Reader’s engagement means different things to different people. When talking about reader’s engagement in terms of blogging, it refers to the actions taken by the reader after reading the content, like sharing the article, posting a valuable comment and so on. The reader’s engagement in this way affects the conversion rates and incoming traffic as well. As such, every blogger dreams of high conversion rate and invests in time and resources to build the reader’s loyalty. Along with quality content and a pleasing blog design, there are numerous factors that affect the way reader interacts with your weblog. Here’s a collection of 21 ideas to help you increase the reader’s engagement on your weblog.
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Open the ways for the reader to discover what they like. Building easy navigation in form of primary-secondary menus, featured and relevant posts and pagination engage the visitors in exploring the weblog to its fullest.
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Easy Availability Of Subscriptions Option
Most of the time, conversion fails because of unavailability of subscription option at the right place. Instead of placing the subscription option just in the top sidebar or in the footer, utilize these 4 high converting places for sign up and subscription options.
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Allow Users To Rate The Content
In the blogger’s arena, reader is the king. Entice the readers and ask for their valuable feedback in form of rating the content. This gives you a fair idea about your reader’s inclination.
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Include The Call To Action
Just like online businesses entice the users to buy their products and services and pitch their products by providing trial versions or demos, similarly apply the tactics for driving traffic and comments to your blog-content. Remind the readers to subscribe, comment, share the results, etc.
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When concluding the blog posts, intimate the readers to take up some activity in form of a certain exercise, sharing useful links or sharing the results of the exercise. For instance, on a photography blog, you can teach the readers about some techniques and encourage them to try their hands at it and share the results with you. These activities instill confidence and a sense of connection in readers.
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Social Bookmarking Toolbars
Social bookmarking toolbar comes in handy for initiating social sharing. The website toolbars are an efficient way of engaging the visitors in sharing the interesting stories and content on your website.
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Projects / Challenges / Contests
Ask your readers to show off their talent and track the involvement and participation. People love to do something and share the results specially when they are assured of some prizes or exposure-benefits.
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Publish Mega Lists / Resources
The mega lists and resources are admired by people and gain popularity on social media sites. The collection of useful articles, tools, photographs, designs, etc are often bookmarked and shared by people.
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Integrate Forums / Discussions
Take up the users’ questions and initiate the threaded discussion in your niche. Forums provide a platform for discussing the specific issues and it becomes the user’s habit to check out what others have to say about the issues.
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Enlist Forthcoming Articles
Enlisting the upcoming articles arouse interest in readers and drive them towards subscribing to the weblog or bookmarking the website.
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Pin The Popular Posts
This works amazingly well. Along with the recent post links, comments section and call to action of single post page, pin up the featured or popular post on single post page. When the visitor looks at the teaser following the article, he becomes inquisitive and clicks on the link to read further.
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Community Submissions
Invite the readers to submit the articles to share their expertise. This will make them feel special and besides encouraging social sharing, the articles submitted by readers will drive traffic from the pool of authors’ friends.
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Giveaways
Free gifts are admired by everyone. Giveaways in form of desktop calendars, e-books, Photoshop brushes, etc do pretty well in enticing the readers. Smashing Magazine, Vandelay Design, Designmodo periodically offer freebies for web designers which drives traffic and builds reader’s loyalty.
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Throw A Question
Value the readers by asking them about their choice and preferences. Let the readers decide what they would like to read about in the upcoming posts.
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Implement “Killer” Copywriting Techniques
Meet the reader’s expectations by providing the quality content. Enticing titles, interesting sub-heads, relevant content and writer’s tone together spice up the article. And these spiced up articles does wonders in “spreading the word” about your blog.
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Offer Newsletters
E-mail newsletters offer an effective marketing pitch for bloggers. Offering the newsletters help in establishing your authority in the niche and also soars the subscription base.
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Include Images, Videos And Podcasts
Rather than reading the content online, visitors appreciate the blogs which present the information in concise and visually appealing way. Presenting the information by including images, videos and podcasts thus do well in driving traffic, comments and sharing.
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Ask Questions
The posts which ask a direct question in the title do well in comments. While the post content puts forth the writer’s opinion, the responses line up the reader’s opinion and expertise in the comments.
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Weekly / Monthly Wrap of Articles
Monthly / weekly wrap-up of articles is a great way to summarize your blog activities to the readers. The visitors find it easy to pick and review their favorite posts from the list.
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Polls
Polls and surveys are an excellent way to have an insight into reader’s opinion. The poll results helps the blogger in assessing reader’s attitude and preferences and thus paves way for creating relevant content, contests, giveaways, etc.
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Readers’ engagement at large is a matter of putting the right thing at the right place. For instance, having the Facebook likes button at the end of the post is more favorable than at the beginning. Similarly, what better place it would be to convert your visitors than an effective footer.
What do you do to increase the reader’s engagement on your blog?
