Did you know that 77% of internet users report regularly reading blog posts
This startling statistic highlights why content marketing, specifically blogging, is vital to the long-term success of your business. It’s also worth mentioning that blogs are excellent ways to build trust with your audience, provide value, and show people why your products or services are worth their time.
If your website consists of nothing more than a homepage and a few product landing pages, traffic and engagement will begin to dwindle with time, and obtaining new subscribers and customers will become increasingly challenging.
On the other hand, 57% of marketers claim they’ve acquired a new customer through their company blog. I firmly believe you can achieve the same results if you’re willing to put in the work.
Today, I’ll show you five easy and effective ways you can keep people interested in your brand and gradually improve your blog.
Let’s dive in!
Improve Navigation and Accessibility
Ensuring smooth navigation and robust accessibility options are two of the best ways to keep people reading your blog. These factors make it easy for visitors to find the information they’re looking for while making it far less likely to encounter problems, like a page not loading.
The first thing you should do is make sure your site is accessible on most mobile devices. Research shows that there are over 5.48 billion mobile users, and that number is growing.
You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly test to see where you stand. This tool will offer suggestions you can follow to improve the speed and responsiveness of your site on mobile.
I recommend using a drag-and-drop page builder with mobile templates so you can quickly check your site and make sure it looks great on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
Another way to easily make your blog more accessible is to add a search bar. Instead of forcing people to scroll through pages of content to find a specific article, they can type in a keyword or two and see all the relevant results in one place.
By following these tips, you can make your blog more user-friendly and improve your chances of attracting and retaining visitors.
Choose Accurate and Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Your headlines are one of the first things people will see on your blog, so it’s important to make it count. High-quality headlines are accurate, attention-grabbing, and relevant to your content, so consider these factors when coming up with headlines for your posts.
Accuracy is extremely important because you don’t want to mislead people into clicking on your article only to find that it’s not what they expected. For example, imagine how frustrated you’d feel if an article with a product claims to “help you grow your lead list by 10,000 in one week.”
Most marketers, even brand new ones, know this promise isn’t possible without diving into questionable, illegal behavior. It would be far more accurate to explain that you want to share tips that will help newbies grow their email lists. If your suggestions are actionable and relevant, you’ve held up the promise in the headline.
When it comes to creating relevant headlines, make sure it’s related to the topic of your article and the needs of your audience. If people are not interested in the headline, there’s a slim chance they’ll click through and read the article.
The best way to overcome this problem is to ensure each article ties back to a specific portion of your audience. In other words, one or more buyer personas you’ve created for your business should find your headline relevant to their goals and needs.
Add Value with Videos
Now, let’s discuss how you can improve your blog with video content. For one thing, videos will make your website overall more engaging. Research shows that 87% of marketers who’ve tried adding videos to their site saw an increase in traffic.
Other statistics seem to line up with this idea. We found that blog posts with videos are 53 times more likely to make it to the elusive first page of Google.
You can repurpose existing content on your blog and turn it into engaging videos in several effective ways. If you have tutorials and how-to guides for your products or industry practices, create a video tutorial to accompany the on-page text and pictures. Some people work more efficiently when they watch someone complete a task instead of reading about it.
You should also consider working with a team to create video versions of your entertaining and educational blog posts. For instance, if you have a blog post titled “10 Ways to Get More Email Subscribers,” you could create a video version of your article for YouTube where you go over each of the tips and add actionable examples. Once the video is uploaded, embed it at the top of the corresponding blog post.
Not only will this help Google’s crawlers understand the intent of your site, which means a stronger position in the SERPs, but it will also give readers more ways to engage with your blog.
Don’t Forget to Promote Your Content
One of the biggest mistakes I see marketers make is promoting their new blog post only for the first day or two after release. The truth is that compounding blog posts generate around 38% of all blog traffic.
In case you’re unfamiliar, compounding posts are articles that continue to get traffic long after their original publication date.
Business owners and marketers who don’t promote their content on social media and email long after they hit publish will see significantly less traffic when compared to prolific sharers.
When you consider the reality of omnichannel marketing, it makes sense. On average, businesses that invest in an omnichannel marketing strategy report 90% stronger engagement and retention when compared to single-channel marketing.
An easy trick is to use relevant hashtags to improve post discoverability. People on sites like Facebook, X (formally Twitter), and Instagram use hashtags to find posts from people with similar interests. If you use the right hashtag combination, your blog post could see new clicks for months via these platforms.
You can extend the life of your post even further by sharing it across various social sites every few months or when the topic becomes relevant again. The average social media user spends 2.5 hours on these sites daily, so you can bet you’ll easily reach your audience if you actively promote on social media.
When promoting content through email, consider including your latest blog posts when sending out a weekly or monthly email newsletter. This strategy is an easy and effective way to keep your subscribers engaged and visiting your site regularly.
Keep an Eye on Your Analytics
Finally, you can improve your blog over time by consistently reviewing your Google Analytics account. Google Analytics will help you learn key factors, like which pages see the most traffic, how people discover your site, how many people are bouncing from your site, the total number of new visitors, and much more.
I highly recommend adding Google Analytics to your site so you can closely monitor your data each week. The key to using this strategy to improve your blog is to look for patterns in user behavior and traffic. For example, if one of your blog categories only gets .3% of all of your traffic while the rest is split between 5 other sections, consider removing or merging the extra category to make your site more organized and user-friendly.
My favorite way to use Google Analytics to improve our blog is to discover which posts resonate with our readers. I can often find ways to improve future content, new topic ideas, and more by taking an hour each week to review our blog analytics.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! Today’s tips are fairly easy to accomplish if you have a little bit of extra time and resources. I recommend thinking carefully about your long-term marketing and blogging goals so you can determine the best course of action for your business. I wouldn’t stress about implementing these tips all at once. Start with one change at a time; before long, you’ll discover more actionable ways to improve your blog.
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