5 important reasons your blog isn’t growing
You might have been blogging for a while now, and yet you aren’t seeing the visitor numbers you had hoped for. Your blog isn’t growing as you had imagined it would. This can be really disheartening. Investing lots of time and effort into your blog and not see the return on this time, in terms of visitor numbers. Today, I’m going to walk through 5 of the top reasons which could be causing this lack of growth and explain how to get traffic to your blog.
It’s too much about you
In the most part, people want information. They want answers to their questions, they want information which will help them to improve their own lives or businesses. While internet ‘friends’ might be interested in personal posts, the rest of the internet community aren’t as interested in these topics. If you can write posts which provide content that focuses on the challenges/pain points experienced by your readers, your blog will grow much quicker. Sharing your expertise and produce highly valuable content is the key.
Your content is difficult to read/unattractive
As harsh as it seems, people will only read your posts if they are laid out, attractive and easy to read. Huge blocks of text are so off-putting to the reader. This will prevent people engaging with your content. You can improve your posts readability by keeping your paragraphs short and by using headings, bullet points and images to break the content into manageable chunks.
People can’t share it
I see so many people who aren’t maximising the potential of their great content. Mainly, because they don’t make it easy for people to share it with others. It’s vital to include social sharing buttons on your posts and make sure these work! Add in your Twitter handle to the Twitter sharing, so you’re tagged in the share. If you don’t, people will be MUCH less likely to share your post.
There’s no incentive for your readers to return
For most blogs the percentage of returning readers will be lower than the percentage of first time (new) readers. You need to try to encourage people to return and the best way to do that, is to get them to sign up to your email list. That way you have more chance for them to become familiar with you and for you to be able to develop the know, like and trust factor. This will help people to remember your site, value your content and return. Offering an opt-in freebie is a great way to capture these new readers. Then you have this second chance to hook them in to returning.
You are running too many ads
I realise that some bloggers make good money from ads. However, for me and many other readers, too many ads detracts from your content. They can interrupt a posts flow, if they are within the posts. They can also remove the white space which is there on the page to give your content room to breathe. Personally, I would rather keep people on my site for longer and have them more likely to return, than earn a few pounds from an advert. Obviously, discreet ads are preferable, but all ads should be placed on your blog with consideration as to how they will affect the reader who is trying to digest your content.
Do you think that your blog is suffering due to one of these factors? Knowing where the issues are is the first step in being able to fix them and boost your blog traffic.
Comments 25
This is a really useful post. It’s always good to keep revisiting the purpose of the blog and to keep checking that it’s actually achieving what you want. If it’s just to share thoughts and the odd rant, then fine. But if trying to build up a genuine readership it’s good to have a strategy and to keep thinking about what’s in it for the reader.
I’m only just starting out. Am not too bothered about reader numbers at the moment as I know my job is to scale up the blog with lots of posts first and to find out what I enjoy writing about. I think (or hope) the readership will follow after that!
I wish I’d had these tips 4 years ago! I completely agree with giving people a reason to return – it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I will be picking your brains on this I think 🙂 x x #TheListLinky
Nothing drives me more made than not being able to share a post, especially when I am going through my linky and I want to thank people by sharing it and I have to actually search to see if they are even on Twitter. I agree to with your other points, I don’t enjoy posts with loads of adds and I don’t enjoy posts that aren’t laid out easily to read. #TheListLinky
These are great, and do make you think about what you are posting. Totally agree about giving your reader something. And not having share buttons is a bug bear of mine, if someone has taken the time to produce fab content you want to make it easy for it to be shared. X #thelistlinky
These are great tips, I think my email list is definitely something I need to work on, it’s rather dismal! Oh and sharing can be such a hassle on some blogs, that’s a really good point X
#thelistlinky
When you read these they’re so obvious. Depending on the blog I don’t mind personal posts but it’s hard to find the people who wants to keep reading those, so yes need to be interspersed with useful ones. The biggest put off for me is ads within posts. So many people are doing this now and it is off-putting having to scroll further to find the text. It’s one of the reasons I don’t read or follow many US blogs. Just ads everywhere.
I wish I had of had these tips when I first started. After only taking my blog seriously for the last year it’s grown a lot. Really useful tips.
#TheList
Really useful blog post! Thanks for sharing x
I totally agree with ads – I hate them in the body of a post! #thelist
Useful blog post, I have social share buttons but never thought about having my handle ready to go. Thank you!
Lots of things to think about here. I keep being asked about putting ads on my blog and so far I’ve always turned them down. This post has encouraged me to stick with my gut instinct. #TheListLinky
I think the one I need to give some thought is how to get people to return to my blog. x
The twitter handle one is so important and it’s amazing how many people don’t do it. I’ve just set up an email list a couple of weeks ago, now I just need to get people to join up!
#TheListLinky
Great tips as always! I learn so much from your blog.
Thanks for the tips and also your very helpful videos
Some really interesting points – I always think it’s a fine balance between getting the personal content & the content that appeals to the masses right… #thelistlinky
Great tips as always, Aby! Thanks so much for sharing. For me, as a new kid on the block, is to build that trust so that I get regular readers coming back for more. I think having an email list will help with communicating with them (once I’ve established my blog/ myself) and the opt-in freebie is such a good tip x #TheListLinky
Great tips. I’m finding it so hard at the tipping point of wanting to push my blog forward, but not knowing how best to do it. Your advice has been invaluable all the way along.
Valid and crucial points… especially the one about not being able to share. That’s a real bummer!
#TheListlinky
Ooo yes I hate too many ads
Ahh it is so frustrating when you can’t share a blog post. My blog traffic isn’t as good as I would expect after 2years blogging think I need to take a hard look at it and use these tips to try and improve. Thanks for sharing your wisdom:) xx #thelist
Really useful tips, and I’m absolutely guilty of at least one of these – my FB share button didn’t work for months and it sat there on my to do list forever…of course when I finally mended it it wasn’t so difficult and I wondered why I had left it so long! I hate ads I must admit, they put me off a blog hugely. #TheListLinky
Very useful post, I need to check my twitter handle on shares, I’m not sure it comes up automatically.Thanks for all these useful tips! #TheListLinky
This is a really helpful post and there were a lot of things I got from this, I think I can take this and I’ll be able to improve my blog 🙂
Julia // The Sunday Mode
Some really great tips. I have yet to set up an email list and my ads are all over the place. Think I need to do some serious work asap.