What makes a blog successful? What mistakes should you avoid on your blog? How do you tweak your blog to ensure better results? These are some of the most commonly asked questions from newbie bloggers. Till now, I’ve emphasized on the DON’Ts involved in creating a successful blog.
Today, I’m going to present 7 Dos (tweaks) that can lead to better results for your blog.
1. Know your keywords
If you know your keywords, that’s half the battle won. You should be able to identify what keywords are fetching you maximum traffic and what posts are striking a cord with your audience. Take stock of which of your blog posts are being liked and retweeted. And of course, analyze if your keywords are generating the optimal Search Engine Optimization (SEO) results for your blog.
2. Visual Appearance
I’ve come across several blogs which offer quality content but lack an appealing visual interface. While there’s no doubt that content is king, you should pay due attention to the user interface and look and feel of your blog. After all, the first impression is often the last impression and that rule applies to your blog as well.
3. Make a statement with your blog headlines
I’m subscribed to nearly a thousand blogs and I admit that it’s impossible for me to read all of them on a daily basis. Therefore, I usually make that call mostly based on the headings. I believe it’s important that your blog posts have headings that make a statement and entice your audience to read the full post.
4. Share it
Social networks have proved to be a blessing in disguise for blogs. It helps you get maximum reachability for your blog posts via Facebook likes, Tweets and Retweets, Pinterest pins, etc. In general, I recommend that you use a multi-platform sharing tool such as Ping.fm which would broadcast your blog posts to multiple social networks at once.
5. Reward them
Reward your loyal audience with incentives. Let’s face it – it’s not easy to build a sustainable readership for any blog, it takes a lot of time and effort. Further, your audience is the sole reason why your blog is successful so why not give them their due. Whether its discount coupons, gifts or giveaways, it’s always good to reward your audience.
6. Backlinks
High-quality backlinks serve as a great source of traffic for your blog. However, you should be cautious in building backlinks – especially you should keep quality of links and anchor text variation in your mind. Also, instead of creating lots of backlinks to your homepage only, start working on building links to internal pages – this would ensure the best results for all pages on your blog.
7. Comments
User comments are the lifeline of a blog. It’s your interface with the readers. I strongly recommend that you take time to monitor and respond to all user comments on your blog, it pays in the long run. If users ask questions on your blog as comments and these go unanswered, they’re likely to skip commenting on your posts in future.
How did you tweak your blog to gain better results? Please share your views by leaving a comment.
