Keeping Visitors On Your Blog
So you have a blog, its in the search engines and fully optimised – heck you’re even getting traffic to it! But how long are visitors staying on your site? How many pages are they reading? Are they coming back and revisiting the blog on a regular basis?
To often visitors come to read your blog and bounce, that is they only read the page they landed on. You want them to do more, to read additional posts, leave comments and revisit the site time and time again. I guess the question is how do we engage readers so that they get to see a little more of your hard work.
If you can hold the readers interest by encouraging them to read more then you stand a better chance of showcasing your skills, services and authority in your chosen subject. The more a reader gets involved and comments on your posts the more likely they will return to the site and engage further in conversation.
Here are a few tip for keeping readers reading…
1. Make sure you link to related posts
Simple really, if a user has found your site via search engine then the chances are that they are interested in the topic of your post. It stands to reason that they may also be interested in any similar posts you have in your archive. Rather than expecting them to search your site for related content (witch, thanks to advances in search engines most users will not do) why not put a link to any related articles your have already published, just pop a link in the post.
2. Show off your popular posts
If you have an old post that went down well then don’t be afraid to showcase it. Compilation posts can be a great way of holding a user’s interest and get them looking around your blog. Often webmaster will take the post of the month from a year ago, sometimes they will take the most discussed posts – it’s up to you.
3. Concise and descriptive introduction
When writing the intro to your post make sure you clearly portray the topic of your post as well as descriptively summing up what the post covers. It is often a good move to add some sort of hook or question to get the reader intrigued about your post, remember controversy is king here. Remember often the introduction is displayed as a snippet to entice the reader to view the post.
4. Write a series of blog posts
Often we like to keep posts short, more often than not posts are less than 800 words long which is good as it does not over load the user and scare them off. This can mean that complex topics are either avoided or not covered in full, to get around this consider writing a series of posts on your topic. As long as you make it clear to the user that the post they are reading is part of a series then you can expect return visits each week as the reader digests each post in your series. A user that has read part 1 of your series is very likely to want to read parts 2, 3 and 4.
An added bonus is that you will have more pages all linked together, that are indexed in the search engines and therefore stand to get more traffic from the search engines for your given topic.
5. Design a blog that presents additional posts effectively
Consider how you can use design to display additional post from your archive, you may wish to include a side bar that present other blog posts either related, popular, recent or most discussed. Perhaps you would like to include a list of categories of authors. You can even explore javascript roll overs or and pop-ups that provide snippits of related content from other posts you have in your archive. Have a think – the possibilities are endless.
The Value of eMarketing Today
- Did you know that 80% of people use search engines to find websites on the internet?
- And did you know that 80% of people use Google as their chosen search engine?
You can have the best website in the world, but if customers can’t find it when they search on Google, what value does it actually have?
If you want your website to be successful, eMarketing is something that you can’t ignore. The eMarketing service provided by eSterling helps you to reach customers that are searching in Google by optimising your site to be ranked within the search results.
It’s so important to get your website placed highly in Google and you can take the first steps to achieving this by getting in touch with eSterling. We will be able to talk you through our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) packages and recommend a service that will suit you best. Email us on enquiries@esterling.co.uk for more information.
You can not underestimate the value of eMarketing today, because without it, 80% of potential customers may not be able to find your site!
The Freddie Mercury Google Doodle
When you work with search engines every day, like we do here at eSterling, you inevitably notice when one of them has had a makeover.
Yesterday our good friend Google livened up its homepage with a brand new Google doodle celebrating what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday. The doodle features pictures of the Queen frontman making up the Google logo, with a large play icon in the middle. Make sure you’ve got your headphones on for the next bit, because when you hit the button you will be treated to Queen’s 1978 hit Don’t Stop Me Now and a colourful animation of the singer in full swing.
