Do you find that engagement is a problem on your blog? Have you pointed fingers at your content as being the reason for this? Well, I’m not going to tell you that the content isn’t the problem sight unseen, but that’s probably not why you’re having trouble. From the standpoint of a guy who runs a custom writing service, I can tell you that even if you hire the world’s best copywriter and your content is absolutely amazing, your blog can still tank.
Fortunately, there are ways to fix this (which we will get to in a moment). Before that, let’s have a brief chat about bounce rates.
Your bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave your site after looking at just one page. Once they get a feel for the territory, they decide not to stick around. The higher the bounce rate, the harder it’s going to be to make friends with Google. You want your bounce rate to be below 70 percent if at all possible. That’s where these 10 tips come into play. Decrease bounce, and you increase engagement. Makes sense, right?
All right then! Let’s dive right in!
1. Get Rid of the Text Bricks.
Bricks are heavy. They’re cumbersome. They don’t evoke mental images that are particularly fun. Text bricks are the kiss of death when it comes to engagement. So what is a text brick? It’s a single paragraph that seems to go on and on forever.
Note the length of the paragraphs in this blog. They’re short and to the point and don’t always follow the convention that your 10th grade English teacher taught you. In blogging terms, five sentences is usually a brick, even if that’s what got you high marks on your essays back in the day.
You want to make sure that you’re delivering content in smaller chunks; that way the reader is more likely to skim over a phrase that will catch his or her attention. We’re going for engagement, not perfect grammar. Listen to your own conversations once in a while and note how grammar often flies right out the window. Blogs are conversations. Treat them that way.
2. Provide Internal Links.
If you are re-hashing a concept from an earlier blog post, link to it. Quite often, just seeing a link in the middle of a paragraph will pique the reader’s interest. It’s good SEO practice to provide a couple external links, too, but you really do want to keep visitors bouncing around your own site as much as possible.
Many popular blogging platforms, like WordPress, provide the capability to link to related or even just recent posts in your webpage’s sidebars. If you aren’t taking advantage of this prime real estate, you are missing out on a huge number of internal clicks. Don’t inundate your audience with self-referential links, but give them a feel for what’s available.
3. Design Your Blog for Fast Page Loads.
On average, people are only going to give you about 10-15 seconds to deliver the content you promised. Any more than that and … bounce! In fact, more recent numbers indicate that in this world of high-speed everything, you may have as few as 5 seconds to get on with the show. Honestly, your pages should be capable of loading in 1-2 seconds flat. That’s ideal.
Keep your visuals engaging but minimal. Huge image files and an abundance of them slow things down. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Keep that in mind when trying to tell your story in pictures. Less is more. Use the picture to get the reader’s attention, but keep their attention with well-written and well-presented content.
4. Talk Directly to Your Audience.
If your audience can’t relate to you, why would they keep reading your blog? You need to talk directly to people and talk to them on their level. Talk about things that matter to them.
Most successful blogs take a good middle of the road approach using one of two distinct writing styles: friendly and conversational or formal and professional.
Here is why I say middle of the road: get too friendly and your copy starts coming off as too gonzo to take seriously. Get too serious and people will get bored or even annoyed at the tone and pace of your posts. Again, meet your audience in the middle and try to keep things on an even keel in the conversation.
Just as a final note on this, the vast majority of successful blogs have that informal, down-to-earth tone, even if the topics are a bit heady or technical.
5. Avoid Chaotic Layouts.
There is a lot to be said for simplicity. If your page is too busy and overrun with quote boxes or images, your reader could decide he or she is being handed more than can be swallowed in one sitting. Yes, you want important points to be clear, but the “in your face” approach rarely works, and, in some cases, it can even offend people.
I’ll go back to my conversation analogy. Most conversations are linear with just one person talking at a time and presenting one idea or topic at a time. The same should be true for your blog. Keep the flow of the conversation steady by eliminating distractions caused by having too much “stuff” on your page. Keep the colors interesting, but keep them neutral as well.
6. Integrate Your Blog with Social Media.
If you don’t have social sharing buttons on your blog, you really need to add them. Then, put out a direct call to action to share the post if the reader finds the information useful. Don’t overdo it on the social icons – just target the more popular platforms and ones relevant to your niche.
If your blog is about weight loss, for example, it is more likely to be shared on Twitter than on LinkedIn. Encourage sharing, but don’t inundate the reader with options for sharing – usually that has the exact opposite effect of what you’re actually going for.
These six tips are together a great jumping-off point for making your blog more successful. The only bouncing you want to see happening is between the pages of your own blog, so take the necessary measures to properly engage your audience.