As a blogger, your job is never done. There’s always something more you can do to help improve your blog, so today I wanted to help kick-start your creative process by listing 10 easy ways you can do so 🙂 Lets get started shall we?
1. Invest in/create your own logo or header
Customising your blog is always a great idea. Not only does it make you look more professional, it also shows some individuality and helps with branding. Once you have a logo or header you can use this on business cards, press kits and social media accounts.
2. Rearrange/prioritise widgets
Things can get boring for readers when every time they visit your page they see the same thing. You need to think about updating other things on your website and as well posting regularly. The best way to do this is to rearrange widgets and make little alterations to your theme. Try to prioritise the widgets that you are showing and don’t overload the home page with too many. For example, if you want to get more subscribers this month, move your subscribe widget to the top of the page.
3. Make posts inclusive for readers
Not getting enough comments or shares? This could be because you aren’t including the readers enough. In order for them to relate, you should try to and make your posts inclusive. For example, ask questions or make more than one suggestion for those with different needs. The main thing is to let your readers know you are writing for them and that you want to provide them with valuable information just as much as you want to write about the products/things you enjoy.
4. Make commenting easy
Another possible reason that your blog is lacking in comments is that people simply find it too much hassle to do so. Find out why this is by testing out the comments section of your blog for yourself, then consider ways in which you can make it easier and more efficient. For example, you may want to install a new plug-in that allows commenters to use social media accounts.
5. Break up text with short paragraphs or subtitles
I’m a firm believer that long copy is still very much alive, but when it comes to blogging people want to be able to scan through posts and read them thoroughly later, if they liked the gist of what they first read. Breaking up your text with pictures, short paragraphs and sub-titles means you can engage people quickly and they can find the information they care about with ease. You can pad out the gaps, just like I’m doing now, for those who do want to read, but for scanners sub-titles are vital and I like to cater to everyone.
6. Help solve problems & be responsive
A popular blog is often one that solves problems and is extremely responsive to its readers. To gain more popularity on your blog, try to write about things that will be of valuable to your readers. Consider the posts they liked most, the questions they have previously asked and the things they do interact well with. Doing such research should help you connect with your readers better, and therefore enhance your blog’s engagement.
7. Suggest further reading sources
I think we have established that improving your blog is all about catering to your audience and providing valuable posts, so now it’s all about finding new ways to do this. One way in which you can ensure your readers are well informed and have all the resources they need is to provide links to articles for further reading. For example, if you’ve written some social commentary on a subject from one perspective, try to include links to articles that show a different perspective.
8. Incorporate more personality
One of the reasons blogs are so popular is because people feel they can trust the people behind them, because they get to know them through their writing, social media accounts and pictures. It’s really important to incorporate your personality where you can, whilst still providing all the information you can. Don’t be afraid or hold back, people want to get to know the individual behind the words!
9. Attract interest with awesome headlines
Blog titles are everything. You need to grab the attention of people and draw them in quickly, so that before they know it they have reached the end of the post and are about to type out a comment. Engagement needs to happen straight away, as soon as the web page loads – so make sure you spend time making headlines and titles attractive, interesting or explanatory.
10. Up the ante with social integration
Each blog and each blog post has a life far beyond the platform it runs off. In order to enhance the success of your blog you need to make sure you fully integrate it with social media. This means creating accounts for the website itself, connecting with communities within the social sphere and sharing your posts in all the right places, at all the right times.
Have you found these 10 tips useful? Use the comments section below to let me know!
PS. If you have some of your own suggestions, I’d also love to hear from you and I’m sure my readers would too 🙂