Monetize Your Blog, part 7: Make it sticky

Posted by: kimc on Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

start here:

  1. Don’t do it for the money
  2. Take your time
  3. Get your own domain
  4. 13 Great ways to build your traffic
  5. Getting the goods
  6. Giveaways!

If you've been following this series and working the points, you should have a good amount of traffic arriving on your blog now.  But what good is a visitor who pops in and leaves, never to be seen again?  To benefit from traffic, you've got to make sure you catch the interest of your visitors and give them a reason to stick around for as long as possible.  And when they finally do leave, you want them to remember to come back.  You need to make a great first impression.

You've got to make your blog sticky.

There are lots of ways to do this, and it should be a never-ending process.  You should always seek to make your blog more interesting, more engrossing, stickier.  You want visitors to look at the clock, smack their forehead, and be shocked to realize that they just spent 2 hours on your blog!

Here's how:

  1. Fast loading - If it takes too long to load, they may give up before they ever see your beautiful design or your magnificent content.  Check how fast your page loads, pare down the java and other scripts to the bare minimum, and don't run too many plugins.  How many is too many?  Put yourself in your readers' shoes and do your best to balance form and function.
  2. Esthetically pleasing design - If first impressions count, the first glance is the most important of all.  If your site is too cluttered or just plain ugly, many of your visitors won't even hang around for the page to finish loading.
  3. Media players - Please, if you really must have one, don't set it to auto-play. I don't think I'm alone when I say nothing makes me close a page faster than uninvited music.  Besides, those players will slow down your load time, and you don't want that, do you?
  4. Landing page - Consider creating a special landing page, where you will direct new visitors, instead of letting them land on the front page and see whatever you happened to post most recently.
  5. Greet new visitors - If you're using WordPress, check out the What Would Seth Godin Do plugin.  This lets you put out a virtual welcome mat which is only seen by newcomers, not your regular readers.  It's very easy to customize with your own greeting, and if you use it you should definitely take the time to do so.
  6. About page - Make sure your About page is clear and informative.  Over time, you'll likely find that this page receives more visits than any other single page or post on your blog except the front page.  Make it your best, and update often to keep it...well, up-to-date.
  7. Clear navigation - If you expect people to stay and look around, make it easy for them to find what they're looking for.  Navigation should be easy and intuitive.  Don't be too quick to try something new and different.  Do make sure your visitors have an easy way to contact you (a Contact page with a contact form).
  8. Good post formatting - Make your posts inviting by creating content that is easy to read and easy to scan.  It may be a little counter-intuitive, but if you let your reader quickly scan past the content that doesn't interest them, they can more quickly find the content that does. Short paragraphs, bullet points, and headings are all reader-friendly.
  9. Highlight your pillars - Make your very best timeless content easy to find.  Consider highlighting these posts in your About page and/or in your sidebar.  Impressing casual visitors with the good stuff gives them a reason to stick around and come back.
  10. Photos - Photos are an important part of an aesthetically pleasing design.   It takes time to find and insert a good photo, but it's time well spent.
  11. Internal links - Link to your own posts whenever appropriate to encourage readers to dig deeper into your blog.  This keeps older posts alive and also improves your search engine ranking, something we'll touch on later in this series.  With WordPress, the YARPP plugin will do this automatically at the end of every post, but make sure you work these references into your post as well.
  12. Subscriptions - The best way to make sure your visitors come back is to get them to subscribe to your blog feed.  Ask them, remind them, make it easy for them.
  13. Subscribe to comments - Use the Subscribe to Comments plugin or something similar to make sure your commentors come back to a discussion they've participated in.
  14. Be a reader - Take time to think like a reader.  Go blog-hopping and ask yourself what you do/don't like about the blogs you visit.  How long do you stay on each one, and why?  What makes you reach for the little X at the top of the page?

 

Talk to me. How sticky is your blog?  Which of the points above have you tried?  Which one do you think would give you the best results if you tried it on your blog?  What would you add to the list?

related posts:

  1. Monetize Your Blog, part 8: Keep an eye on traffic If you want to learn how to monetize your blog,...
  2. Monetize Your Blog, part 4: 13 Great ways to build your traffic start here: Part 1: Don’t do it for the money...
  3. Monetize Your Blog, part 6: Giveaways! start here: Don’t do it for the money Take your...
  4. Monetize Your Blog, part 5: Getting the goods start here: Don’t do it for the money Take your...
  5. Monetize Your Blog, part 2: Take your time start here: Monetize Your Blog, part 1: Don’t do it...

Topics: make money

4 Responses to “Monetize Your Blog, part 7: Make it sticky”

Mother Hen Says:
May 31st, 2011 at 11:19 am

AMEN on the media players set to auto play. I find “landing pages”, on the whole, frustrating, so I probably won’t be doing that. Some are ok, and if I ever have the time to figure out the difference, then I might be inclined to try one. We spent the morning fixing up the WWSGD plugin. Hate to write an “about” page, but I guess I better. I need a way to find out which of my posts are the “popular” ones so I can highlight them, or do you think it’s valid to promote MY favorites? I get the idea of the links to my other posts, but what’s the deal on out-bound links? Does that help in anyway?

kimc Says:
May 31st, 2011 at 4:19 pm

To answer your question about popular posts, there is a plugin that will help you highlight those with the most comments (Popular Posts, I think) and you can also use WP-Stats to learn which posts are receiving the most views, but you might want to highlight your “pillars” instead, which are your *best* but not necessarily your most popular posts.
Outbound links do not help your own search engine ranking. In fact, they hurt it just a little, especially if you have more outgoing than incoming. However, they do help in other ways: they provide value to your readers, they create alliances with other bloggers, and encourage others to link to you which *will* help your search engine ranking.

Andrea Says:
June 1st, 2011 at 12:09 am

I would add: make it sociable.

Do you have “shareable” components? A funny story, an engaging video, a good point of critique?

What could be your strong “pass it on to your friends” call to action with each post you publish? (Some tactics have been covered so far, like the link-love with the give-away posts etc., but what about facebook? Encouraging others to share your stickiness with their friends on Fb is HUGE, natural and speaks volumes to the SE bots.)

Social search is becoming more and more important — how does one accommodate that?

Brandi @ Frugal Farmhouse Says:
July 1st, 2011 at 12:06 am

I could not agree with you more on the media player. nothing drives me more crazy than that!

Great tips. Love it!

 

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