Today’s savvy blog reader isn’t going to fall for the same old prompts. When it comes to trying to engage and interest readers, you have ensure they are genuinely attentive to what you are offering. But what do you do when there are a gazillion blogs out there already? Each one is tooting and honking with various banner ads, crazy pop ups and noisy videos that start playing by themselves forcing you to panic in a mad search for the pause or volume button. Here are some good ways to create lasting, interested, avid readers.
Knowing Your Audience is the First Step
Make information as relevant to your audience as possible, providing special terminology, using brief but effective headlines employing keywords guaranteed to generate curiosity. When you have a genuine working knowledge of the subjects your readers care about, and make the extra effort to bring them quality facts and figures, you will impress the crowds and keep them clamoring for more.
Offer Incentives and Rewards to Your Readers
Everyone loves free samples at the grocery store, and it’s no different on the internet. Provide potential subscribers with an opportunity to view special content if they register on your site. Entice people with exclusive coupons or vouchers for your product, or a free trial to limited edition content, special badges or recognition for visiting.
Share with Your Readers and They’ll Share with Each Other
Using buttons from social media sites where readers can “like” the content or “add” themselves to circles of like-minded readers is a great way to promote your blog and keep dialogue interesting and alive online.
Keep Things Simple
Everyday internet users get their browsers bombarded with too much information crowding the content they’d like to be reading. If there’s a lot of clutter in your sidebar, clear it out. If you have tons of ads, remove them or distribute them to create a clean, bright space for viewing your site. Destroy the white noise.
Find the Big Fish
Use your connections to network and be endorsed by A-list bloggers who are known for their credibility and knowledge. Ask these contacts to link to your blog, and you can offer to link to theirs. This is probably the best thing you can do for your blog’s growth, as the targeted traffic will flow toward your site and create a large subscriber base.
Chris Barber
Chris, as an inbound marketing professional, has helped hundreds of websites improve their SEO and Social Media performance. Blog Hands was started as way to provide the strongest of those techniques, blog writing and promotion, at an affordable rate while still keeping a strong level of quality that you'd find from a large internet marketing firm.