8 Simple Ways to Keep People on Your Blog Longer

I recently wrote a post on how to increase your blog traffic but how do you keep all these new visitors on your blog for longer? I'm going to provide you with 9 easy steps to ensure visitors stay on your site for longer and reading all of your wonderful content.

1. Great Design

One of the most important aspects (after content) of your blog is its design. A visually attractive design will help you keep visitors on your blog longer. A design that is harsh on the eyes is likely to lead to them leaving in a hurry. Make sure your following and subscription options are clearly labelled. Avoid cluttered sidebars as it can lead to slower page load times and can detract from your content.

2. Clear and Concise Content

People tend to scan read posts. It's true! So keep your posts concise and to the point. Don't over inflate posts with over information unrelated to the post's topic. Keep it clear. If a post is fairly long break up text with line breaks, bullet points and of course images. Remember people have short attention spans.

3. Link to Other Posts


If you have other posts related to a particular post, link to it within the post. Google loves you linking to internal posts so it is great for SEO but more importantly it will keep people on your blog. If the reader is interested in your post's topic they are more than likely to be interested in other posts on the same topic. I would highly suggest adding a related posts plugin like Link Within as it will list relevant posts for you.

4. Know Your Audience

Before you write anything it is vital to know who your target audience is. I know plenty of people say they are blogging for themselves but clearly that isn't true or you wouldn't be reading this post. Create content that your target audience will enjoy and engage with.

5. Make it Easy for Users to Find Particular Content

On this blog I cover design, tech & tutorials. Different visitors come here for different topics. So the topic archives are clearly labelled in my sidebar and it is made eye catching by the addition of images. This means users can easily locate content on a particular topic.

6. Post Often

Regular content will keep readers coming back again and again. Irregular or sporadic posting means that people may not return, why would they waste their time visiting a blog that never updates?

7. Passion

Passion for your subject is the lifeblood of any blog. Passion comes across in your writing and draws readers in and passion is infectious. But lack of passion is obvious too so only blog about subjects that you have a genuine passion for.

8. Check Your Stats

Stats are important not only for you to see how well your blog is performing but also to find out what brings people to your blog and to find out which posts are proving to be most popular. If you know what content works it will help with choosing blog topics.

So there you have it, those are my 8 tips for keeping people on your blog for longer.

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