As bloggers, we are obsessed with daily visitor count, twitter mentions, and inbound links because as solo-activists, we do not have enough personal connections with people who can tell us what we are doing right, what we should not do, and how we should improve.
In our search for a number measurement to confirm or negate assumptions about our work, we turn to analytics. A daily visitor stat seems to attract us the most. Especially for those just started a blog, a daily visitor count is rewarding and exciting. However, stats have little use if your blog does not benefit visitors.
In other words, if your blog does not give visitors a reason to return, your efforts as a blogger remains unrewarded in the long run. So, first things first – forget about daily visitor count and instead start focusing on enriching your blog with content that visitors run to, time and again.
How to Make Sure Your Blog has returning Visitors?
Your focus should be on how to make the majority of your first-time visitors revisit your blog. To achieve a decent number of returning traffic, you must give your visitors a reason to return; something valuable like a subscription for personal tips, interaction on social network, product offers, etc.
The easiest way to understand what possible advantage to implement in your blog for visitors is to put yourself in their shoes. Example: If you were visiting a travel blog, would you only be happy with paragraphs of information on a particular destination’s scenic beauty or would you rather read first-hand information about how to get there, where to stay, what to eat, what to wear, what to buy, what to visit, etc? Now translate your preferences to your visitors’ and you’ve got a list of things you must include in your travel blog.
Now, all of the aforesaid information need not be included in one post. In fact, breaking it up is a smart way to ensure interested visitors revisit for information. Additionally, you can offer the following to your niche readers: Free eBooks, Premium eBooks, Humor/Personal Stories, and a Social Community through social media sites, not to mention Expert Advice, Personal Tips, and Personal Insight into holiday destinations. If you are a business offering ticket and hotel booking facilities, there are Discount and Service packages you can offer.
However, just offering tons of valuable information is not enough. Your visitors should be able to find the exceptional content you are publishing everyday. Hence, a sidebar section for popular content, and daily updates, is a must. Additionally, if you are offering a free ebook or subscription, it should feature at the top of your blog.
Which brings us to question: How will your visitors know when you have updated new content if you don’t make it easy for them to get the updates?
The answer: Use a few features like RSS Subscriptions, Newsletters and Social Site status updates to let your visitors keep track of your latest blog activity.
Bottom line, unless your readers can answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question by themselves, there is little chance they will revisit your blog. So make sure you provide enough temptation to keep them glued to your blog, because honestly, web users are an elusive lot and value-added, regular information is your only chance to ensure revisits. And once you have implemented features solely meant for visitor benefit, try Google Analytics for spotlights on new and returning visitors. The difference will be marked.
In our search for a number measurement to confirm or negate assumptions about our work, we turn to analytics. A daily visitor stat seems to attract us the most. Especially for those just started a blog, a daily visitor count is rewarding and exciting. However, stats have little use if your blog does not benefit visitors.
In other words, if your blog does not give visitors a reason to return, your efforts as a blogger remains unrewarded in the long run. So, first things first – forget about daily visitor count and instead start focusing on enriching your blog with content that visitors run to, time and again.
How to Make Sure Your Blog has returning Visitors?
Your focus should be on how to make the majority of your first-time visitors revisit your blog. To achieve a decent number of returning traffic, you must give your visitors a reason to return; something valuable like a subscription for personal tips, interaction on social network, product offers, etc.
The easiest way to understand what possible advantage to implement in your blog for visitors is to put yourself in their shoes. Example: If you were visiting a travel blog, would you only be happy with paragraphs of information on a particular destination’s scenic beauty or would you rather read first-hand information about how to get there, where to stay, what to eat, what to wear, what to buy, what to visit, etc? Now translate your preferences to your visitors’ and you’ve got a list of things you must include in your travel blog.
Now, all of the aforesaid information need not be included in one post. In fact, breaking it up is a smart way to ensure interested visitors revisit for information. Additionally, you can offer the following to your niche readers: Free eBooks, Premium eBooks, Humor/Personal Stories, and a Social Community through social media sites, not to mention Expert Advice, Personal Tips, and Personal Insight into holiday destinations. If you are a business offering ticket and hotel booking facilities, there are Discount and Service packages you can offer.
However, just offering tons of valuable information is not enough. Your visitors should be able to find the exceptional content you are publishing everyday. Hence, a sidebar section for popular content, and daily updates, is a must. Additionally, if you are offering a free ebook or subscription, it should feature at the top of your blog.
Which brings us to question: How will your visitors know when you have updated new content if you don’t make it easy for them to get the updates?
The answer: Use a few features like RSS Subscriptions, Newsletters and Social Site status updates to let your visitors keep track of your latest blog activity.
Bottom line, unless your readers can answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question by themselves, there is little chance they will revisit your blog. So make sure you provide enough temptation to keep them glued to your blog, because honestly, web users are an elusive lot and value-added, regular information is your only chance to ensure revisits. And once you have implemented features solely meant for visitor benefit, try Google Analytics for spotlights on new and returning visitors. The difference will be marked.
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