People read and then subscribe to blogs that they believe will improve their lives in some way. in the future.
Many bloggers instinctively create a sense of anticipation on a blog – but there are many things you can do intentionally to create anticipation and increase the chances that someone will subscribe.
So how do you convince people that something that you haven’t created yet Is it worth registering?
Today I want to share an effective strategy for creating anticipation on a blog along with some practical ideas on how to implement it. Like yesterday’s post – it’s not rocket science – but it’s something that worked for me.
Highlight current and past quality content
Probably the most convincing argument for a reader that you will write something that they cannot do without in the future it’s having already written something that they connected with.
Your current and past posts are your most effective advertisements for maintaining an ongoing relationship with those who arrive at your blog.
As a result, one of the most effective strategies for building anticipation on a blog is to present your best content to those who visit your blog – to show them what you can do and let the quality of that work do the talking. of herself.
Think about blogs you’ve subscribed to recently – if you’re like me, in most cases you subscribed after reading an article that you found useful, interesting, entertaining…etc.
Most of us click on the RSS feed icon or subscribe to the link based on the quality of what we have already read in the hopes of seeing more.
So what is the lesson here?
In reality, there are two lessons to be learned: one is obvious and the other is often ineffective.
1. The obvious solution is to write quality content and do it regularly – this should be your number 1 priority as a blogger.
2. The less obvious solution is to get your best content in front of those who aren’t already subscribed to your blog – especially new visitors (who are crucial to target if your goal is to increase subscribers to your blog). Let me share a few ways to do this.
How to Showcase Your Best Content
There are plenty of ways to showcase your best content and, in doing so, give people a reason to subscribe to your feed.
1. Sneeze Pages – Perhaps the most useful technique I can show you is to create Sneeze pages on your blog. I recently did this at digital photography school. Look at the “Digital Photography Tips” section in my sidebar (left photo) – these links point to “sneeze pages” that highlight my best and most popular content.
By having these sneeze pages, not only am I increasing my page views, but I’m showing new readers of my blog how much I’ve already covered and hopefully, I increase the feeling of authority and credibility that I have.
The subscription rate of users who access these sneeze pages is extremely high (note: I have significant means of subscribing to these sneeze pages and the pages they link to).
2. “Best” sections – Another is to create sections in your sidebar or homepage that highlight your best work. Check out this example of a previous ProBlogger website design, where we find the “Best of ProBlogger” section on my front page of this blog. This section is “hot” – literally. Check out this heatmap (taken a few months ago using the CrazyEgg tool) of this section to see how many people are clicking on it.
The benefits are numerous, but ultimately it’s about driving people to quality, previously written content. My observations are that it is these popular pages that are the source of many subscribers to my blog.
Since this screenshot was taken, ProBlogger has been redesigned to create different themed sections that further highlight various topical articles. You can learn more about how and why we changed the ProBlogger website design here.
3. Landing Pages – Another strategy is to use a plugin like Landing Sites to detect when a reader arrives at your blog for the first time and show them other articles you have written on the topic they are searching for.
This works well – particularly if you have a large archive – because someone arriving at your blog sees not only one article on the topic they are searching for, but also many articles (increasing the perception that you are a comprehensive source of information). ‘information on this subject). ).
4. Interconnected messages – You should regularly link to your previous, higher-quality posts in new posts. By doing this, you’re constantly leading people to pages where they see writing of a quality that will convince them that you know what you’re talking about. The more pages they view that they find useful, the more likely they are to subscribe.
But wait, there’s more
The key to the four techniques above is to send new readers to your highest quality and most useful posts, then offer them the opportunity to subscribe to those posts (update: here is my article with more tips on how to create anticipation on your blog).
However, this emphasis on content alone is not enough.
This will certainly work to some extent, but there are many other ways to build anticipation on a blog and those are what I’ll turn my attention to tomorrow.