your readers. This can be a very powerful way to create social evidence on your website as it shows your readers that other people like you are reading your blog. If someone regularly comments on your blog, you can email them “Hey, would you mind writing a sentence about why you like our work? And could we use it and a photo of you on our blog? “
Your social evidence can also be numbers rather than people. If you have a thousand readers, why not highlight this fact? This may not be relevant if you are just starting out. However, if you have a lot of readers or subscribers, make sure people know about it. Tell them at home and across pages, in your blog posts, and even in your slogan.
And don’t forget your social media stats. It can be very effective to show how many Facebook and Twitter followers you have.
So there you have it: six tips to get readers to give your blog a second look and interest them.
Next week I’m going to talk about how to get these people to sign up and connect. In the meantime, let us know what you’re doing (or planning) to get people interested in what you’re saying.
Credit: Christian Chen