Written on November 2nd, 2008 at 09:11 pm by Darren Rowse
3 Alternatives to Promoting Your Blogs Homepage That Convert First Time Readers to Loyal Ones
When you have an opportunity to promote your blog what part of your blog do you promote?
In 99% of the promotion that I see bloggers doing they promote their blog’s homepage URL. This is a reasonably good way to go – but perhaps there are a few other ways to approach promoting you blog that could potentially be more effective at converting new readers.
You see a blog’s front page is not always a great place to send people for a number of reasons:
- it can be overwhelming – a blog’s front page usually has multiple articles on it. A reader hitting that page cold could be a little overwhelmed by the choice of what to read.
- content is not always relevant – a blog’s front page is generally always changing. Most bloggers cover a variety of topic, some more serious and ‘on topic’ than others. Send readers to it on the wrong day and they can come away with the wrong impression of you.
- no strong calls to action – when you’re promoting your blog you want to convert people into loyal readers. While most blogs have a subscription options in their sidebars they generally don’t have strong calls to action on them (or at least not as strong as some of the other options below).
So what other options are there for you when you’re promoting your blog? Let me explore three:
1. Purpose Built Landing Page
One of the most effective ways to convert new readers to your blog is to have them arrive on a page that is purpose built for new readers and attempts to convert them.
The idea of ‘landing pages’ is one that comes from the advertising world. When a company runs an advertising campaign online they generally will not send people to their site’s front page – they generally will design a page specifically for the campaign that appeals to those the campaign is aiming to convert and which has a strong call to action.
Bloggers can develop landing pages also. This is useful when promoting your blog via advertising but also in other contexts. For example when promoting your blog on social media sites or profiles you could develop a page that you send people to that appeals to social media users.
Further Reading – read more about how to do them at – The Importance of Landing Pages of Blogs.
2. Individual Posts
Another option is to send people to specific posts that you’ve written instead of your home page.
This is a technique that I use particularly when I’m doing an interview or a guest post on someone else’s blog. The key is to pick one of your best posts and make sure that it is on a topic is relevant to the context that you’re promoting yourself in and the audience you’re attempting to attract.
In this way you direct people to a post that is likely to hit the spot with them. You can also tweak the post you’re promoting with a call to action at the end.
3. RSS Feed
This is another technique that I’ve used numerous times with significant success. I wouldn’t recommend doing it all of the time or even doing it in isolation but it’s a great secondary promotion technique.
What I mean by that is to include your RSS feed’s link along side another link when you’re promoting your blog.
For example – if you’re promoting your blog in forums in your signature – why not include a link to your blog AND an invitation to subscribe to it all in the signature. In the same way – if you’re doing a guest post on someone’s blog – don’t just link to your blog, include a way for people to subscribe in your byline.
In effect you’re including a call to action right in your promotion. The cool thing is that it works – when I’ve done this I’ve seen noticeable increases in subscriber numbers.
Tags: Blog Promotion, Landing Pages, RSS
68 Responses to “3 Alternatives to Promoting Your Blogs Homepage That Convert First Time Readers to Loyal Ones” - Add Yours
Ricardo Bueno
November 2nd, 2008 10:08 pm
You know Darren, I could see how this would be particularly effective for something like your Twitter profile (as in building a Landing Page specifically for your twitter followers).
Island in the Net
November 2nd, 2008 10:14 pm
I think I’ll spend part of today working on that landing page.
Angel Cuala
November 2nd, 2008 10:17 pm
Finally, I got you through Twitter! I am always late here so I am glad to be early bird this time. Your posts always comes late to my email.
Anyway, this is another great reminder, Darren. Actually, I am usually doing this when I leave a comments to blogs. For the subscription invitation, I have one of one at the end of each post.
I am an active member of some top forums like DP and Sitepoint, but I never thought of doing this as I always use my homepage. I think that’s a nice approach. I will try that one time.
Thanks for continuously guiding us.
Sekoja
November 2nd, 2008 10:19 pm
Hello Problogger,
been following you for a while on Twitter now, and reading your blogposts. I intend to start a blog pretty soon and this is again a very helpful post. Smart!
If you like you can follow me on Twitter (Sekoja).
Best wishes.
joels
November 2nd, 2008 10:19 pm
im using my post url not my home url to promote in other sites. using this method i think all my posts will be indexed in search engine database
Kristofor
November 2nd, 2008 10:26 pm
I think the idea of sending people to individual posts is a really important one.
People tend to enjoy heading with a site specifically to view the content. In fact that is why most people click on a link. If you can promote your direct link in a forum, or other website then it will most likely be something people will click on.
