Comments on: 5 Ways To Optimize Your Blog and Capture More Repeat Visitors

By: OZ

OZ — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:42:04 +0000

Rich, I think you have some great content here. I especially identify with reducing the bounce rate of your articles, and surveying your visitors.

First of all, reducing bounce rate should be a huge priority for any webmaster. I use Google Analytics to track this. A great way of figuring out what works to lower your bounce rate involves A/B testing. Google’s Website Optimizer provides a free way to do so.

Surveying visitors provides qualitative feedback, which is just as important as quantitative feedback in optimizing your site.

I think one of the advantages of surveys over quantitative data like web analytics is.. its easier to interpret. Analyzing and inferring actionable insights from web analytics quantitative data isn’t that easy. Not as easy that is as someone sending you feedback that: ‘Your website sucks!’ or ‘Your Website is Great’ or any other feedback you’d like.

Its why online behemoths such as Cabelas’s and Amazon have long adopted comments and feedback into their strategy, not to mention practically every blog. Congrats on a great guest post.

Regards,
Omar

By: Shanita

Shanita — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:54:37 +0000

Nice article !! The ideas given are fantastic and apt. Points 1 & 2 just amazing idea with implementation tool for the same :).Survey can give it a shot but not sure how responsive visitors would be amongst their busy schedule! And yes last but not the least setting goals for improvisation is a welcomed idea and really works. Change is the only phenomenon which is never changing ;) so the visitor needs to find something new every time.

By: Ann

Ann — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:26:20 +0000

Nice article !! The pointer given are too good and very useful. Points 1 & 2 just amazing idea with implementation tool for the same :).Survey can give it a shot but not sure how responsive visitors would be amongst their busy schedule! And yes last but not the least setting goals for improvisation is a welcomed idea and really works. Change is the only phenomenon which is never changing ;) so the visitor needs to find something new every time.

By: اناشيد

اناشيد — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:59:07 +0000

It works ! I put number 1 & 2 in place earlier this week, and I can already see some results.

By: PlasticPilot

PlasticPilot — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:33:13 +0000

It works ! I put number 1 & 2 in place earlier this week, and I can already see some results.

By: Madeira

Madeira — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:04:16 +0000

Nice points – but they are not particularly only for blogs but the same applies to any website.

Great points!

By: DadTopics

DadTopics — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:23:05 +0000

Thanks for the tips. I will definitely use them all.

By: Keral Patel

Keral Patel — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:19:52 +0000

I normally write articles based on the search queries performed on my blog itself. I used to do this sometimes ago on my forum too.

This ning idea is new though :) I will give a try.

By: Urban Fly Fisher

Urban Fly Fisher — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:14:20 +0000

I think I would be wary of trying to start a community at the very start of a blogs life – or when visitor numbers are low – nothing turns people off more than a community with noone in it :-)

I decided after 5 years it was time to start a small community using a forum – this was because I get lots of comments which sometimes have nothing to do with the posts – consequently I decided that somewhere for people just to ask general questions was needed – so I added a forum. It has been a success so far – to get people to join the forum I emailed everyone who had ever commented and everyone who subscribes to my feed using the email option in feedburner – of course I apologised in advance if they did not want to join however lots of people were very positive. Initially i was worried that people would then post in the forum instead of comments however it has all balanced itself out :-)

By: mikerambling

mikerambling — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:45:45 +0000

Thanks for the tips, i really found it very useful. I know that blogging is a really hard task, as there are lots of trial and error and especially keeping your contents unique.With pointers like this shared, it help to guide us as in due time we tend to forget. Thanks.

By: Marijan Sivric

Marijan Sivric — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:56:26 +0000

Research is one of the most important things you need to do to make your blog popular! Know your visitors and give them what they want!

By: Website Design

Website Design — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:09:15 +0000

I really like the thought of creating a social network around your website. It’s a great idea. I’m impressed with Ning and thank you for sharing that link. I can see a myriad of applications for it.

Great stuff.

By: Profitable Blogging Niches

Profitable Blogging Niches — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:56:21 +0000

Setting goals and keeping to them does the trick. Evaluating the reasons you couldn’t acheive them , whenever you don’t is the goal to consistent improvement. Something that will really ensure that you eventually become big

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:05:17 +0000

I never do surveys becuase I end up getting a ton of spam from those doing the survey… it really annoys…..Most of the time the survey is intended to just peal me for information…I’m already irritated just talking about it!

By: cool gadgets

cool gadgets — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:48:10 +0000

@Coolproducts – Pop-ups can get annoying, but you could probably control pop-ups by using cookies to ensure that site visitors don’t get repeated pop-ups and you can probably run campaigns periodically rather then all the time requesting surveys.

By: Doug C.

Doug C. — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:17:02 +0000

@Mrs S – I would love to use WP, but I am on Blogger. The only reason I haven’t moved is because I would not be able to use my layout design I have now on WP.

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:23:08 +0000

Love the tips. I seem to have a decent amount of traffic, but no one is commenting. I would love to hear suggestions.

Thanks for the thoughts.

By: CoolProducts

CoolProducts — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:48:57 +0000

I’ve noticed a lot of blogs are using surveys these days.. I wonder if this really is helping, or if it is actually annoying the people who visit the site and get hit with a pop-up survey.

By: jacobpm

jacobpm — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:39:06 +0000

Rich is right on point. Litterally by just going to my list of Keywords people entered and found the site with I’ve been able to help myself greatly.

One of my favorate new dork activities is to create articles based on the high bounce keywords. Generating new content all the time with changing of the trends and providing something for those people who didn’t like me last time, to get a second chance.

-J

By: dev

dev — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:35:51 +0000

Great Post, these point are really useful