There are blogs and there are blogs scattered all over the internet. Unfortunately, many are not worth our while and some may as well be buried six feet deep down—they are dead!
This is because many bloggers write just for the sake of writing without any thought of their readers. Their purpose seems just to fill the empty spaces in their sites—they would have done better if they just uploaded cartoon characters. At least, they were funny.
Are you among this type of bloggers who litter the internet with dying or dead blogs? I am sure it is not your intention to bore your readers so maybe you can do something to make your blogs jump to life. Breathe life into your blogs with these following techniques:
Connect with Your Audience.
Do what live entertainers do to connect with their audience and liven up their shows— encourage audience participation. Make your readers interact and continue reading by writing appealing quality content. This may not come easy but not so complicated to achieve.
When you start your site, keep your target audience in sight (pun not intended). Know what age group they are, their gender, occupation, and/or income level. Knowing the answers to these questions will give an idea on what to write that will appeal to these readers. You can come up with blogs that will encourage them to interact with what you have written.
Once you know who majority of your readers are, it is easier to develop topics that they can relate to, topics they will find useful to their personal lives. Aim to make yourself to be an authority in your field and readers will follow your blogs again and again.
Use Technology as Guidepost.
You can easily learn and understand who reads your blogs by using analytical tools such as the Google Analytics. This is a free tool that you install in your blog. The same is true with the WordPress with its many plug-ins for the purpose. By studying your analytics, you can start seeing the demographics of your readers and see which of your blogs are useful to them. This information can serve as your guide in redirecting your target for your blogs.
Make it easy for your readers to interact with you by using plug-ins and widgets. They make commenting on posts simple and easy. Connect your blogs to your social media pages to facilitate continued conversations or chats with them. Social media have made commenting on information and sharing them have become a breeze.
There is Beauty in Simplicity.
As much as possible, stay away from long, packed-in articles. Make your blogs short, simple and easy to read so your readers can easily scan your content. There may be no fast rules in writing lengthy articles but make sure they are easy on the eye. Break up long paragraphs with subheadings especially on computer screens or mobile website. Subheadings should be descriptive to encourage readers to go and read farther down. A good guide to follow regarding paragraphs: keep them under 5 sentences long with 20 words per sentence maximum.
Guide your Readers.
Make it easy for your readers to navigate through your site. Let your readers find immediately the important features of your blog by making them prominent. You can do this by offering related or articles at the end of your post. This way, your readers may linger longer in your blog and dig deeper into your content. You may use Related Post for WordPress for this purpose. It is a plug-in that links you to materials related to your blog. Include your Logo Display you logo at the upper left hand corner of your website. This will assure your readers that they are in your website. This will also serve as a security feature which can be a reason for the lack of interaction from readers.
Use Graphics and Breathers.
Do not fall into a trap of filling up your page with too much visual information. Leaving a white space between graphics and text on your webpage makes it easy on the eye of the readers. Cluttering the page with excessive and sloppy graphics can be a major turnoff for your readers. Be a minimalist in your design and spread out your content. This will avoid tiring your visitors’ eyes and making your blog stressful to read. Guide your readers to your content creatively by good use of navigation. Avoid shoving all the information under their nose.
A word about using graphics: try to make your graphics or images search engine friendly. Great images are powerful tools to drive traffic to your website!
With the use of these techniques, watch how your blogs jump into life in no time at all! HAPPY BLOGGING! 🙂