May
7
One of the challenges that we all face as bloggers is turning that first time visitor into a regular reader. This is particularly important on those days when you get dugg, stumbled, or farked. In order to survive and grow your blog, you need to have a plan in place to convert new visitors into regular readers.
I have put together a list of 10 things that I believe will help you accomplish this and I’ll talk about them here over the next couple of days.
- What’s Your Message?
Ask yourself a couple of questions – What is the purpose of my blog? Is it obvious? Visitors should be able to easily identify the purpose of your blog or you will quickly lose their interest. You need to give them a reason to add you to their bookmarks or subscribe to your feed and if you make your message clear, you will be a step ahead of most. Your blog will have purpose and meaning. - Tell Them Who You Are
Don’t blog anonymously, include an about page and let people know more about you. Include some basic facts, like where you live, your experience, your interests, or any other biographical information. Your blog reveals your personal views and expertise, so introduce yourself to your readers and they are more likely to connect with you. - Create Conversation
Write posts that have a call to action… ask your readers to get involved. By doing this you will create an environment that will encourage new visitors to get involved in the conversation. If you can draw them into the conversation, they will be back. - Build Relationships
Don’t forget to get involved in the conversation yourself. Your readers will be more likely to participate if they see that you respond to comments and questions. A great way to build relationships is to show your appreciation to those who get involved by sending them a thank you email or by rewarding your top commentators. - Make Things Easy
Make sure your blog is easy to navigate and use. You should prominently display links to your RSS feed and email subscription form, include links to your most important pages, and display a list of your most recent posts, as well as, your most popular posts. If your blog is easy to use and important information is easy to find you will be more likely to convert visitors into readers.
Tune in Wednesday for the second and final post in this series on converting first time visitors to loyal readers.
Update: Part 2 has been posted and can be found here.
yea … not too shabby yourself … I need to work on a few of those points on my blog!
Thanks for the tips!
Darin
I like all of those tips except number 2. Not a big fan of giving too much personal information out. I know it’s all out there already but rather let people have to search for it. maybe that’s the wrong attitude though.
I guess it depends on your niche… sometimes you need to give them a reason to trust you. And if you seem like a real person they are more likely to connect with you.
I need to follow a few of these myself, that’s one of the problems I have on another website of mine.
Love the blog especialy when I saw that you are having same thoughs as I do
Visit me too leave some comment.
TTYL
You make some great points in this article.
I choose to reward all commentators by removing the ‘nofollow’ attribute in the comments section. This way I am rewarding all those who take the time to comment by providing them will a full link back to their site.
Making your blog link love enabled is definitely something that is gathering steam!
- Martin Reed
Hi Martin,
I agree, it is a great way to reward your commentators. I removed the nofollow tag here a few weeks ago and talked about it here.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you .
It amazes me how many bloggers don’t reply to comments on their own posts. If you don’t get a reply the first time, why post again. I’m sure a lot of link love is also lost this way.
There are a lot that don’t. I understand that it could eventually get to a point where it’s impossible to respond to ever comment but until then, I think it pays to respond.
[...] first time visitors into regular readers. If you haven’t already, make sure you check out part 1 of this [...]
Hmm.. Good points david! and I agree to WordPress guy, A lot of bloggers really don’t respond to comments. That just discourages me to comment again
Oh, so that’s where i’ve been going wrong!
It’s so clear now, thanks for the great article.
[...] Blogging - Converting Visitors Into Regular Readers This is a great article it kind of makes you think about your blog from the reader’s perspective. [...]
I never realized how important it was to add thinks to other relevant pages in your post until I seen a lot of other bloggers doing this. I was one of them who would always get curious and click on the links. I started thinking one day, if I click on them then others will do the same. I started doing this and got more readers.