If you are like me, you probably check your Google Analytics daily. I always check the traffic and where it is coming from. The one stat that I always pay attention to is the time on site stat. I get so happy when I see some visitors spending 20-30 minutes on my blog. To me, that tells me that I am doing something right. As bloggers we are always trying to attract new visitors to our blog, but that is only a piece of the puzzle. Once you draw them in, you need to engage them, and then impress them so they will want to return.
Why is the time someone spends on your blog important?
There are several reasons why it is important to increase the time that people spend on your blog. The biggest reason is it helps to establish the connection. The more the reader is engaged, the more they will learn, and the more they will connect with you and your blog. If you deepen the connection with your readers, you greatly increase the likelihood of them taking a positive action like subscribing to your newsletter, buying your product/service, or buying a product/service that you recommend.
Ten Tips to keep them on your blog longer:
Fast Loading Blog
If your blog takes more than a couple of seconds to load you will surely lose visitors and will never have a chance to engage them. To increase the speed of your blog, you can reduce the size of your images, tweak the coding on your theme, cut down on some graphics, and get rid of some of your widgets.
Professional Theme
You do not have to have a premium theme to have a professional looking theme. One of the biggest turnoffs for me when I am visiting a blog is a junky theme. A clean, easy to navigate theme will create a favorable first impression and entice the visitor to stick around and explore your content.
Content
This one is a no brainer, if your content stinks or is nonexistent, the visitor will bolt and never return again. Quality content that educates, entertains, or brings value to the reader will keep them on your blog to read other posts and hopefully subscribe to your blog.
Easy on the Ads
Most people want to make money with their blogs (I do!) and you have to walk the fine line of enough ads without over doing it. I recently eliminated the Google ads in the middle of the post because I decided it was too much. You will have to decide what the right blend is for you and your audience. As a general rule, I would stay away from popup ads. I find them highly annoying and it always leaves me with a bad impression of the blog.
Have links open in a new window
We all have external links and exits on our blogs. It is wise to set them to open up in a new window; this will increase the chances of that person coming back to your blog.
Related Posts
I recommend installing a plugin that will show related posts under your content and right above the comments. This is an easy way to keep that visitor reading your posts. I am using “Microkids Related Posts” and it work great.
Popular Posts
Another great technique is to install a popular post widget. New visitors are likely to check this out as it serves as an example of your best content and probably the posts that provide the most useful information. I have my widget displayed front and center.
Increase Comments
If you takes steps to increase the number and quality of comments this will help make your blog stickier and keep readers around longer. They will spend time reading the comments and also if they write a comment this will increase their time as well. I recently wrote an article on how to get more blog comments if you want to check it out.
Create a “new readers” page
I was in the process of doing this and it actually spurred the idea for this post. I will be making a page and adding a tab in the header that is geared towards first time visitors. It will be kind of like and about page but will focus on the top posts in each of the categories. This will provide a nice overview of the blog and hopefully get your new visitor exposed to dozens of your top articles.
Add video, audio,etc..
This is an area I am still working on but the reality is that providing video and multimedia is an easy and effective tool to use to help you connect with your readers. There are very few bloggers who do this well. I see that the Problogger finally just updated his video of the week. Prior to this update he had the same video displayed for two months.
There you have it, 10 tips to make your blog stickier and keep your readers reading.
What do you do to increase the amount of time visitors spend on your blog?
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Reducing the size of your image helps a lot. It loads a lot faster so you won’t have to lose visitors.
Following all the tips.Only I haven’t created a “new readers” page and I think it will be really a useful thing.
.-= Typhoon´s last blog ..Content vs Marketing! Which is King? =-.
my Website has no Traffic at all
I have no problems with visitors
Great way for increasing time people spend on the site is visible “the best posts” widget. Provided that you have some nice content on the site people might just visit your older posts.
@tycoon blogger thnx for visiting and i am happy that now i have got a theme that looks professional
gautam hans’s last blog post..Google Pagerank Updated, What’s Yours?
Traffic/Visitors.. these are always one of bloggers’ biggest concerns. I used to check on analytics at least once per 2 days, now gradually slow down the pace to suit my needs. ^^ Anyhow, those are good tips, and I’m agreeig with most of them. Although we all have own preferences, but to share opinions and learn from each other, that’s how we could grow in blogging.
Keep up the good work. Love the new readers’ idea, one of a kind.
@wchingya
social media/blogging
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@gautam- I just visited your site, and yes I do think your theme is professional
@milo- yes.
@tmartin- that is a great post idea..I do have a couple suggestions…I will think on this one and try to come up with a top 10 lst in the next couple of days.
@extremejohn- please feel free to take the idea and run with it..
Tycoon Blogger’s last blog post..10 ways to get visitors to spend more time on your blog
I have a slight difference of opinion in regards to the new window.
However I really like the idea of a “New Reader” section, I might have to take that one from you. Thank you.
Extreme John’s last blog post..2000 Comments
Really good tips. I could add video. Opening links in a new window would be better, but that would be lots of work. I thought to myself. It really isn’t hard to right click the link and open in new window or tab. I do that all the time with other sites.
Where to Link’s last blog post..Dofollow Comment Lists
I appreciate your comments and posts. I always learn from what your write. Thanks.
How about a post about ways to reduce the time you spend creating your blog and keeping it going?
I enjoy blogging, but I can’t devote as much time to it as I like. Suggestions?
Very Useful tips!
I agree that the time visitors actually spend on your blog is just as important as getting visitors in. I loved your tips – very useful. I’m going to go run now and try a few of them out.
Mina
http://www.theuniverseguru.com
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Hey Dan, some excellent points here for sure; 100% agreement!
I have a new readers category, but I think I could do well with a page; I may have to give that a shot.
Popular posts IS extremely important as you pointed out, and of course should be above the fold.
I think though that it should be on every page; mine does quite well. The post currently at the bottom of my list has been there for almost a full year due to people still commenting on it…not to mention the post currently #1.
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Just out of interest, do popup blockers block pages that open in a new window?
I like the first point, “Fast Loading Blog”. For me speed matters. I don’t like wasting my time waiting for some blogs to load up. All in all great tips.
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Hi there,
I agree with fast loading, a decent looking theme and then content. I have a few ads and will think about what you have written here.
The ‘new readers page’ is a great idea, let me know when you are done so that I can have a look at it.
I have just updated my theme to Thesis and playing around with features and all. but I should be adding video soon as I think this helps out a lot.
Thanks for the tips and sharing them
Dan, I agree with you with the “Content” and “Increase Comment”. I believe that your readers might be happy to stay longer if they see your blog has good content and has lots of comments, which means your blog has a lot of visitors. With that said, they might be happy to stay longer and be part of your community too.
Well said!
Regards,
Lee
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Hi Dan, in regards to the video, because I kept forgetting to change the damn thing, I found a news site that supplied a feed for the latest news. This way readers are presented with a new video every time the page was refreshed.
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I agree with your post and the comment above that a fast loading blog is important – that’s one downside of wordpress some of the themes take a while to load. Nice blog!
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Hi Dan,
I totally agree with you on the first part about having a fast loading blog. It helps with Google analyzing your pages and also I believe that readers don’t want to wait for any longer than 5 seconds. We are all so fond of getting things done, so if it doesn’t load quickly we skip it!
Great blog post and hope to see more!
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liked your idea of professional theme. do yoou think my blog theme is professional?
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