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How to Get Blog Readers to Read Your Blog More Often

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How You can Get Blog Readers to Read Your Blog More Often

I’m going to share with you how you can get blog readers to read your blog more often.

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Introduction

I’m not going to talk about getting more traffic in this training because that is self-explanatory.

It’s like telling you if you need to lose weight you have to eat less and exercise more.

Obviously for you to get readers to your blog, you have to drive traffic there.

Once you have visitors or to be more precise readers, how do you get them to read your blog more often?

One of the key ingredients or factors for a blog’s success is to have good quality content.

If you don’t have anything interesting or valuable content on your blog, why would people want to waste their time there?

The biggest problem that most bloggers have is that they find it hard to come up with a topic to blog about.

Everybody is busy with their lives.

You’ve got things going on, I’ve got my things going, for you to sit down and think about what to blog about could be a challenge.

Successful bloggers have good stuff to blog about.

They have a talent or skill where they can come up with good content to blog about.

The fact is, you and I probably don’t have that kind of talent or skill

So today I’m going to share with you 7 ways you can come up with topics to blog about even if you don’t have that kind of talent or skill.

You’ll be able to get more visitors or readers. From there, you can make your blog more successful.

This could mean several things. You could get more traffic, it makes more money for you, etc.

1. Ask Your Readers

It’s not surprising that your readers already know what they want to read about.

They know what they want to read about more than you realize.

If you don’t ask them, how would you know what they want to read about?

You could be making guesses about what they want to read about and this is where you might lose your readership.

So how do you ask questions to your readers?

If you use WordPress or other blogging platforms, they normally have a feature called “Polls”.

When it comes to WordPress, I’m very sure that this plugin exists.

This basically creates a poll to ask them what they want to read about.

I know this sounds very simple but how many people actually bother to put up a poll on their blog asking their readers what they want to read about?

The first poll should ask the readers how they want the blog to move forward in the long run.

Ask them what they expect and the topics that they want to read about more regularly

The second poll should ask them what specific thing they have in mind.

For instance, the topic of traffic is really huge.

There’s traffic from social media, traffic from Adwords, etc.

You might consider creating a new poll for the second question on a monthly basis so that all your visitors will have the opportunity to tell you what they want to read about.

In addition to getting your readers’ opinions through the polls, you might also want them to post their comments on whatever content you put up.

For instance this week you put up content on how to get traffic from Google Adwords.

At the end of your post leave a remark that asks them to leave a comment if they want to see more content related to Google Adwords.

If you want, you can even include an email address at the end of the blog post where they can email you the topic they want to read about more often on your blog.

Some people are not very comfortable about leaving comments on a blog publicly so they can use this email to send their requests to you personally.

It’s as simple as that. Ask for your readers’ opinions.

2. Listen To Your Readers

This does not mean that you listen to them literally. You can’t do that because they can’t convey any messages to you via audio.

In this case, it means listening to what they are saying or what they are telling you.

This can be done by simply reading the comments that they leave for you.

The first option I gave you is to get them to leave their comments.

Here, some of them actually leave their comments voluntarily.

Read those comments and you’ll probably be able to pick up some valuable tips.

Some of the comments may be saying that your blog contains really good stuff and how much they love certain posts.

Those are all signs that they like what they are reading.

Then there are people who don’t leave any comments.

If you’re not getting comments when you should, then maybe you’ll want to consider that the blog post that you put up is not getting any readership.

This tells you that you’ve got the wrong stuff on your blog.

This cannot be a universal rule because sometimes people just don’t leave comments.

I’m just saying that you can gauge your readers’ responses simply by reading the comments that they leave on your blog.

3. Go To Forums

This is a great way for you to generate blog entry ideas.

If you don’t visit forums regularly or don’t know where to search for forums, you can go to www.big-boards.com.

When you’re there you can search for your topic and see the treads from forums.

From there you’re going to get so many cool ideas on what people are talking about.

Most likely, whatever they are talking about in the forums is stuff that you can blog about.

You will be able to generate all kinds of ideas.

Let’s say a person in the forum is posting about his problem with his girlfriend.

Maybe his girlfriend has another boyfriend or something like that.

If you happen to be in the dating niche, you’ve just got an idea for a blog post about how to get your girlfriend back if she falls in love with another guy.

