If you want people to stay on your blog, then you could add a repeating virus that crashes their computer once their RAM is full. But, if you want to do it the nice way by having people stay of their own free will, then here are a few tips. There is also a little bit of advice too because there are some bloggers out there that are doing it wrong so hard it should be right.
Links to related articles are always helpful
This is helpful to your reader because they do not know how interested they are in your other posts until you have given them a taste or an idea. If you add links on other blog posts then people are going to let curiosity get the better of them. If you do it wisely then you will add in related links that will capture the interest of readers if they liked the post they just read.
For example, if a reader has just read a post called “Love making – the short mans guide” then he may also like the post called, “The do’s and don’ts of kissing tall women.” If you are clever with the options you give people and your links are descriptive enough then people may stick around for quite a while.
Do not install an “are you sure” message when people leave
Just don’t do it unless you have the brain capacity of a starfish. For those of you who do not know, an “are you sure” message is a message that pops up when you try to leave a page. You may press “back” or close the tab. A popup will appear asking you if you are sure you want to leave the website. There has never been a single person who was dimwitted or fickle enough to think “Hmm, maybe I should go back”. It is the brains equivalent of standing outside a urinal toilet and asking people if they would like to go back in for another wee.
Pictures keep the masses looking
People like to look at pictures, so give them some. It is such an underused technique with blogs. People like to look at pictures of what they are reading about. They are not reading a book so stop treating them like they are.
Do not have a popup appear when the page starts up
This is going to make people click off of your website very quickly. It has an impact on your bounce rate and an impact on how long people stay on your website. Just give it a miss.
Do not have a popup that appears at any time
Want to annoy people and make them regret that they ever came onto your website? If that is the case, then add in lots of popups or adverts that auto-start their video or audio tracks. Otherwise, give this sort of stuff a miss. People are not going to click onto other pages if they know they are about to be hit with another barrage of popups.
Picture links will help people stick around
Have you seen those adverts on torrent sites where it shows a picture of a celebrity and then a caption underneath starting with something such as “You won’t believe…” They are a good way of keeping people on your blog if you relate what the link is about to your other blog posts. Have both the picture and the caption below as a link, and advertise your other blog posts with the same trick.
Make your posts easy to skim read
People like to skim read to see if they are going to like your blog. If you make it so that they cannot skim read then they just lose interest. It is up to you to make sure that they stick around and you can do this by making the text easier to skim read. Break it up like this article has been done and put in headers (like this article). Cut up your work into smaller paragraphs so that it is easier to read and understand.
Make your titles descriptive but enticing
The titles to your other blog posts are going to help keep people on your website, especially if they can see the links from the page that they are on. Your titles must be enticing enough to arouse a little curiosity, but must also be descriptive enough so that Internet users will trust the links enough to follow them.
Author Bio: Kate Funk is a freelance writer at http://www.aussiewriter.com. She is mainly focusing on technology, gadgets and all the latest SEO trends which are interesting for networking enthusiasts.
Image Credit: Folkmedia.org