How to Engage and Grow Your WordPress Blog Readership

Did you know that the average amount of time people spend on any website is 10 seconds?  People will quickly leave your site if you don’t grab their attention and engage them immediately.  Then there’s the issue of getting them to come back again and recommend you to their friends.

People lead busy and stressful lives, so you need to give them something that adds value to them personally. If you can make them feel engaged on an individual level, this will help keep them on your site, encourage them to recommend you to their friends as well as coming back time and time again.  This is the key to WordPress blog success and this article tells you exactly how to do it.

Offer Advice

This is one of the best ways to keep your visitors loyal.  If you’re writing a WordPress blog, you must already be an expert on something.  Share your knowledge with practical tips they can use in their own lives right away, whatever is relevant to your site, whether it’s gardening tips, business growth advice or baby care.  Encourage them to come back and share their stories and use the Comments Section to give advice to individual regular visitors.

Appeal to Your Readers

Your website traffic is coming to you for specific information on your niche.  So it’s important you get to know them and understand what they really like.  Read the comments section, look at feedback about your site in other forums and social networks.  Plus you can use plug ins such as Google Analytics and StatPress to really understand your visitors, find out which sites they’re being referred from, which keywords work best and which pages they most enjoy.

Share Your Personal Experience

If you let people know the person behind the blog, they’re more likely to connect and engage with your site.  You can also bring your ideas and advice to life using real examples and stories you’ve come across.  Adding a simple photo of yourself can also increase reader engagement.  WP Photo Album is a great WordPress plug in for adding a visual edge to your blog with photos.

Try Something Unique

Every once in a while add a post which is completely different, unique and even wacky.  It might draw in some new traffic and provide some fun for your readers.  It’s like the “and finally” story at the end of a new broadcast.  They always have some quirky feature to lift viewers and allow them to leave the programme feeling happy.

Get To The Point

No one wants to read long ramblings that go on and on.  Keep your posts short and sweet so they’re easy to understand and free from pointless waffle.  Or if you have a long topic to explain, use a multi-part series to keep your readers coming back to your WordPress blog for more.

Encourage Comments

At the end of each post, ask specific and direct questions to encourage comments.  This increases the interactivity of your WordPress blog and keeps readers coming back to find out the latest comments.  A really useful plug in is Subscribe to Comments, that allows visitors to sign up for email notification of when someone has replied to their comments.

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About the Author

Melanie Citron

Melanie Citron is a freelance writer and self proclaimed “techie” who lives in Denver with her husband, Glenn, and their three dogs Ralph, Sam and Billy. Melanie has become the “go to person” for creating online businesses for her friends and family. “I do it every day so I may as well write about it” Her knowledge has appeared on websites, in local newspapers and in person as a public speaker. In her spare time Melanie loves the outdoors and hikes and cross country skis.