Let’s face it, we all want more blog traffic. In fact, as the use of the internet grows it is essential we gather more traffic just to tread water.
I have posted in the past about how blogging more often increases traffic, but here’s three ways to increase your blog traffic by just thinking about your blog in a slightly different way.
Know Your Reader
The first step to driving traffic is to know who is reading your blog, or more importantly who you want to read your blog. Like writing a book, knowing your readership is essential.
The reason is that once you have clearly defined your readership, you can mould your ideas and output to meet their needs, building a following as you add value to their lives.
Take the BubbleCow blog. If you look on our front page we have a banner that says ‘Inspiring writers to write and get published.’ This is the driving force behind everything we do at BubbleCow and is no marketing ploy. If you read our blog, and follow our tweets, they all have this goal in mind.
This statement leads onto our typical reader. For us we aim the blog at unpublished writers who are looking for advice and guidance on how to make their book better and secure a book deal. We also have an additional target reader, who is a writer with a book that is looking for advice on how to build a platform and sell more books.
Who is your reader? Pop it in the comments if it helps the thinking process.
Sort Out Your Side Bar
Step 2 – side bars! These are a vital part of your blog and represent essential space in which you can influence readers. As a general rule, material at the top of the side bar (above the fold) is more important than that below. So, the question remains – what should you put in your side bar?
Well it all depends on the goal of your blog. For BubbleCow our primary goal is to build a network of readers, and for this reason the most important item in the side bar is the ability for you to easily subscribe to our content. So the the RSS button, email form and Twitter link go at the top (normally).
Then we have a list of our services, a free book proposal email guide and the BubbleCow story…and so on.
However, you may have noticed a huge cow at the top of the side bar! This, in fact, re-enforces my point. At BubbleCow, at this moment in time, the most important thing is telling readers about our Book Proposal Success course that runs next month.
So, what’s at the top of your side bar? Do you have an RSS feed?
Be Comment Centred
The final step is to think about comments, how to encourage them and how to make it easier for readers to get involved. It goes without saying that spending time commenting on other blogs is time well spent, but you should be thinking about nurturing comments on your own blog.
One way to do this is to pitch your posts in such a way that they ask questions and leave virtual space for the readers to comment. If you look back at this post, I have done this a few times already…
Another tip is to pay attention to the way readers physically leave comments. Is the process easy? I use Disqus which takes care of just about everything. I personally hate long drawn out processes that require me to jump through hoops. The key is to make it super easy to leave comments.
I would also suggest you make it easy for commenters to subscribe to the comment feed and receive emails when other people leave comments. This will make it much more likely that a conversation will develop.
A pet hate of mine is moderated comments. They always leave me wondering why? What is it that is so bad that it can’t be added to the comments? You can always delete people’s comments. But as a rule of thumb you should only remove offensive or spam comments. People disagreeing should be embraced. If you reply with a level headed and calm response it makes you look very good.
If you are able to encourage comments then please (please) reply. In fact, if possible, reply to every comment, even if it is only to say thanks. Not only will this build trust, but it will also boost your comment count.
Do you have a comment tip?
9 days to go until Book Proposal Success course.