This is a guest post by Jane Sheeba who wishes to share hostgator coupons and easycgi coupons.
Are you the one who gets a lot of traffic, but no conversions? This means that you have no or very less loyal reader base. Traffic is of no use to you if it is just floating.
Casual visitors are not serious about your blog. But loyal visitors are and they take your word for it. They trust you and that’s what you need to make conversions – yes “Trust”.
So how to gain loyal readers? You cannot earn them from somewhere outside planet Earth. You can simply convert your casual floating visitors into loyal readers. Let me tell you the ways.
Get them on the list to make them loyal readers
That is not an easy job. You have to persuade them and not beg them. You have to get them hooked. If you have a fancy deal, they’ll be willing to get on to your list, apart from seeing your quality content, I mean.
You must be willing to make a deal. You must have something worthy to give away for free (ya that hurts, but it has to be done :)).
When a new visitor arrives at your site and you have some cool thing to offer for the exchange of their email, then you can easily get them on your list.
A new visitor on your list becomes your loyal reader, because you will now connect to that visitor even when they are not on your blog. That is the beauty of having a list and connecting with it.
You can send emails and land directly into their inbox; you know that is a lot personal and you can easily earn a soul.
Offer damn quality content
You have heard it a million times (or even more), that “Quality is King”. I will not go against it, because it is indeed. There is no easier way to get a loyal reader to your site than hitting him/her with quality content.
When you hit your casual visitor with great content, they cannot leave you. You seduce them to stay with you on your site. You make them subscribe to your newsletter or your feeds and they become regular readers. Not a big thing.
But wait! No – it is a big thing, you need you have stuff to produce quality content. That is craft. You have to learn from scratch and practice it rigorously. Once you have practiced it, things become as easy as breeze.
Reward visitors for taking action
Let me take the example of commenting for “taking action”. Let’s say someone visits your blog for the first time, reads an awesome article and decides to leave a comment. The first time casual visitor has taken some time to respond to your hard work. What do you do to them in return?
Nothing? Then you can’t make that visitor to be your loyal reader. You have to reward/acknowledge or connect somehow to get the visitor hooked. You can do any or all the following:
- Reply to comments and have comment reply notification plugin installed. That intimates the commenter that you have made a reply. This is an effective way to build strong connections.
- Make your blog do follow.
- Install Commentluv and Keywordluv plugins.
- Feature top commentators somewhere on your blog.
Connect with them on social media
Can’t do without social media if you are online for any purpose. Be it business, fun or anything, you need to be backed up by social media to taste online success.
Make yourself accessible to your readers via social media. Be active on Twitter and Facebook. Now, I must say that you cannot just create an account on social media, feed your blog and wait for some magic to happen. Nothing will happen.
You have to make genuine connections, develop long-term relationships and actively engage with your friends and followers.
This does not mean that you can excuse yourself to stay on Facebook or Twitter all day. It all needs 10-15 minutes, two times per day – in the morning and perhaps in the evening.
Share your best content, share others content, comment on others shares, retweet and reshare, interact with them personally (out of your blog subject) and so on. Be a person, not a business person.
The more you connect, the more loyal your readers will be.
Now tell me, what do you do to create your massive loyal reader base?
Top 10 Search Terms:
• loyal • loyal visitor rewARD • Loyal Visitor Reward Loyal
I agree with you, Jane. Any websites wouldn’t be successful without the help of those visitors. So it’s good to rewards those who spent time reading the articles and giving out sensible comments. Thanks for the information, Jane.
You got it Alvin, visitors are the life blood of any blog or website and without them there is no point in a website sitting there 🙂
All the points are quite useful and every blogger should follow them. Creating a list is the best and the most beneicial part and most bloggers, now a days, are making that their primary goal.
Garish, yes it is good to see that all of the blogosphere is aware of the importance of list building. Just that, some are not sure how to do it the right way 🙂
What is “damn quality content”? Is that the sort of content that makes you go, “Damn, I just spent thirty minutes of my life deciphering that and learned NOTHING – damn you!!” Or is it the sort of content that makes you think, “DAMN! I wish I’d thought of it first. Why didn’t I write that?”
Did the word “damn” really add anything to that heading? Not without defining your terms – I don’t think it did. That’s the problem with using mild to moderate profanity – it can add emphasis and grab attention, or it can turn readers off, or it can just leave ’em scratching their heads in confusion. 😉
Aside from that, though, Jane, I cannot argue with any of your advice – it’s all quite sound. Except, of course, that readers can leave you at any time – for any reason. You will not be universally loved. All of this will help, but if you’ve done all these things and they haven’t miraculously turned into your personal army of loyal readers and customers, it isn’t necessarily some failing on your part – you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep trying.
Holly, I am sure any reader can easily understand what I mean by “damn” here. It is so obvious and trivial that it is something in the lines of “DAMN! I wish I’d thought of it first. Why didn’t I write that?” or “DAMN! that is a killer content, I never knew it earlier”. I don’t think that I need to “define” “damn” here!
And there is nothing even near profanity here, I am not damning anyone here.
Thanks for your comment.
Jane.
There’s one thing that seems to truly make life-long, dedicated fans.. but it’s not easy, it’s not for everyone, and it’s time-consuming. Start a podcast centered around your blog! Get your funniest friend or two who is knowledgeable about your subject, buy yourself some relatively inexpensive recording equipment, and post a 10-15 minute podcast bi-weekly, or whatever, centered around your blog and discussing new articles. This is a way to truly gain loyal fans!
Podcasting is the future of radio.
Fred,
That is a great idea. Podcasts are picking up momentum these days and yours truly is one among those interested people who is just about to start podcasting. I am sure the benefits will be great including large traffic and loyal readers, since this form of media gets more exposure compared to text blog posts.
Cheers,
Jane.
Yeah You right. Email list is the foundation of every successful blogger. Because when search engine visitors are not present blogger still has his Email list. And you can increase email list by providing some free Ebooks.
I have met other like minded individuals through comments. Engaging with readers through the comments system creates community atmosphere on a site and makes it less like an article portal.
It should be noted that the main reason for which website traffic is not monetized properly is that the traffic is not targeted, but casual. So, by converting casual visitors into loyal readers and therefore into targeted traffic website owners can easily resolve the problem of website monetization and get sales even from casual traffic.
Oh yes that is a good point. There is no or poor monetization because the traffic is not targeted. And by building a list, you can really collect targeted visitors. Thanks for adding to the discussion Terje 🙂
A lot of people tell about quality content and capturing the subscriber. But what do you mean by offering a deal? You should offer “value” and not a “deal”.
I suppose you meant something valuable, but your choice of words make it seem a bit cheesy.
The important thing about building relationship is not just getting them to subscribe. But, giving them valuable advice even after they are on your list.
Dont spam them with affiliate promo mails. Quality content is the key. See how Pat from smartpassiveincome does it.
I’ll never ever make my blog do follow. I’m better off without spammers targeting my blog with posts just for links.
Hey Adarsh,
It is indeed a deal. Subscribers provide their email and you provide a valuable product or something.
Jane.