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When a visitor lands on your blog, the clock starts ticking. You have precious seconds to grab them by the collar and astound them with your content.
To make them believers and fans.
Before they even get excited about your topics, they need to know where they are, what’s on your blog and exactly how to get around.
The most excellent, fun, funny, helpful blog posts on the planet won’t get you readers if your site is clunky, there are potholes in the road and people don’t know what to do when they land on your home page.
Your goal is to get them to stay, poke around and find useful and interesting things.
5 ways to pull your blog’s visitors into your content
1. Include a tagline in your header.
We are all insanely busy and most of us are attention-disordered. Your header should not only include the name of your blog, but a short sub-phrase that describes you and/or your blog’s purpose.
If it’s a business blog, say what it is you do (in the case of CatsEyeWriter, the sub-title is blogging coach – social media copywriter) or your best customer benefit. If it’s a personal blog, a short line on what it’s about. This way, people know that they are in the right place immediately.
2. Consider a separate mission statement in the sidebar.
Some bloggers have a box with their photo and a couple of lines—either who they are or what their blog is about—in the sidebar. Your time-challenged visitors will appreciate knowing what you are all about in just a quick glance.
3. Create a friendly, informative about page.
Research shows that on any site, the about page is the second most viewed page. Make yours engaging. Share not only your professional side, but some personal things. Your readers are very curious about who this person is behind this blog. Don’t disappoint them.
4. Organize your content by categories and tags.
When you started blogging, you hopefully decided what your main topics will be. This is incredibly useful to the reader because they can more easily find the specific posts they are most interested in.
Think of categories as chapters in a book. You can list them along the side and assign each post you write to the categories it fits in. For a food blog, the categories might be southern cuisine, Italian, quick meals, etc.
Tags are like a book’s index. The tags might be ingredients: garlic, potato dishes, cheese, etc. You may have seen ‘tag clouds’ on a blog, where the things bloggers have written the most about are bigger words in the cloud.
5. Fine tune your content by testing.
The way you get better at writing the just right content for your readers is by engaging with them in the comments, watching the posts that get lots of reader interaction and asking them more questions about what they’d like to see on your blog.
I call it blog-as-laboratory.
Is your content organized to make it super-easy for your readers to locate it?
Do you have other strategies for pulling your readers in?
Would love to hear your thoughts (or questions) in the comments.
Oh, and congratulations to Courtney Cantrell, whose question about how to stay full of blog post topics and write about the things people care about wins her a free copy of my ebook, Guide to Showing Up Online, available in my online store for $17.
And, my most exciting news: I have just posted my webinar: 30 Design and Content Secrets to Skyrocket Your Blog. Hope you’ll check it out!
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Hey Judy. I’ve been analyzing your blog for a few minutes now. It’s all laid out so clearly and follows your advice in this post. (You make it look so easy!)
I get stuck at the junction of blog/website or blog/business. Seems your business IS blogging, it makes sense that your latest blog post is your home page. I’ve switched back and forth between post as home page or static page describing my business as home page.
I prefer having my latest post there…however, I was recently on a call with a woman who pulled up my web site and immediately assumed that what I wrote about in my latest post was what my business was about. Do you have any words of wisdom about this?
Patty K recently posted..Yes You are an expert
Patty,
Excellent question. I think it is very important for business bloggers (people who blog to promote their businesses, as opposed to professional bloggers like me) to say what they and their business are all about up front, in a visible part of the home page. Having said that, I would hate to see your blog buried in your inside pages because it is one of your strengths and you definitely want to get more subscribers. But people need to know right away who you are.
A couple of suggestions:
1. Get a photo and box of text in your sidebar, up toward the front (perhaps on the right side, right under your header and above your free offer), that tells precisely what you do for people/businesses. Patty K is…… she helps people in the professional services fields… and she blogs here about….)
2. Make your tagline very clear. I love the “Teach people what you know. Change the world.” Very powerful. But the problem is, people don’t get what that means in concrete terms, even though it’s a cool benefit. Something like, “Patty K, Helping service professionals…” They need to have a good idea of how you can help them, hopefully with image-rich words, something they can picture.
The idea is that people know immediately what you do the second they land on your blog. Mine is as simple as “CatsEyeWriter, blogging coach – social media copywriter. If you have a personal blog, you have a little more leeway (although with personal blogs, it’s also important that people know what you blog about). But with a business blog, it’s crucial. Make sense?
Thanks, Judy. I really appreciate you looking at my site and offering me your advice!!
