While the quality of your content may decide the volume and loyalty of your audience, your abandonment rate will be mostly decided by other factors.For instance, if your website fails to load within the first 4 seconds, about one-quarter of all your readers will abandon you without even giving you a chance.Needless to say, this is something you want to avoid at all costs. To achieve this, you need to optimize your blog’s responsiveness and there are several ways to do so.
First, you need to minimize the number of your website’s visual effects, in order to reduce the number of HTTP requests. Second, you need to find a reliable host, one that can guarantee minimum latency and maximum uptime (at least 99.99 percent).
Finally, you need to make sure your blog posts are mobile-friendly. Nowadays, mobile users expect their content to load as quickly as that of PC users and your failure to deliver on this expectation will be considered as a major flaw.
Try to add value
If your content adds value to your customers, it will be able to do its own self-promotion. For instance, an entertaining piece on a currently hot topic may drive myriads to your blog post. However, this is not the only way to generate value.
You can look at other platforms (outside of blogosphere) and try to learn something from them. You see, the most popular channels are the ones offering tutorials and instructions.
Their audience anticipates every new piece they have to publish and, in truth, they don’t even have to work that hard on attracting people to their blog.
Gather more data on your demographic
In the previous section, we discussed the idea of creating content of value. Nonetheless, the metric known as ‘value’ can sometimes be quite subjective.
Still, if you find an efficient and subtle way to gather data, you might just be able to make your own audience reveal what they actually want. There are a couple of subtle ways, which mostly involve the act of active listening on forums and similar platforms.
On the other hand, those who want to get actionable information as soon as possible might want to resort to using reliable paid surveys.
Utilize social media
In 2018, this goes without saying; however, a surprisingly large number of bloggers are still underutilizing this idea.
The best part of utilizing social media to give your blog a boost lies in the fact that you don’t have to invest a lot of effort.
All you need to do is share your content on your social media accounts and in this way expand your reach.
Nevertheless, this is not all you can do on social media to help out your blog. By doing a bit of informal personal branding, you can also drive some of this traffic your way. Get involved in all hot debates regarding your industry.
Those you cause a strong reaction in (good or bad) are bound to check out your portfolio. Needless to say, this is an ideal opportunity to leave a breadcrumb trail they can follow all the way to your blog.
Become a contributor someplace else
If you are trying to establish yourself as an expert in a certain niche, you might want to try and spread your message through a channel with a bit greater reach.
Some of the biggest names in the game like Forbes or HubSpot are always on the lookout for contributors. Therefore, you need to become a guest writer there and demonstrate your prowess to their readership.
In this way, you can ensure that your words are heard by thousands. Later on, it will be much easier to attract some of these readers to your own blog.
Use SEO
Finally, even the best piece of content is completely useless if your audience can’t reach it. About 33 percent of all Google searches end on the first result, while 95 percent of searches end before the person making the inquiry reaches page 2 of search results.
In order to make sure your blog and your posts reach a great spot, you need to pay close attention to both on- and off-site SEO optimization. This, however, is a story for another time.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, simply writing a blog post may take a lot of your time (average in 2017 was 3 hours and 20 minutes), yet this is where your work only begins.
Promoting your work, optimizing the technical aspects of your content and self-promoting your work on social media may not be why you got in the business but they are inevitable steps on your path towards success.
About Author
Emma is a digital marketer and blogger from Sydney. After getting a marketing degree she started working with Australian startups on business and marketing development. Emma writes for many relevant, industry related online publications and does a job of an Executive Editor at Bizzmark blog and a guest lecturer at Melbourne University. Interested in marketing, startups and latest business trends.
