Simple ways to get readers to stay awhile

Getting visitors to come to your blog is one thing. Getting them to stick around is another.

The longer you can keep your visitor’s attention, the more likely they will be to share your content on social media sites, comment on your posts, click on your sponsor’s ads or subscribe to your list. Ultimately, it’s in your best interest to find ways to improve your blog so that these things can happen. Here are 4 very simple ways you can do it.

1. Link to other posts/pages on your blog

This is the number one way to increase the time visitors spend on your site. When you link to other places on your blog from a post,  it gives the visitor something more to read, therefore potentially increasing page views (the number of pages a visitor clicks on before leaving your blog).

This can be accomplished many, many ways, but one good technique you can implement is to link keywords in your post to a relevant page or previous post. This will also improve your blog’s search engine ranking for those keywords – but take care to not overdo it.

You can also try using a related posts plugin, such as LinkWithin, to auto-generate and display relevant internal links at the end of your posts.

2. Keep your blog focused

One of the main reasons for high bounce rate is irrelevancy. If people are coming to your blog expecting to read about a certain topic, make sure your posts are relevant to that topic. Otherwise, your visitors will walk away. If you find yourself wanting (or needing) to publish a post that’s a little off-topic, just make that clear in your post. Say something like, “I know this post is a little off-topic, but…” so your visitors will know that it’s an exception. They will probably stick around to find what they were looking for.

3. Use excerpts on your home page

This is not only a good technique for increasing page views and the length of time your visitor stays, it’s also just great blogging technique. When you use excerpts, you give people who land on your home page a nice overview of several articles, and they will mentally bookmark the ones they want to come back to during their visit.

The most important reason to use excerpts is that it will improve visibility into your other content. If for some reason your latest post doesn’t intrigue someone who visits, perhaps your other ones will. They won’t see them, though, if your home page can only fit the latest post. Consider either using a theme that truncates your home page posts automatically, or making good use of the More tag, which will truncate the post at a position that you determine.

4. Improve your navigation

Your visitors won’t be able to read your other content if they can’t find it, so it’s essential that you use good navigation on your blog. Try using an Archives widget or create an Archives page, or display your categories in the sidebar or footer. The last thing you want to create is a black hole, which happens when a visitor comes to a post through a link but then has nowhere else to go but off your site.

All of the above are simple, easy-to-accomplish tips for improving your visitor’s experience with your blog. Essentially, if your site has lots of great content that is easy to find, your visitors will stick around to read it, bookmark it for later, pass it on or decide to subscribe so they can keep up with you. If you have any questions or want more specifics on how to do any of the above, please feel free to reply to this post.