When the doodle is done, you will be taken to the search engine results for ‘Freddie Mercury’. Here you can read more about the singer’s life (and how it was tragically cut short in 1991) by reading Freddie’s Wikipedia entry, buy Queen merchandise using Google shopping; or have a look at Google image search to see what pop stars wore in the 70’s…
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Google doodles, they are graphics that replace Google’s normal logo to celebrate a special occasion, birthday or anniversary that is happening on a particular day. Over the years Google has created over 1000 doodles, some of which have become infamous in the internet community. Some memorable doodles include an interactive Pac-Man doodle to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the arcade game and a playable electric guitar to celebrate the 95th birthday of Les Paul.
The best thing about Google doodles is that they change every day and are used to celebrate anything and everything. But just don’t take my word for it – take a look at the Google homepage every day to see what doodles pop-up to catch your interest.
And whilst you might not be able to have your own Google doodle for your business, eSterling can help you achieve brilliant search results for your website. Get in touch with us for more information about our Search Engine Optimisation services by emailing helpdesk@esterling.co.uk.
Blogs are Good for Business (and Google like’s them too!)
I speak with many people about how to improve their Internet Marketing. One suggestion I often make is to have a regularly updated Blog on their site. Many people have heard of the term, but I’m all too often asked; ‘What actually is a Blog?’ and ‘How will it help my business?’
Think of it from Google’s prospective for a moment. Imagine how many websites there are in the world all competing to appear on the first page. How does Google decide which websites deserve to be on page one?
There are many factors Google assesses in its decision making process, one of these factors is how new and unique the content is on your website. Has there been any new content added to the site since 2010? Or are you keeping your site’s content up-to-date regularly and sharing information with users? Are visitors to your site, interacting with the content you creating for them?
If you had to choose between thousands of websites, would you opt to visit the site where there haven’t been any changes for years? Or would you want to see what’s new on the site that makes updates every week?
A key part to being a good Blogger is remembering that you are creating content for your users, not just Google.
Well written, good quality content is good for your business’ reputation, it enables your users to openly interact and share thoughts and ideas with you and in turn your site is rewarded for all your hard work.
Another crucial part to Blogging is to ensure you respond to user comments, no one likes to be ignored regardless of what platform the conversation takes place.
No one understands your business and your customers as well as you do, but we also understand that finding the time to invest into creating blog posts for your website is very difficult.
eSterling are able to create blog posts for you. We always have both the search engines and your customers in mind when we create blogs for your website. This means that every blog post is created from scratch by our professional Copywriter and each post is unique and relevant.
From only £25 per post, you can have a professional Blog and be on your way to creating your own library of useful information to keep both your website visitors and Google happy.
Call Cassandra our Copywriter direct on (0121) 766 4080 to discuss Blogs in more detail.
“Link baiting” – Just another term for building a good website?
SEO has its fair share of buzz words these days (we are marketers after all), one that is particularly common of late is “link baiting”. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of this term before or if you’re not sure what it actually means because it’s quite simple really…
The term “link baiting” refers to a simple strategy for naturally increasing the number of links to your website, and as we all know the more links you have coming in to your website the higher your page rank and the better your site will rank in the SERP’s. Link baiting is a completely natural approach to link building and will leave your site with genuine, organically built links; it does not involve buying links, endlessly commenting on blogs, using any automated posting software or anything wacky like that. With this system other people will build links to your website for you and best of all it is so simple that any website owner can do it.
So what is the catch and how does it work?
Ok, lets get down to brass tacks…link baiting…lets think about it. The clue is in the name – so we are laying bait to promote people to link to our sites. I guess the big question is, what is the bait?
The bait can be anything that engages people, something they like, use, need or enjoy – something so engaging and attention grabbing they just have to link to it. So what type of content can cause enough of a fuss that people, without being asked, decide to link to your website? Well the first question is probably what kind of people are you looking to attract and what will engage them? This is when market research and a good knowledge of your customers comes into play, the answer is very different depending on the type and role of your website.
Common types of “link bait” include Interviews with industry guru’s, useful industry tools, great articles, specialised reports, contests, reviews, controversial opinions, free resources and tools, “how to” articles and videos, and anything else that you think might appeal you your audience.
In short, what you are looking to do here is build a good website. If you build a high quality, well thought out, engaging website that is focused around the user then you should never need to build a single link to your website – given time they will come to you.
To go back to Google phrase from time gone by, “content is king”.