With the millions of blogs that make up an ever growing internet, it is hard for new bloggers to get their blogs first visited and then have people return. Many people search the internet and find blogs that are no more than a fungus created by people with only one thing in mind, getting money. Ok so we all want money, but let’s not pollute the web with pure garbage.
Get ten people to visit your blog and want to return repeatedly is better than 100 people just visiting and clicking straight out of it. Many blogs have flashing lights, bells and whistles. There is no structure just eye distracting nonsense everywhere.
If you have good content, and it is the content that will get people to return than don’t distract them from it. Steve Krug has written a fantastic book called Don’t make me think! it is basically about web usability, and it is full of ideas to make a website better, which in many cases also apply to a blog.
Another problem that many people do not think about, however, do commonly is send people away from their blog. How! people may ask? With hyperlinks that are not opened in a new page or tab. Imagine someone visits your blog, and you have a link to another site, blog or whatever, if the link displays the page on the one they had opened you have just shown them different content. After following that content, they may not return to yours. To open a link in a new tab or page the html code is target=”_blank” this is added to the end of the URL. Blogger does not do this by default so it will need to be added in the html code.
Slow loading graphics is another thing that can make people leave, the internet stores information that is available instantly (depending on your connecting speed). With the click of a button you can jump from blog to blog. People will not wait too long for a page to load before they click out of it. Images can be reduced in both dimension and file size, with many programs such as PhotoShop and Gimp by saving the image for web devices.
Many blogs also add things that many people do not understand such as recent viewers, this can be useful if you want to see who is visiting, remember though it will show the latest viewers from one community it is not a true indication of what traffic you are receiving. If the latest visitor from a community was five days prior and people see that they may think the blog is not that interesting and leave. This may also apply to hit counters and the like, if you really feel you like them then place them at the bottom of the page.
In conclusion, blogging really is about getting people to read what you have to say if not why blog, keep it on your PC. You want people to visit and return try everything within your control to have them stay long enough to read your latest post title.
Reprinted with permission from: Ardan’s Blog Talk: When is content not king?