If you just promote your website homepage the click rate is significantly reduced.
Stanley Tang - 16 Year Old Entrepreneur
November 2nd, 2008 10:31 pm
Great stuff Darren!
Already I can see people in the comments section doing that…
Diligent Design
November 2nd, 2008 10:37 pm
I agree with point #2 and with Kristofor. I know when I click on a link and I’m taken to an actual page, I stop for a moment and see what it has to say. Searching the blog index for an interesting article takes too much effort at certain times, haha. I’ve found that my visitor rates go up (and bounce rates down) when I do some “specific linking.”
I never really thought about promoting my blog’s rss feed, but now I have to give that a try! I wonder what kind of results it will generate?
John Easton
November 2nd, 2008 11:00 pm
Darren:
I too like the idea of creating a landing page designed to convert readers. Do you or any of the commenters here have examples of good blog landing pages?
John Easton
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeaston1
Angel Cuala
November 2nd, 2008 11:07 pm
Hi John Easton,
I think you can try mine. As I have mentioned earlier, I am frequently doing this. Just hope you find it good, based on your criteria. It’s about blogging, anyway.
Thanks!
By the way Darren, I just changed my forum signature and hope it will work out…thanks!
Gem
November 2nd, 2008 11:07 pm
Landing page is a new idea to me. I’ll work on that. Thanks for the idea.
Mia
November 2nd, 2008 11:34 pm
Thank you. I’ve often thought about someone coming to my site to see what it’s all about and landing on a wordless wednesday picture and not feeling as though they want anyting to do with the blog….I’m going to work on this right away.
amirulcyber
November 3rd, 2008 12:01 am
Great tips darren.thnks..
Momma
November 3rd, 2008 12:13 am
I like the idea of promoting your blog and including an RSS link, great idea! We often send people to individual posts too, especially when individual posts are more relevant to the situation.
For example, here is a recent post about several $10 Walmart gift cards we’re giving away:
http://www.engineeradebtfreelife.com/2008/10/remodeling-in-process.html
You can get an entry to win by commenting on the blog, and another entry by subscribing to our feed!
Enjoy!
Momma
feature blogger at Engineer a Debt Free Life
subscribe to feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EngineerADebtFreeLife
P.S. How’s that for following your suggestions? Got 2 out of 3 right here! :)
Nathan Hangen
November 3rd, 2008 12:22 am
I like the idea of creating a landing page quite a bit, I’ve just been slow to implement it.
Tumblemoose
November 3rd, 2008 12:26 am
It’s easy in the rush of trying to market, market, market for folks to take the direct approach. Sometimes you need to just put on the brakes and try and decide exactly what you want to accomplish.
These three tips I think can serve as reminders that there are many ways to skin this cat. I’m sure there are others and I’d be curious to see what else other folks are doing.
Cheers
George
Tara @ Affiliate Marketing Prodigy
November 3rd, 2008 12:32 am
I do use some blog posts to link too every now and then, but most of the time do link right to the home page. I might create a few landing pages this weekend and do some split testing. I never though of creating landing pages to be honest for the the blog.
Steven-Sanders
November 3rd, 2008 1:09 am
Great idea about linking to the RSS feed in guest posts! I like it alot.
Scott
November 3rd, 2008 1:10 am
I just wrote a post on this today (at 7am West Coast time)
“Purpose Driven Blogging”
You can check it out on my blog for Venture Capitalists, Tech and Wine!
http://scottdig.com/2008/11/02/purpose-driven-blogging/
Andy Merrett
November 3rd, 2008 1:33 am
While blogs do often have a constantly changing front page, I’m finding that being more creative with it, by use of a theme such as the excellent “Revolution” and “Revolution 2″ series by Brian Gardner, plus some coding to enable “sticky” posts and the like, can still make the front page a good landing, as it provides an overview of a large number of posts, including evergreen and recent, at a glance. In fact, whereas when I started blogging the front page and individual article pages looked very similar (the only real difference being the number of articles displayed), now on two of my blogs they’re very distinct.
That means I’m quite happy to send people to my front pages.
Rahul
November 3rd, 2008 2:01 am
I also feel that the homepage is important part of any blog. Also landing pages are important too. Thanks, I should build a good landing page since i lack one.
John Hoff - eVentureBiz
November 3rd, 2008 2:03 am
This is something people should really listen to. I’ve been online and marketing for a long time now and this strategy works. In fact, it doesn’t have to only lead to a blog landing page, but instead could lead to what you ultimately want people to do on your site.
