Tweet

Business Blog Step 17 - Encouraging Readers to Return to Your Blog

Guest post by: Gary Baker

Article Overview: If people are interested in and find value in what we are writing about then the likelihood is that they will return to read more. However, we need to help to develop the trust that they are placing in us to ensure that they do - we also need to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

Business Blog Step 17 - Encouraging Readers to Return to Your Blog

If people are interested in and find value in what we are writing about then the likelihood is that they will return to read more. However, we need to help to develop the trust that they are placing in us to ensure that they do - we also need to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

In planning our Business Blog, one of the key questions we considered was whom the blog is aimed at and so which group of readers we were looking to attract. If we have managed to maintain this focus with posts whose content is directly relevant to our target group, then we should be in a position to expect people to return.

However, readers will primarily return because of what you have written – by maintaining the quality of your posts and demonstrating your expertise on a consistent basis, you not only attract readers to start with, you also encourage them to return.

To further help this, try to exceed their expectations and provide value over and above what might be expected – and remember to strike a balance between what your readers want to read and what you want to say.

You should also make your Blog look inviting – you need to make a ‘good first impression’ to turn visitors into regular readers so let your graphics help you. Two things that you definitely want to avoid: using a default template which then puts you in the same category as thousands of others; and just having long pages of text. Break up the text perhaps using images or graphs (according to your subject matter) and keep the look interesting.

As you have persuaded them to return, make it easy for them to do so. RSS [the 5th R] is the ideal way to achieve this for blogs which I will examine later. But don’t forget about the inclusion of a newsletter on your Blog if that is appropriate which can also direct readers back to you – RSS and newsletters can work well hand in hand. If nothing else, at least suggest that they put your Blog in their Favourites on their browser, and then show them how to do that.

You can also encourage them back by the way you structure what you are writing. For example, if you write a series of posts on a single subject which has attracted your readers’ attention, then you are encouraging them back again to read the rest of the articles in the series. In the same way, you can pre-announce certain topics ahead of posting them so that people are eager to return to check for them.

Once they have returned to your Blog, make sure that it is easy to navigate and make sure that all of the information can easily be found and the posts are categorised sensibly. It is also a good idea to highlight your key articles so that they can easily be found – just create a page with links to all your main articles and then create a special link to it in your sidebar.

People will also return in many cases because you have started to create a bond with them. They will not come back just to read excerpts from your product portfolio which are nothing more than classified ads. They will, however, return to hear more of the same original, interesting and information based opinion that drew them in the first place.

Finally, remember that getting your current readers to return is easier than attracting new readers, just as it has been proven time and time again in business that it costs more to find a new customer than to keep the ones that you have.

So make as much effort to get current readers to return as you do attracting new ones. Key elements: maintain focus on your audience, make posts easy to find, make your Blog look appealing, create a bond, make it easy to return.

Related Articles
  Five Steps To Increase Traffic To Your Blog
  How to Guest Blog
  Analyzing your blog statistics
  SEO for Blogs
  Secrets of the Most Successful Blogs
  5 Secrets of the Most Successful Blogs
  Business Blog Step 15 - Getting Readers to Your Blog
  How Often Should You Write in Your Blog?
  3 Tips to Discover How Much you can Blog about Even as a New Internet Home Based Business Owner
  Blogging and Small Business Marketing
  WordPress Blog Tip - Make Your Blog Work For You
  10 Simple Blog Promotion Strategies
  Three Important Reasons Why You Should Start a Blog
  Five Ways to Get More Attention to Your Blog Posts
  New to Blogging
  Three Tips To Get You Started Blogging for Business
  7 Easy Tips for Successful Blog Marketing
  The essential meaning of trackbacks
  The Value of Blog Commenting
  Blogheads

Article Tags: blog, blogging, blogging for beginners, business blogs, return, wordpress, wordpresscom, wordpressorg



Related Forum Posts
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - Hi David, I agree about the Blogosphere. You have a smaller group that Blog, but do so on the premise that they think they should, but have never really considered the purpose of their Blog. Then I think there are a few SEO or Internet Marketing types that see Blogging as just another link building strategy. But the largest group of Bloggers, tend to be people who enjoy writing and discussing their topics of interest. Blogging is good for link building, but the true Blogger is a breed apart from the rest. They want to dialog, to debate, to have feedback and they are very willing to link to other worthwhile conversations that are relevant to their topic. I agree with you. These group of Bloggers obviously are passionate about their writing and together, they create huge conversation trails interactive and travel from Blog to Blog. But the evidence is clear with this group that loves what they write about. With comments enabled on a Blog and having a Blog tuned to a specific purpose you already have the evidence of original Social Media.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - That's great GT! What method did you use to put up the Entrepreneur Blog Network in your Wordpress Blog? We're always looking for the easiest methods to help bloggers who are not techies get involved.
EvanCarmichael.com suggestion - Maybe I missed it but I would like to suggest that a Blog be created to support the Forum. The idea is that in the blog you put in snippets of some of the biggest conversations with a 'read more' link to the forum itself. Setting up the Blog and clipping some conversations onto it wouldn't take very long.
Jen's Blog - Spam protection - Jen, I like the Blog and just posted a comment to one of your articles. From my experience you need to implement some sort of SPAM capture tools. i use them on my Blog and it's been a life saver as I'm getting hit by spam atleast 5 times a day. I use Wordpress and they have plugins like Captcha and SPAM Karma installed.
Blog Marketing Anyone? - Hi Kevin I suppose you could use the same SEO principles on a Blog as you can for a website but the more content you have within your Blog, the better rankings/traffic you would receive. Would you have time to write a full length article with tips in it every day or second day to get the article count rolling over every week? I would also like to know if anyone has had any experiences with marketing blogs and the traffic they received.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Making the Most of Your Trade Show Experience

Unharnessing Creativity in Business

Adapting to Technology and the Internet

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.