J David Macor

A common problem for bloggers is that you do all kinds of work to get readers to just look at your post, only to have them leave right after that. In fact, you could call it the “Stumble” effect. Just like the Stumbleupon plugin, a reader glances over your post, passes on judgment and then clicks the stumble button; poof! They are gone before you know it. This is not how things have to go. There are tactics that you can employ that are not only effective, but easy to implement as well.

Get Readers to Stick

1. Include a list of your most popular posts somewhere on the post. The best way I know how to accomplish this (and the method I use) is using a plugin called popularity contest. The plugin starts keeping track of which posts are read the most, and which has the most comments, etc. It then uses a formula to figure out a list of the most popular ones. And with a simple snippet of code, you can proudly display this list to your users.

    

2. Similarly, you can give your reader a list of posts that are very similar to the one they are currently reading. That way, if your reader really liked the current article, they will be more than happy to check out some similar posts. Again, we can install a simple plugin to provide this fantastic feature. It is called Related Posts, and it generates a list of related posts based on keyword matching.

    

3. Write a post that recaps and links to some of your earlier posts. We have all written certain posts that we feel did not receive the attention they deserve. This is a perfect way to rehash some older material. Your new readers will have never seen it before (as they are likely not to have browsed through your whole archive) and it will give them a great idea about your style and niche. Your current readers will enjoy the summaries and perhaps be reminded of techniques or other tips that they have since forgotten about.

    

4. Write a series of posts. A series is typically a 3 (or more) part entry that you split up into individual posts. They should provide complete and in depth coverage of a certain topic related to your blog. For instance, if you run an SEO blog, you may want to have a series that covers the basics of how to both prepare and submit a website for search engines. The posts don’t have to run consecutively. In fact, you can use the In-Series plugin to help you manage links to each part of the series using a table of contents.

    

5. Have a way for users to subscribe to comments on the post. That way, whenever another person leaves a comment (possibly a response), everyone that comments will be notified of it. This is a fantastic way to keep readers engaged with the post. They may make several trips to the same posts whereas that may have never happened before. There is a plugin that will do this in the least intrusive way possible, called Subscribe to Comments.

    

6. Write a weekly feature. Choose a topic that you can write about consistently and post about it once a week. If you make it predictable, your readers will come back, week after week to check out the latest installation of your feature. The easiest route to take is to just post a series of links. Give it a clever title and its own logo of sorts, and you will be set! Most of the top bloggers out there use something similar to this tactic.

    

7. Promote a contest on your website. This a well documented and very obvious tactic. You should offer some sort of prize (Amazon gift card, iPod, etc.) in return for doing something for you. You could ask the reader to subscribe to your blog, give you a link, or even write a whole review. Every person that contributes would get an entry, and at the end of the contest, you could randomly draw for a winner. I would only recommend this if you have enough readers to make this feasible.

    

I myself need to implement some of these tips. I know that these methods will be infinitely helpful; I only need to follow my own advice. By the way, I collected some of the previous tips from these great sites:

• Technosailor
• Create Business Growth
• Nate Whitehill dot Com