For example, clicking on my name won’t take you to my blog, it’ll take you to our WordPress Web Hosting Service. The idea is many blog readers probably have free accounts (always bad) and if they click on my name they might find what they are looking for.
On the flip side though, one positive thing about leaving links to your home page (or one page in particular) more times than not is SEO.
Search engines love indexing your top level domain (www.your-site.com) and the more links that point to it, the higher your PageRank will become.
By scattering your links to many articles you will significantly slow down building a large number of links to one page (even if they are nofollow).
But we have to remember, ultimately, it’s humans we are selling to, not Googlebot.
axel g
November 3rd, 2008 2:04 am
Great advice as usual +_+
I like the idea of landing pages…
Kok Choon
November 3rd, 2008 2:12 am
You are right. I did try to send visitor to more relevant landing page, it seems very helpful in converting them to my loyal subscriber! Thanks for the tips!
saleel
November 3rd, 2008 2:27 am
It is a nice idea about the RSS Feed you have mentioned. It is a great idea. We can surely increase the subscrption. The other point of yours, I used to try the same that works and it has muiltple advantages.
Patrick
November 3rd, 2008 2:44 am
A landing page is a good idea but, in my opinion, often the landing page looks so cluttered on many blogs as well. Maybe I see this wrong because I am not a pro blogger.
If I would build a landing page, I would put the focus purely on: setting expectations for my visitors and outlining a win-win situation between my readers and myself. Most likely, I would not place an ad on the landing page but maybe this is being considered a big mistake in the eyes of other bloggers. If so, let me know…
Surender Sharma
November 3rd, 2008 2:45 am
Hi Dareen,
What if we drive reader to Home page instead of post page?
Natasha @ Maw Books
November 3rd, 2008 3:07 am
I particularly like the idea of promoting you RSS feed in your signature lines. I hadn’t thought of that.
As for sending people to another page other than the home page, I do that a lot. In the tight niche of book blogs whenever I leave a comment of a book I’ve already reviewed I usually leave the direct URL of that review in the website field box. I know others just leave the link with the comment but I think it looks less spammy. If someone follows me to my blog then they see relevant content to the page they just came from.
VlogHog
November 3rd, 2008 4:04 am
I always submit indivdual posts when I Stumble my own blog.
Hopefully, this will hook readers.
Dimitri
November 3rd, 2008 4:09 am
I should work more on our blog promotion to het subscribers. I have not done it at all, but again, who would want to subscribe to a shed blog?
Fred Thompson
November 3rd, 2008 4:10 am
Sounds like a good idea. I will be building a landing page.
Ready Freddy
http://www.isnrblog.com
Tressa
November 3rd, 2008 4:37 am
Hi Darren
Great ideas. I often just promote my homepage, and I never thought it coud be overwhelming. Makes sense to promote one certain post, will keep that in mind.
Thanks as always
Tressa
Alrady
November 3rd, 2008 4:44 am
Great article. I am writing more for ehow because my blog doesn’t pay much. So I have had to incorporate that idea of linking to something more pertinent. for example I used my link in your box there for my article on sales and marketing process -because I figured that it is more pertinent to this forum than my articles on cleaning a pool or how to deal with plagiarism.
What I am confused on is how to incorporate an RSS feed and how that would benefit as the subject does not change ;except edits or poster comments.
At any rate I would like to create a landing page for my ehow articles. Feel free to email me anyone with suggestions!
I liked this article THANKS PRO BLOGGER for another great thought provoking subject!
ALRADY
PlasticPilot
November 3rd, 2008 6:26 am
My preferred landing pages are my homepage for general forums, blog comments, etc…
I used specific posts when participating in forums, as long as I have a relevant one, which is now more and more frequent.
After reading your post, I started testing by leaving links to my archives page, which is a really good place to start reading about all my favorite topics.
Amelia Smith
November 3rd, 2008 6:34 am
I’m currently in the process of getting ready to transfer my blog between hosts and am redesigning the blog.
I had never contemplated a landing page but it’s on the to-do list.
My blog is for members and guests of a Ski Lodge so a landing page would be great for first timers so I can direct them around the site and make the experience more user friendly. Then, when they become regular readers, they can delve deeper and find what they want to read.
Thanks for the suggestion and tips.
Christopher
November 3rd, 2008 7:44 am
Personaly, when i go to a new blog, i like seeing the homepage as a CMS style instead of the traditional blogs.
i like your homepage because your faced with a video, a featured post, links to recent posts and a section for best post of the month ect.
When i go to a blog i like to see links so i can choose what interests me instead of being faced with HEAPS of boring text.
If i could only give 1 tip to bloggers, i would suggest investing into a CMS style homepage.