By going to forums, you’re going to get a lot of ideas.

If www.big-boards.com is not helping you, here’s something else that you can do.

Put inverted commas and search for your keywords.

If you are in the dog training niche, search for a “dog training forum” on Google.

Google will pull out a lot of search results related to dog training forums.

4. Articles

Do realize that the blog posts that provide content are in fact, articles?

You make a blog post about the 10 ways to lose weight.

Don’t you think that this sounds like an article that can be called “10 Ways To Lose Weight”?

It’s actually the same thing.

The difference is that a blog post is something that is more personal in the sense that you are talking about yourself.

An article is more generic.

It could be about losing weight but I, as the writer might not have a weight problem.

In a blog post, usually, it’s about me or my friend having that kind of problem, and here’s the solution.

So another good place to get gazillions of ideas is to go to article directories.

There are already tens of thousands of articles being written on your topic.

Maybe there’s not that much but I’m very, very sure there are easily hundreds of articles written about your stuff and it’s common to have thousands of them.

5. Newspapers & Magazines

This is something that you might not think about because we are so engaged with this internet world that everything has to be done online.

We do our researches, etc online.

We forget the source of content that we have in our hands every single day – the newspapers and magazines.

Flip through your magazines and newspapers and I kid you not, you’re going to get some ideas from there.

Let’s take the dog training example again.

You don’t know what to write about on your blog regarding dog training.

Go to your bookstore and check out a dog training magazine.

I’m sure there are dog or pets magazines out there.

I’m sure you can’t argue with me that you can’t find a good piece of content or idea from a magazine.

Let me take this one step further.

What if you read a book? It will probably contain a lot of ideas about what you want to post about.

Do you see that right now, you really cannot run out of ideas when it comes to posting on your blog?

You have newspapers, you have magazines and you have books.

How much is it going to cost you to buy a book?

Maybe $20.00 – $30.00 for a 150-page long book?

That book will probably contain 10 chapters, so go dig inside to get ideas.

Again, I’m not asking you to copy.

These are all places for you to get ideas.

You’re not supposed to copy anything from there. Just read the content and post on your blog

6. Keyword Research Tool

Use the Google Adwords tool.

If you don’t know where to find this, go to Google and search for the Google keyword tool.

I think it will appear on #1 or #2 in the list of results.

This is a tool that is provided by Google.

Just key in your niche’s name.

Let’s say you are in the dog training niche.

Search for dog training and it will show you 150 other relevant keywords that people are searching for.

It could be dog training food.

How are you going to write about dog training food?

It’s going to be tough because it’s too generic.

Take dog training food and do a search and you will see a list of more defined keywords that you can use.

All these are ideas that you can use.

For other keyword tools, you can even try Word Tracker.

It’s the same concept.

The main reason to use these online keyword tools is to generate strings of ideas from your original idea.

7. Continue Other Interesting Conversations

I assume that as a blogger, you read other people’s blogs as well, right?

So if you do read someone else’s blog, can you continue the conversation from there?

Let’s say you are a fan of Timothy Ferris of 4 Hours A Week.

He posts something on his blog like he has a new strategy on time management.

So if you liked it, why not make a blog post continuing from the conversation there if your blog has to do with time management?

You can say that you recently read Timothy Ferris’ post about time management.

You can have a link back to his blog if your readers are interested to read that post as well.

Then you continue writing your post from there.

You can have your comments on the methods that he shared and how you apply his methods.

If you are in a niche that has authority like personal development or internet marketing business, for personal development the authority will be Anthony Robbins, T Harv Ecker, Robert Allen, Mark Victor Hansen, Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, and all those people.

You can continue their conversation on your blog post and they will know what you’re talking about because these are authority figures that they would have probably known of.

That’s what I mean by continuing the conversation if you are in a niche market that has authority.

If your niche doesn’t have authority, you can still continue the conversation from elsewhere.

The only thing is that your readers might be clueless about whom you’re talking about.

So these are the ways to think of new topics for your blog posts.

You shouldn’t have any more problems thinking of what to blog about.

The second factor to get people to read your blog is to get them to start a relationship with you.

This is done through comments.

Comments are important for 2 reasons.