Yes. That does make sense. I think part of my challenge is reducing the description of precisely what I do and for whom into a few words. This is one of those things that *sounds* easy (especially when looking at examples of what other people have done), but turns out to be a bit more difficult in practice. I shall give it some more thought.
Patty K recently posted..Yes You are an expert
Great advice Judy!
I recently relaunched my blog after a long break. I’d say another thing that pulls readers in is consistent posting frequency.
Blog readers are very savvy. They can quickly figure out how regularly you post even if your posts don’t have dates published on them.
A brilliant blogger won’t hold readers for long if he doesn’t post once a week at the very least.
Thanks, Samar. I was focusing on the few seconds you have to keep a new visitor with you here, but you are right about consistency. Once you hook that first-time visitor, she won’t be back if you don’t provide fresh content on a regular basis. Good point.
I love unusual headlines. They’re not good for SEO but my readers seem to enjoy them.
Marnie,
Yes, headlines are huge. I love it that WordPress has a function in the back end to put an alternative title in for the search engines. It’s the best of both worlds because you get to write the fun, interesting headlines that appeal to humans and while satisfying Google and people searching on the Internet at the same time.
Hi Judy,
I like that your tagline tells what you do AND also what folks looking for your services might search for in a search engine.
Regarding your comment to Patty, I see blogging as a marketing tactic for a business and in most cases makes sense for it to be the main page.
I’m not sure I agree with Patty’s assessment that your business IS blogging. You use blogging to market your expertise as a blogging coach and social media copywriter.
From that point of view, Patty’s blog/website would be little different than yours, and you give great suggestions for helping folks immediately know what she does when they land on the page.
Patty does have, however, right up at the top a “sort of” tagline. It may be clearer if she put something like “I help _______ change the world by teaching what they know,” or something similar.
Like you said in point #5 (and what I need to work on doing consistently myself) testing what’s working and what’s not and improving accordingly is so important.
Thanks again for the pointers, Judy!
Always love it when you stop by and leave a thoughtful comment, Tshombe. And, actually, my business is moving in the direction of being blogging. Not there yet, but I think that’s where I’ll end up.
I’ve helped a lot of people create taglines over the years and my advice has always been this: If your business name explains precisely who you are and what you do, your tagline can be less detailed. But if your business name doesn’t give people a clue as to your industry or specialty, you’d better be sure you cover that somehow in your tagline’s message. (Believe it or not, I have gotten business cards that I take out later and can’t remember what the person does, and the message on the card’s tagline doesn’t help me.)
And, yes, #5 is so important. I have learned so much since I started asking my readers what they want and need! Thanks for adding to the conversation, Tshombe.
Judy – I agree with Patty: you make it all look easy. I know you work hard to do that, but the ease it why you are effective – your writing isn’t self conscious and so the message pours through as a gift to us. And you make it feel like a gift, which is your gift
I’m still essentially a baby blogger, constantly amazed when yet another post appears, and even more so when they are at regular intervals. Thrilled beyond words to have comments. Really.
I think I have addressed some of the first 4 points, with plenty of room to improve. I began to think recently that my categories are too general to be very useful, and I only have about 45 posts. That is one area for sure I would like to improve, and I hope it is as simple as creating more categories and going back and checking and unchecking some boxes inside the blog.
#5 is a good one, and this is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve been reminded today to ASK my readers, clients, whomever about what they most want and need. It’s hilarious because I counsel my clients to do this quite often, but when it comes to marketing myself, I need others to remind me. Somehow, I trust that these experiences (they keep happening) of the shoemaker’s child being barefoot, will make my various offerings more relevant for my solo business owner readers and clients. I think I know how to ask my readers questions, and will use my email newsletter for that as well.
Barbara Breckenfeld recently posted..Living & breathing your plan
Barbara,
I’m with you there (the “constantly amazed when yet another post appears”). For a long time when I sat down to write a post, I would think, “I don’t have one good idea left.” (Or, “I have one for today, but this is the last one”). : ) I’m finding, though, that as I step up my blogging, the ideas are coming faster and I rarely run out now. Funny thing.
On the categories, if you are like me, the ones you start out with are not the ones you will keep as you progress in your journey. Those topics get refined and they are not always as general as they started out to be. I still need to go in and recatagorize three years worth of posts to make my categories more aligned with the topics I’m writing about today.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom here, Barbara.
Thanks for the responses, Judy! Looking forward to your Business Blogging Coming Out Party
Your #3 point about the About Page got me thinking about mine, and I came across The Blog Tyrant’s (interesting that he doesn’t give his “real name,” as author of the blog) article that reveals “12 of the Best About Us Pages: http://www.blogtyrant.com/best-about-us-pages.