Armando Peralta
November 3rd, 2008 8:29 am
Individual posts is great advice. I’ll try in the short time.
Gary McElwain
November 3rd, 2008 9:55 am
When promoting my blog the tactic I use most is to send people to a specific post that is relevant to the message or ad or whatever attracted them. Having them read a relevant post with the option to subscribe via RSS .
Darren another great post to get us thinking about what ere doing and why. Thanks for keeping us on our toes.
Gary McElwain
Christine Range
November 3rd, 2008 11:38 am
Darren,
I really enjoyed reading the 3 alternatives to posting your blog homepage. Thanks for such useful info. I am working on transferring my blog to another host and I will definitely use landing pages for my social media sites.
Using individual posts to promote my blog is a really good idea and a reminder that I need to include right away. While I usually promote my homepage, It is my individual archive posts that are showing up in the search engines from third parties. It can only get better if I actively promote my individual posts myself.
Larry
November 3rd, 2008 12:20 pm
Great advice, I have always used my main page in links, But I will start to use the links to Individual Posts. Thanks
Brad
November 3rd, 2008 12:51 pm
Very good advice! This is the biggest challenge my blog faces: Turning first-time readers into regular visitors. I have always just linked to my blog’s homepage. But now I might try to customize the links a little more depending on where the link is being placed!
Thanks Darren!
John Dorwart - Jorbins Magazine
November 3rd, 2008 3:09 pm
This post came in good time. I was going to set out to research this topic but happened to check Google Reader and found a good starting point. I myself have to start linking to individual posts especially since my site has a broad range of topics. I just never felt sending first time visitors to the home page was enough to capture them. I must play around and see what I can do.
Tinh
November 3rd, 2008 4:16 pm
Yes, I totally agree with your listed tips, I think loyal ones are much better than one-time readers.T
Mitch
November 3rd, 2008 4:30 pm
Since it doesn’t look like anyone else has mentioned it, using the plugin CommentLuv for Wordpress blogs basically gives you the opportunity to select from your last 10 blog posts to highlight the post you feel is most appropriate on another person’s blog who also has CommentLuv if you’ve signed up for the program, or if they have it and you don’t then it’ll show your last post. That takes care of your #2 just fine.
Internet Affiliate Marketing Programs
November 3rd, 2008 5:02 pm
Your tips are good. Especially the purpose built Landing page.
I have had a good made up with free gifts. Individual posts are great for social bookmarking.
David
Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com
November 3rd, 2008 8:42 pm
I’ve seen landing pages for blogs before.
I found them a bit irritating, because my way of appreciating a new blog – I usually would look if it has ‘top posts’ or ’suggested reading’ box, and if it doesn’t I try to get a general feel for the blog from the front page, comments, archives. In this case a landing page is just another something that stands in my way.
Nevertheless, I think that a well built landing page that showcases the essence of the blog could be very useful.
Cheers,
Alex
Hendry Lee
November 3rd, 2008 11:42 pm
Because most people come through the home page, I have tested static page with powerful copy in the home page. I think I like the flow better than by displaying recent posts on the home page.
It gives me more control too…
WordPress allows this to be done easily.
JB
November 4th, 2008 2:20 am
Great post. A great to promote your blogs on other peoples blogs is to make a comment that links an article that you’ve written on your blog, that is relevant to the topic at hand. I find that much more engaging than just posing your homepage.
Sarah H.
November 4th, 2008 6:53 am
Timely post, as always! I’m working on tweaking my Welcome page, meant for new readers. Right now it’s mostly just an orientation, but I’ve been thinking about adding more content. I’d like my welcome page to perhaps become a Landing Page, so thanks for the advice.
Redundant Stocks
November 4th, 2008 9:10 pm
Very nice and useful landing page guide.
MLRebecca
November 5th, 2008 5:10 am
This is great! I hadn’t thought about creating a landing page for a blog. That’s really an interesting concept. Some blogging platforms like Wordpress, for instance, would make creating a landing page very easy. Thanks so much for posting these awesome tips!
The Worst of Perth
November 5th, 2008 9:34 pm
Landing page great advice.
Mike Austin
November 6th, 2008 12:51 am
Thanks Problogger……..your information are very very helpful.I will follow all your tips to drive traffic to my website.Thanks once again….
Devin @ CoolProducts
November 6th, 2008 3:27 am
I had not even thought about including your RSS feed along with your blog link. That is an interesting concept. I’ll try giving that a shot! Thanks.