If people leave comments on your blog, it means that they are reading. If they don’t read, how in the world do they leave a comment?

Secondly, when they leave comments, it becomes social proof to other readers that this blog is being read.

The more comments you have, the more alive your blog is.

There’s actually a third reason. When someone leaves comments on your blog, they start to have a sense of belonging. It becomes very personal

In a nutshell, comments are like lifeblood to any truly successful blog.

Go to Timothy Ferris’ blog and you’ll see that his blog posts get 50-100 or some sort of a crazy number of comments.

These people are his followers.

Comments keep the discussion going even if you don’t blog very often.

Comments are like micro-conversations between your readers.

Some are agreeing, some are disagreeing so all in all, these are all good stuff.

How do you get more comments on your blog?

There are 5 ways to do that.

Before we proceed, you may think that some of the things I’m going to share sound so simple.

My core expertise is to simplify complex stuff.

I’m going to tell you things that sound so simple and all I want you to do is to take action so that you’ll see results.

That’s more important.

What’s most important is that YOU make money online, YOU become more successful, YOU have more readers, etc.

This is what I want you to achieve and that can only be done when I teach you simple stuff that is powerful and you can use.

8. Respond To Your Comments

They put all these comments on your blog.

They tell you what they like and don’t like and some bloggers just don’t reply.

That’s just crazy.

When people leave comments, they are starting a conversation with you.

You have to start leaving your responses to their comments so that there is a real conversation going on.

That’s how marketing works.

Today, marketing is no longer a one-way channel.

It’s a conversation that you must adapt to.

So you’re going to use your blog as an opportunity to have a conversation with your readers.

So the first one is to respond to as many comments as you can.

Of course, this does not mean that you respond to every single comment. Here’s what I’ll do.

If I have 5 comments, I’ll reply with a single comment that addresses all 5 of them.

9. Hold A Contest

Here’s how the contest works.

You tell them that anybody who can give the right answer to your blog post wins a prize.

Let me give you a good idea.

Let’s say you make a blog post about the 10 ways to teach your dog to jump.

So you’re offering 10 ways.

You can invite people to leave their comments on the 11th way that they can think of to make their dogs jump higher.

The best 11th method will win a prize.

Everybody will start to share their thoughts.

So not only are they reading and learning from you, everybody else is now learning from other contributors.

You might also be learning from that particular contributor.

Here’s another way to hold a contest.

Let’s go back to the dog training example. You can say something like this:

“Leave your comments to tell us/me why you definitely need to train your dog to jump.

The winner will win a prize which is the eBook called The Secrets To Dog Jumpers.”

The point is that they get a prize that solves their problem.

Everybody will start commenting on why they need to train their dogs to jump.

Those are the 2 simple ways to run contests.

10. Be Controversial

You can occasionally post something controversial but is not ethically shooting anyone down.

For example, let’s say your blog is about internet marketing.

In one of your posts, you might say that Twitter is a waste of time that whoever is using it is wasting their time.

On a side note, that’s going to irritate a lot of people because a lot of people think that Twitter is going to be the next thing for them to make money on the internet.

When you do a controversial piece of post, people automatically respond to it.

It’s just human behavior.

There is nothing magical about it.

It’s just that people have to respond to it.

Controversial basically means contradicting what is actually happening, not to a particular person.

The last thing you want to do is create enemies or accidentally shoot someone down.

Don’t say that a particular product is not good or something a particular person said, teaches, blogs about, or his courses are bad.

All you have to do is say something very generic.

You can say that you think the law of attraction doesn’t work.

If you say that, you’ll be upsetting a lot of people but you are not really creating any enemies.

Having said that, I can’t stress enough that you should never even consider posting controversial topics that could be something morally or ethically wrong.

Not only will you create enemies but instead of winning your readers to like you more or leave comments, you might turn them away.

It’s like you are going to the extreme.

What if that person loves the law of attraction?

You say that it’s so bad that he is just not aligned with you anymore.

You say that the law of attraction doesn’t work and he says that it works.

It’s a clash of opinions.

So instead of him leaving a comment to tell you that the law of attraction does work or ask you why it doesn’t work, he is just completely turned off.

So when you write something controversial, you must have some solid proof to back what you say and you always want to use words like, “I feel”, “I think” or “In my personal opinion”.

