By: Epicantus - CC BY 2.0
How much of your blog’s traffic is bouncing instead of converting to email subscribers?
It’s great to have lots of eyeballs on your blog, but if you can’t hook them and convince them to subscribe to your mailing list, chances are they won’t be coming back or sharing your content with their network across social media.
If you’re struggling to convert visitors into subscribers, there’s a good chance you might be making one of these mistakes:
1. Your Content Sucks
Great content both educates and entertains. Your readers don’t want to read the internal monologue that’s floating around inside your head. Content, which is long winded or hard to read, doesn’t inspire readers or leave an impression in their minds. Instead, you should provide your readers with useful information that they can easily act on. Your readers are busy people, so give them brief pieces of information that are easily digestible.
2. Writing Your Blog Without a Specific Persona in Mind
When developing your content strategy, it’s helpful to take the time to think about who you’re writing for. Identifying a specific persona gives you a clear idea about who your audience is. Whether it’s mobile game developers or yoga instructors, putting yourself in your readers’ shoes will help you create the content they’re looking for. Think about your readers’ pain points and who you can offer information that other blogs in the market aren’t addressing.
3.Your Blog Posts Are Attracting the Wrong Audience
Developing effective blog posts and creating a smart conte strategy is all about reaching the right people with the right content. Getting thousands of hits means nothing if the people reading your blog aren’t relative to your content goals. 12-year-olds aren’t going to be buying your SaaS software, even if they’re regularly reading your posts. Don’t get lost in vanity metrics. When you’re tracking the number of eyeballs, think about quality over quantity.
4. You’re Using the Wrong Medium to Reach Your Audience
Not all of your potential subscribers love reading. Some people prefer the convenience of multi-tasking while listening to podcasts, while others respond better to visual mediums like SlideShare. If readers aren’t subscribing, it might be because they have a difficult time processing your content in written form.
5. Your Blog Topics are Inconsistent
Are your blog posts focused on a clear theme, or are you talking about everything and anything? Blogging erratically or sporadically, turns people off. You’ll never build a loyal fanbase of readers if don’t pick a consistent topic to write about. Having a clear niche to blog about helps you reach your target audience and establish a connection with your readers over time. As you think about your niche, make sure you think deeply about who you’re writing for. What does your audience care about most? Are there specific problems you can address with your blog posts that you might help people solve? Whatever you write about, try to find consistent themes and post on a regular basis to create regular readership?
6. Your Blog Lacks a Call to Action
All great writing and marketing content should be clear about what actions you want your readers to take next. You never want your readers asking, now what? Or worse yet, they exit your site without engaging with you on a deeper level. Whether you’re trying to build your subscriber list, get likes or clicks, you need to make sure you have a clear call to action that is easy for the reader to act on.
7. Your Content is Too Salesy
Covering your blog with dozens of ads distract from your core message. Readers don’t want to scroll through endless ads or constantly click to exit multiple pop ups just to read through your post. Readers probably won’t come back if they feel like you’re using your blog as a billboard instead of an informational platform, so it’s important that your ads don’t compromise your readership.
Don’t try to cram as much information as you can into each post. Complicated sentences and bulky paragraphs are overwhelming to readers. Simplify your content with clean and concise language. Avoid salesy jargon that bloats your message.
8. Your Blog Posts Don’t Provide Any Value
Cultivating a continuous stream of regular readers requires building strong credibility with your audience. People respond better when content feels genuine, and it adds some value to their lives. If you’re asking people to invest their time, and in some cases money, you need to make sure you’re giving them some form of value in return. Whether it’s actionable information for their business or tips to help improve their daily lives, customers are more likely to follow if they’re benefiting from the content you’re providing.
9. A/B Test and Install the Right Analytics for Your Blog
Finding the right message for your audience sometimes requires some experimenting and persistence. You should A/B test different headlines, publishing times, and calls to action to see which has the best results.
It’s also important to use tools like Google analytics so you can see which aspects of your content readers are consuming most frequently and how long people stay on your site. Having even more granular analytics allows you to learn more about your visitors and subscribers behavior and preferences on a deep level.