Brad Hart @ A DoFollow Blog
November 6th, 2008 4:12 am
I am having a big issue with this on a couple of my sites. New readers who hit my home pages have told they are overwhelmed by how much stuff is there and just don’t know what to click on. No matter how well laid out or organized it is they just don’t know what to do with it. I don’t want to dumb down the the home page, but I am also afraid of readers not knowing what to do with a magazine style site.
Like you I often integrate video, specific categories and and featured posts as well as simple list of recent posts and some other links. I also make use of a blog page through a wordpress template and would love to send my new users there when they arrive but I am at a loss of how best to do it. Most people scream bloody murder when something pops up and while not unreasonable even useful messages that suggest they subscribe or go to the blog page often times gets blocked.
Can you suggest a script or plugin that wouldn’t be too intrusive but yet get the message across to new readers and still let me keep the homepage as it is?
Corey Freeman
November 6th, 2008 1:24 pm
@Brad Heart
Maybe just putting a “new readers start here” link and going to some of your favorite posts? Or if you have time, make landing pages for your biggest traffic generators (like twitter or SU) and start doing some specific linking, which really is a good way to bring traffic to your website.
I agree with Alex from Net-Entrepeneur in that some landing pages can be just plan irritating if they aren’t constructed properly. This is why you should generally try to link to an article that the visitors coming through that medium will find helpful. (in my opinion) However, yes, a well constructed landing page can really help you keep visitors on board.
Jazzy
November 6th, 2008 4:55 pm
These are great tips. Now, excuse me while I try to implement them!
panca
November 7th, 2008 2:05 pm
thanks for 3 tool suggestion for promotion….good sharing
DemoGeek
November 7th, 2008 4:12 pm
Darren…this question has been disturbing my sleep lately…what real advantage you get in promoting RSS subscriptions?
I understand the concept of RSS subscriptions and the convenience that comes with it but from a blogger perspective what advantage that RSS subscription brings in over encouraging visitors to visit the blog (so they can discover more content, might have a flash news section so they can know of that flash news, monetizing advantage etc.)?
I don’t click on any ads that I see on my feed reader. And I’m not asking this purely from a monetizing perspective.
What’s your thought?
Ganesh
November 8th, 2008 1:01 am
I find that established blogs use this technique more often. Asking a new visitor to sign up to your list would be much better than showing him your front page and confusing him. Good idea.
Anthony James Barnett - author
November 8th, 2008 4:57 am
A good post and a damn good idea, thanks.
The only problem is, how the heck do you create a ‘landing page’ on something like ‘blogger’? I can’t see how it can be done.
Anthony
Mike Henry
November 8th, 2008 5:15 pm
A nice feature with WordPress is the ability to use different Themes for the Pages. It helps to make a unique landing page that can be as tailored to any given niche as you need it to be.
Sara
November 9th, 2008 10:48 pm
That’s a great idea…I never thought about creating a landing page or using my RSS feed link…
chris
November 13th, 2008 7:34 pm
:) yes you are right most people promote their main domain instead of there single post. I did the same before with less success, now when I started to promote even my mainbusiness. Homepage Support and Utility coding, I did a Post for that and just show it: http://www.christian-albert-mueller.com/professional-coder/ . People even know much easier what they get and just have a look. But with RSS I am not so sucessful.
Bertus
December 4th, 2008 4:26 pm
I have thought about creating a landing page for my funny video blog – http://oraclevid.blogspot.com , but after reading the post and all the comments I think I am better off without a landing page. On my main page will always be a pretty funny video, so I think the people could just navigate down or to categories from there if they want to see more.
Or do you think a landing page would help me more, and what exactly could you suggest for a landing page for a special kind of blog like mine?
Thanks
If you like funny vids daily subscribe to feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/oraclevid
ALRADY
December 5th, 2008 3:09 am
Let me see if I understand this.. You are suggesting that in a post like this that we post our url early on.
http://www.ehow.com/members/Alrady-articles.html
Even though it is in the website link that make our name clickable = so now it is there 2x?
Then again as we sign off so that there are actually three links to our pages or article of interest?
How do you feel about using headline animators. Where does it end?
ALRADY
http://www.ehow.com/members/Alrady-articles.html
Bobby Winchell
December 20th, 2008 1:57 pm
Hello Darren!
Just found your blog, very nice work!
The landing page idea just make so much sense!
We build landing pages around keywords so why
wouldn’t we build landing pages for each traffic source to our blogs? Great Info!
Thanks
Bobby Winchell
http:www.bobbywinchell.com/blog
Shaan
January 8th, 2009 5:33 am
From the very beginning, i am promoting my homepage only. And it was it really nice to know to use landing pages and feed subscription links.
Regards,
Shaan Haider
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