Don’t make an across-the-board type of statement.

I just want you to be careful about that.

This is a very powerful tactic but I really don’t want you to use it the wrong way.

11. Ask For Comments First

Before they read your blog post, why not have a paragraph at the beginning that asks them for their comments?

Sometimes human beings don’t think consciously.

They think unconsciously.

If you were to tell them upfront, it goes into their minds unconsciously and when they have finished reading, they might just follow your commands or instructions to do what you asked them to do.

What you can do is before you start your content, have a short paragraph like this:

“Today I would like to share with you the 5 amazing ways to lose weight. This is based on what I’ve read recently and what I’ve experienced. If you like what you read or if you have any feedback, I would definitely appreciate it if you can leave your comments after you have read this.”

What you’re doing is telling them in advance before they read. It’s kind of like a virtual agreement that, “After you read this, please do that.”

You want them to agree with you first before they read your entire content.

Of course, at the end of the content, you want to remind them again to leave the comment for you.

12. Tell Them That You Read Their Comments Personally

This is a very powerful method.

Why do you think they leave comments?

First, maybe they want to tell the whole world and share their thoughts.

But I think most of the time, they do that because they want you to read what they have to say.

They want to be in a conversation with you, the blogger, the author, the guru, the expert, the authority, or whatever you want to call yourself.

So why don’t you just tell them that you read every single comment that is being posted on your blog?

You might not reply to all of them because of time constraints but you do read every single one of them.

If you have even just a sentence telling them that you read their comments, they’ll appreciate that.

The fact is, you read all their comments anyway, right? I do read all the comments that are left on my blog.

So if you read the comments, why don’t you tell them that you do?

On a side note, when it comes to marketing, it’s just silly that some people do things and don’t tell people about it when it’s good for them to do so.

Let’s say you’re my affiliate and you promote my product.

Regardless of whether you make sales or not, wouldn’t it be an advantage for you to tell me that you promote my product so that I will like you more?

I’m not just talking about me.

I’m talking about any other marketers.

What do you have to lose?

You have nothing to lose by telling people that you do what you’re doing.

You’re not lying and if you tell them, you get extra bonuses, credits, or points for yourself.

That is all I have to say about getting more readers to your blog.

But since I have extra time, I might as well share with you some additional tips about your blog layout.

How do you make your blog look more professional?

The truth is, no matter how good the content on your blog is, if the design is horrible or it’s hard to read, it will just turn off your readers.

If that’s the case, I’ll give you a few points.

13. Customize Your Theme

Don’t use the default theme.

I don’t mean that you have to hire designers or spend hundreds of dollars to create a WordPress theme.

There are a lot of WordPress themes out there that you can buy for a very cheap price.

You can also get free ones.

The reason you customize your theme is that you want to show that you care for your own blog and you are unique.

If you go to a blog and find that it is not customized but using the default template, don’t you feel that this person doesn’t care about his blog?

He is just using the default theme so it doesn’t show much love.

Secondly, you want to be as unique as possible.

Otherwise, John Doe who has another blog will look just like you.

I know that the content John Doe has and yours are completely different but the look does play a role.

14. Add Social Plugins

Have you ever noticed icons that ask you to share the post with your friends at the end of some blog posts?

Those are social plugins. It will take you less than 5 minutes to set this up and it’s 100% on autopilot, meaning if people social bookmark you, great!

If they don’t, so what?

You have nothing to lose because they are just there.

Get these buttons by going to www.Wordpress.org, click on Plugins, and search for Social Bookmarks or Bookmark Buttons.

Also, you are going to see a lot of plugins in WordPress that you can use for free.

The one that I use while I’m recording this audio is called Sexy Bookmarks

15. Use Images

If possible, use images in your blog posts. A picture says a thousand words.

Not only will an image get attention and helps to make your entire blog post look more colorful, but it also represents what your blog post is about.

Where do you get images?

You can get images from www.IStockPhotos.com.

The only thing is that the photos are not free.

If you want to look for free photographs, try www.FreeImages.co.uk.

You’ll probably find a few good images from there.

Don’t want to set up a blog but still wish to make money online?

Well, this is actually possible.

Discover 72 internet marketing ideas for your online business and make money online in this book…

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