Published by Programme B
Have your blog’s traffic numbers stagnated or plateaued? Are you finding yourself disengaged or frustrated because of these struggles?
More often than not, some very small changes to your blog can make a big difference. This can re-ignite your blog’s traffic, and unplug your sales funnel.
Here are 4 things you can try right now.
1. Get Better Website Hosting
How long does it take to load your blog? Slow speeds can be very off-putting for readers.
It’s entirely possible that your WordPress hosting services provider is slowing you down, particularly if you chose a free or cheap provider.
Cheap hosting companies are notorious for spotty performance, or even throttling your speeds on purpose because they have determined that your site is getting too much traffic.
2. Improve Your Mobile Experience
How does your blog look/function on a mobile?
Google has recently announced that they’re switching to mobile-first indexing, which means we all need to switch to mobile-first thinking. Assume that your blog is more likely to be read on a mobile device and make sure this experience is frictionless.
Ensure your user doesn’t have to deal with:
- Slow mobile load speeds
- Having to pinch or zoom to read your content
- Ad overlays that are difficult to click away
Any of these issues will cost you a lot of mobile traffic. Be sure to read Google’s mobile guidelines ASAP and make the required updates/changes.
3. Update Your Design
Maybe your users are having difficulty using your blog due to poor (or outdated) design. Or, maybe they simply don’t like the look of it.
Consider that 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive. Your window to make that great first impression is incredibly small, as the average user takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) to form an opinion about your website.
Upgrading your design and layout may be as simple as choosing a better WordPress template and customizing it to suit your needs. Or, you may want to bring in a design/UX expert to audit your site.
4. Listen More, Write Less
It’s also possible that you’re assuming you know what your readers want to read about, without actually making sure that’s what they really want.
There are obvious things you can do, such as post Facebook surveys to find out what people are interested in. Or, you can simply do a bit of homework and scan the following things to see what your readers (and would-be readers) are talking about:
- Your blog’s comments
- Your competition’s blog and the comments
- Social conversations about both you and your competition
- Q&A websites and forums such as Quora
You should also ask your sales and customer service teams what questions and problems they are facing on the frontlines every day. Now, turn all of this information into a fresh and targeted list of new blog titles and topics.
These are only a few of the things you can do to improve your blog. However, you may find that upgrading your website host, your mobile site, or your design can yield almost instant improvements, while creating more targeted blog titles based on customer interactions will likely pay off more in the long run.
All of these tips are cheap or free and you can get started today!