Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
Now this is a question I used to get all the time. What does every blog page or post need? What should visitors see on every page?
…And how do you ensure visitors stay on your posts and actually read them? Basically, you need to keep things simple. You need to stick to the basics and get rid of all distractions.
If there are dozens of banners plastered all over your blog, they’re going to distract visitors and decrease your chances of gaining new subscribers.
Keeping people on your pages and ensuring they read your stuff is simple; make sure every page has all 5 of these elements:
In this guide
1. Prominent Headline
Before anything else, your visitors need to see a headline.
The headline should grip visitors and spike their interest in your content i.e. article/video. It should excite them and make them want to read your stuff; that’s it. There are really only 3 ways to make your headline stick out:
- Put Headline At The Very Top Of The Page ABOVE THE FOLD
- Make Headline Bold, Italic Or Just A Large Font
- Have Headlines Everywhere – On Your About Page and Most Importantly: Full Headlines On The Home Page
2. A Superb Introduction
If you want your visitors to actually read your content….
No matter what content, whether video, an article or discussion; you need a superb introduction straight under your headline. Headlines spike curiosity and force readers to read whatever’s below i.e. the introduction. Your introduction should essentially reveal a little information about the entire article and make your visitors feel excitement.
Excitement to read the rest of the page. Introductions should act as content teasers. They should excite visitors by telling them what they’ll learn by the time they get to the bottom of the page. Introductions should also be trust builders. They should deliver a short and simple message.
3. A Clear Message
Obviously, every page on your website or blog should deliver a clear message and teach something very specific. Every page must serve a purpose – period. It could be to teach a few marketing principles, to build trust, demonstrate a strategy of some kind of maybe even review a product.
The point is, every page must serve one very specific purpose, full stop. As far as we know, there are four “best” ways to deliver a message, build trust or teach something online:
- Text – The most obvious is the most popular option, for obvious reasons (LOL). The easiest option is to use basic text, just words to deliver your message. Honestly, text alone gets boring. So it’s good to mix it up with images, video and even audio.
- Video – They always said video was the future of information online. Why read it and put all that effort in when you can just sit back and be read/told the information via video? You can record yourself talking and use the video in your content. Video works wonders at building trust. Why do you think people feel like they know TV/movie stars when they’ve never met them in their lives?
- Audio – Audio has a more specific purpose. I rarely use audio, as you can see from browsing through my blog. However, I do use audio on my about page – audio is a great trust builder, especially when coupled with images and or text.
4. Your Brand
Whether you’re promoting a personal blog where your brand is yourself or you’re blogging for some kind of company; your brand must be on every page. If it’s your own blog, you need to put yourself on every page.
Have a picture of yourself in your site/blog theme, put a video of yourself in the sidebar, mention your name multiple times. The same stuff applies to companies, have your logos on every page, make people remember you!
5. Strong Call To Action
This is probably the most important element that every blog post and page needs. A really strong call to action. This is kind of the same as the message – but different. The message should be what the page is about. The call to action should encourage visitors to take a specific action.
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →The action could be to subscribe to your newsletter, to read another blog post or even to buy a product. The best call to action I believe is to subscribe to your newsletter and read other blog posts.
That’s the most generic call to action you can have. Others can be more specific for individual posts and pages. Here’s a list of call to actions:
- Ask Visitors To Leave A Comment
- Ask Visitors To Visit A Website
- Ask Visitors To Op-into Your Email List
- Ask Visitors To Read Another Related Post Or Page
- Ask Visitors To Buy Your Product
I think ultimately, every content page on your blog should work as a trust builder. By giving away free content in the form of text, video, audio or images – you gain trust. Once you gain people’s trust, more of them will join your email list, subscribe to your blog and buy your products – end of.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments and questions below.
Comments (carried over from the previous site)
Mike, June 10, 2012, 10:00
After reading this post I realize that so far my posts hit these five elements. I think that my weakest element right now is the call to action so I will start working that into my posts some more. Thanks for the great info David! 🙂
Tyronne Ratcliff, June 10, 2012, 11:00
Having a strong call to action is something I had a problem with when I first started blogging, but I’m definitely getting better at giving clear and concise instructions, awesome post as usual!
John Doe, June 10, 2012, 12:00
Great post David! I really need to work on making my introductions more engaging. Thanks for the tips!
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If every post needs your face, your name, and your logo on it per point 4 — how is that not just personal branding wearing a to-do list?
It is. That’s the whole list, really.
Roy’s shorthand skips the actual claim though — the post says odd-numbered lists get ‘15%+ more traffic’ and cites nothing. Compared to what baseline, measured how, over what sample? That’s the number I’d want sourced before repeating it anywhere.
Raj, I tracked this for three months on my own posts, five odd-numbered lists against five even ones, same topics roughly matched. Difference was inside normal week-to-week noise, nothing like 15%. Wouldn’t call the claim false, just unproven at the scale one person can test it.