5 Ways To Make Your Blog All About Them
Posted by Sandy Mitchell on Fri, Dec 16, 2011
Blogs, unlike newspapers and magazines, have a unique capability to interact with their readers. However, with such capability goes responsibility. The best blogs find ways to engage their readers while still maintaining a platform for editorial content and product sales.
If you are looking to make your blog more user-friendly, here are five things to try:
1. Enable and respond to comments. Any blog that seeks to provide an engaging environment has to allow readers to comment on individual posts. Yes, it takes a bit of time to moderate these comments. Yes, you'll sometimes get spam. But, allowing comments tells the readers that their opinions are important to your company.
It's also not enough to just let readers comment on your blog content. You need to respond to their comments in a timely manner. No one likes talking into the wind. Let your readers know that someone is reading their comments by leaving a thoughtful response or thanking them for commenting.
2. Provide more than just text. A great blog doesn't just preach to its readers. It allows them to read, listen and view relevant content. If you're not using videos and audio files on your site, you're not maximizing your potential.
3. Use comments to generate blog content ideas. Reading your viewers' comments will often give you a good idea what's important to them. According to the Content Marketing Institute, a blog post with a lot of comments shows that you've happened on a topic that strikes a chord with your readers. Producing more blog content about that subject will keep readers engaged and returning again and again for more information.
Questions, too, can be good fodder for blog content. Addressing an issue that's mentioned repeatedly in comments can help establish your company as an authority in your field while making your blog the "go-to" site for answers.
4. Solicit user-generated content. According to Search-Engine Land.com, user-generated blog content (that is, content written and submitted by readers) not only helps your blog rank better with Google, but shows your readers that you value their input. It also gives your blog a greater depth by allowing different points of view.
Remember: you don't have post every submission and you can edit the posts for style and grammar.
5. Make it easy to share content. If your readers enjoy a particular post, make it easy for them to share it with their friends. It's the Internet equivalent of clipping an article out of a newspaper. Do this by placing buttons to share posts on Facebook or other social media sites as well as an "email this article" function so readers can send your post directly to their friends.
Making your blog more user-friendly is a process and one that won't happen overnight. Still, with a little effort and attention, you can make your site not only an authority on your topic, but a welcoming place to visit as well.