How To Get Your First Time Blog Visitor To Be A Regular Reader?

Getting traffic to your blog is a big challenge you can face as a blogger. However, the biggest challenge you may be facing right now could be getting your first time visitors to be your regular readers. The fact of the matter is, not every first time readers are going to come back to your site. A very small percentage of people do comeback. But over time just this small percentage adds up.

Having your first time visitor return regularly to your site is vital for your blog’s growth but is not an easy feat. This holds true especially when many of your first blog visitors are very likely to forget about your site couple of minutes after they leave it. Unless of course, you give them pretty darn good reasons not to forget (O:

Before we delve in the discussion on how to make visitors stick around, be sure to check out these 2 articles on finding more blog readers:

1. 7 Sure-fire Ways To Find More Blog Readers.

2. How To Amass Serious Blog Readers That Follow Your Every Move?

Now that I am guessing you read those 2 articles, how can you get your first time visitors to come back again and again?

Here are some of the tactics I have used, some yet to fully master and hopefully implementing all if not some of these tips help you achieve your goals of getting regular readers to your site:

1. Understanding the importance of first impression:

First impression is usually the last impression. This couldn’t be truer for blogs to stand out of the crowd. And the best way to make this impression is giving more than what others do. It is mere common sense that if you help solve your reader’s problems as well as give them more than what they expect, they are highly likely to return.

For the first time visitors to stay in your site and revisit, you have to impress them within the first 5-6 seconds after they land in your site. This is where the importance of above the fold comes to play. Above the fold is the upper part of your blog that is seen as soon as your visitors land on your site, which I am going to talk more about in the next point.

2. Constituents of your Above the fold:

The constituents of an impressive above the fold start with a great blog design and layout. The header – logo, tagline; post title, thumbnails and even the excerpt of your best posts all collectively work in impressing your first time visitors.

The best chances of your visitors coming back again and again to your site are when you have them subscribe to your blog. So, have the RSS and email subscription readily visible – in or close to Above the fold – instead of making them hunt for it.

It should also include your best offers – eBook, products and services and all your other Unique Selling Propositions (USP). Make it easy for your first time visitors by letting them know where to start along with a strong call to action. Check out the snapshot of Steve’s blog down below who I believe has done such an amazing job on this.

Constituents of an impressive above the fold.

3. Your content and publishing schedule:

Quality content is the king. There is no doubt about this and it plays the most significant part in your first time visitors to return regularly; more than anything else. So, how interesting is your content? Better yet, how do you relay your content? Do you have a knack for storytelling? Besides all that, how relevant is your content to your target audience?

One of the best tips every blogger must follow is create keystone articles more often – the tutorial style, How to posts like this one which can definitely attract your visitors to come back again and again. Being consistent in providing relevant, interesting and valuable content compels your visitors to come back for more. Let me not rant on this further because I think I say enough on the importance of content to gather more readers and targeted clients.

It is not easy to stick to a publishing schedule when you have hundreds of other thing going on. I know I am also guilty of this at times (O: But, creating a schedule can help in getting the visitors to comeback because it lets them know when your blog is updated.

Some other ways of utilizing the power of awesome content also includes leveraging your already existing content to give a great impression to the readers. Why not use what you already have for more benefits. Linking to relevant blog posts in the content you write, using Popular post plugins at the sidebars and Relevant posts at the end of every posts also help to a certain extent.

Using relevant yet interesting images tells your readers that you went ahead and took the extra step to make your post friendly and attractive which is definitely a plus in motivating your readers to come back to your blog. For more on the importance of images, how to find and use the right images, be sure to check out my recent post Are Your Images Worth A Thousand Words?

4. Construct Compelling headlines:

I did mention post title above, while talking about the constituents of an impressive above the fold, but this is worth mentioning again. Headlines play a significant role in grabbing your reader’s attention.

As soon as a visitor lands on your blog, their eyes are most likely to land on the post title first. If it is captivating, chances are, they are highly likely to click on it and actually read what you write.

Posts that have attractive and compelling headlines are probable to go viral in the social media outlets as well. Just go check out Digg or Delicious – the articles that make it to the top are the ones with the crackerjack headlines. Effective Headlines that attract audience like bees to honey can really help your one time visitor remember who you are and return back to your site.

5. Encourage comments, participation and pay attention to the readers:

There is no blogging success without the help of your readers. Therefore, paying attention to your readers is very important. Your first time visitors are likely to converse with you if you encourage them to share their thoughts and insights. The chances of your visitors returning to your site readily increases if they leave insightful comments in your blog. So, don’t forget to optimize your comments. They are likely to comeback and converse with you more if you reply to the comments they leave. Besides, people tend to be more social when they are comfortable. So, make them comfortable by communicating with them, kick start a dialogue and thank them every chance you get.

You talk, they talk !

Similarly welcome others to guest post in your blog. If you think about it, once someone gets their post published in your site, they are frequently going to come back.

6. Be everywhere and increase your exposure:

Since every visitors are different, it really does take a lot to impress them to come back to your site. But the fact is the more exposure you get, the more readers frequent you online, the more chances of them revisiting your site. Periodically submitting guest posts, joining popular social media communities exponentially increases your exposure online. Also pay attention to your SEO so that your targeted readers can find you through the search engines.

Another awesome way to increase your exposure is by leaving insightful comments in prominent blogs around the blogosphere. Your comments might impress the blog readers and heck they might even follow you to your site and share their thought on what you write about. You can also advertize your blog in other prominent blogs and yeah, getting recommendations from other prominent bloggers also help to gain that much needed exposure.

Recommendations make the difference: Thank you Steve.

These tactics are certainly not the only ones you can implement in order to convert your first time visitors to be your regular readers. Nonetheless, these are the basic ones you can start implementing today to make a difference.

• Are you ready to take action and put these ideas to use?

• How do you convert your first time visitors into loyal readers?

Please feel free to comment down below and add your thoughts and insights. Plus, if you like this article Tweet it, share it in Facebook or your favorite social media outlets.

Here’s to your successful blogging endeavor!

-Adam Paudyal.

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