They include the obvious ones, like Darren Rowse and Brian Clark, but also some I wouldn’t have given a second glance were it not for the article like, National Geographic and Mail Chimp.
As you offer in your advice, all of the examples show a human behind the content. They are engaging, friendly, and have a specific personality.
Time for me to revisit my own About pages on my websites & blog!
Judy, thanks for a great post! I may have to make a change to my site to incorporate the advice you gave Patty K., about including something concrete about what I do on the main page. I’ve always assumed folks “get” what I do, but we all know what happens when we assume…
Dave Marciniak recently posted..Elements of Design- Mass in Landscape Design
Dave,
Yes, it’s amazing the difference that short bio and pic on your blog’s home page can make. Unfortunately attention-disordered first-time visitors either ‘get’ who you are and what you do right away or, click, they’re gone. Glad I gave you something to think about. : )
Oh, how lovely! Judy, thank you so much! I’ve been rather under the weather since the middle of last week and haven’t been keeping up with online business — so what a delightful surprise to read my name in your post and find out that I won a great resource!
Thank you so very much. : )
Now, on the post itself: I am increasingly intrigued and inspired by your concept of blog-as-laboratory. I think it’s an excellent way of looking at a blog, and I’d like to know more details. Do you already have a post solely on this topic? And if not, would you consider writing one?
Courtney Cantrell recently posted..How To Write A Novel
Courtney,
My pleasure.
You know what is so cool about your question asking for more details on blog-as-laboratory? It’s an example of blog-as-laboratory! I’m finding out what my readers want to know more about.
And, yes, I think it’s time to write a post on it. Look for it in the coming weeks. : )
Excellent! And I chuckled at suddenly being part of the experiment with my question. That’s just nifty. I’m looking forward to reading that post!
Courtney Cantrell recently posted..Why I Break The Spines of Books
Tags. Tags. Tags. I am learning more and more about how to use them effectively and your blog has confirmed a few things.
No Judy, I didn’t have my ‘theme’s’ figured out in advnace of starting my blog. This creative mind (@Thsombe can I get a shout out) jumps from what fuels me for the moment to what my vehicle is to get me there. And one day it may be a convertible and the next a Range Rover.
My passion for sharing tips and tools that inspire action and shift perspective are always wrapped up in my experiences. Not in Tags.
So beyond adding a little sidebar ‘about’ diddy to my blog. I am going to be more provocative and proactive with my Tags and the organization of my content. Whew. I am all jazzed up now!
Tammy Redmon recently posted..5 Ways to Avoid Valentine’s Day Blues
Tammy,
You might be confusing tags with categories. Categories are the major areas you write about (what you call themes). Listing them on your blog and assigning each post to the appropriate category just helps your readers find the content they are most interested in.
Tags are more focused down and might be the one or two keywords that best say what a specific post is about. And when readers look at your ‘tag cloud’ (see the one on the right sidebar of my blog), they can see the things you blog most about. (The bigger the word, the more frequently you write about it.)
Glad you found something useful here. : )
Judy, I was wondering if I even need a tag cloud on my sidebar. Aren’t categories enough? I seem to have accumulated way too many tags and it would seem that my readers could pull up topics by the category. I’ll continue tagging the blog post itself so the sentient engines can find my posts, but do I really need a tag cloud?
Elaine Way recently posted..Customs, Rituals & Traditions: Let Them Eat Cake!
Hi, Elaine. I have learned in this business (and in life) to never say never and never say always. On the categories and tags issue, I would just say that you should organize your posts in such a way that your content is clearly labeled and accessible to your readers, because everyone is coming with slightly different needs.
Since I wrote this post (over a year ago), the tags question is one that is being debated more and more in social media and blogging circles. For you, in the wedding business, you can probably get away with general categories, within which readers can find the more specific information they are looking for. And, if you put specific keywords in the back end (on your dashboard), that will help as people google certain words or terms.
On my blog, the tags give an immediate visual picture of what I write about so, for instance, if someone is looking specifically for traffic building tips, they can click and go to all the posts I have written on that topic. It just helps them find what they are looking for faster. On the other hand, if they want information on something more general, like branding or community building, they will find all that content organized in the category section. I’d advise to put your reader’s hat on and try to figure out what they need. Paying attention to the questions you get asked over and over can also help you organize your content.
Hope this helps.
Judy Dunn recently posted..Here She Comes to Save the Day!: ‘Wanton Exclamation Point’