Whether you get 300 or 300,000 monthly unique visitors on your site, it doesn’t matter unless they are retaining and returning visitors. You want to keep people on your page as long as possible, but with apps like Snapchat our retention spans have gotten shorter and shorter making it nearly impossible to browse a site without immediate gratification. I’m going to share with you 4 blog secrets that will keep visitors on your page longer.
Before we get started here are some words/phrases you’ll need to know:
Bounce rate – retention rate, how quickly someone leaves aka bounces from your page
Unique visitors – the number of individual people visiting your site per month
Traffic sources – what websites your site’s traffic comes from
Internal/external links – links within your post that stay within your site (internal) or take visitors to another site (external)
Pingbacks – when someone links your website from their site
Google ranking – how your page ranks, (#1 or #201), when someone Googles a phrase that relates to your site/blog post
secret 1: include internal links
The magic number here is 5. Having 5 internal links throughout your blog post is almost a guaranteed click and it will increase your ranking on Google. Seeing these links sparks curiosity therefore we click, given that the hyperlink is used in an appealing way.
You don’t just want to hyperlink any phrase or word, you want it to correspond with your entire post and be interesting to your readers. Which are you likely to click, “my favorite coconut water” or “the drink was really good”? Most likely “my favorite coconut water” which should be linked to another post you did on none other than your favorite coconut water. Every successful blogger in the world does this.
secret 2: add similar posts
If incorporating 5 internal links is too much for you, then try adding a similar posts section placed in the middle of your post. Why the middle?
Well, how often does someone actually scroll all the way to the bottom of a page and look around to see if there’s something they missed? Rarely. So adding your actual post titles in the similar posts section is more likely to get visitors to stay on your page longer.
secret 3: create a series
This is a GREAT way to keep visitors on your page longer. I’ve done this several times in my Blogging 101, Social Media 101, and Branding 101 series. It works like a charm and gets those new visitors intrigued and eager to follow along in your series.
You can add other parts of the series throughout your blog post, in the beginning, or at the bottom.
secret 4: add a cta (call to action)
CTAs are used by bloggers, entrepreneurs, big corporations, local businesses, etc. and with good reason: they work! A CTA is what you ask your visitors to do during or after your blog post, podcast, webinar, etc.
At the end of every one of my posts I ask a question to engage my audience and get a meaningful conversation going. Some people like Marie Forleo will challenge you to tweet one of her quotes, fill out a worksheet, or share a video. This keeps visitors on your page longer and generates new traffic if the post is shared.
Please share this post with 1 person you know who would find this stuff useful, then give him/her a CTA to share with another person.
xx
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