Typically, your main goal in directing traffic to your blog is turning those visitors into loyal readers and returning traffic that builds on itself. Step one on the way to that goal is getting new traffic to subscribe to your updates. However, once a user leaves your blog, it’s difficult to ever get them back and surfing through your posts. Emails, especially regular newsletters, only get about 10-20% open rate and an even lower click through. No matter how much great content you continue to generate for your blog readers, there is not a lot of opportunity to ever get your work in front of them again.
There are a few very small, very easy tricks to get blog subscribers to read your new posts:
Improve user experience by featuring new articles in intuitive places.
One of the most simple ways to get more new and returning visitors to see your latest blog posts and spend more time on your page is to simply include your new blog posts in some clear, visual, and enticing way within your user experience. Think of any news app or site. They are constantly offering new content in ways that are in your view and are easy to access. This may come in the form of a sidebar, banners, etc. It’s usually as simple as adding a sidebar “Recent Posts” widget or container to all your post pages and homepage to make sure that what your posting is seen no matter where they enter your website from.
Push users to read your new blog posts with arrows and CTAs.
This is incredibly simple but it’s amazing what a difference strong CTAs and the correctly designed buttons and arrows can make in engagement across your site. A ‘Read Next The Article’ with an enticing title, the number of shares, and nice cover photo at the end of a blog or on your homepage can really increase engagement to new posts that would otherwise go missed. Use actionable words and appropriate previews for your CTAs and anywhere your new post appears in your user experience.
Improve your email updates for blog subscribers and avoid the spam folder.
Because email is still the primary way subscribers expect to reach you, it’s important you actually reach them and don’t end up in the spam folder. Make an effort to create subject lines and preview texts that are enticing, descriptive, and do not trigger spam filters. It’s not hard to trigger spam filters. Check out this list on how to avoid the spam folder. Create emails that have a good user experience just like your site. You should include blog cover images and CTAs to click through to your site so users have a clear path back to where you want them.
Use Beamer to update new and returning traffic on your new posts.
If you want to take updating blog visitors one step further, Beamer is a great way to increase engagement with your new posts. Beamer is an interactive newsfeed that sits right within the user interface of your website or app. You have a tons of freedom and customizability. You can post updates for just about anything not just new blog posts. You can create categories to indicate updates for blog posts, blog news, updates to your site, offers, etc. You can create updates about your news posts to be very visual with photos, videos, and buttons for actionable CTAs that get users clicking through to your posts. Beamer can open with an icon or a “What’s New” tab in your menu navigation so they can check your new content from any page on your site without ever leaving that page.
Use Beamer web push notifications to bring subscribers back each time you post.
You can extend Beamer beyond just your site to increase engagement and boost your new posts with desktop notifications. You can configure Beamer to send a web push notification to all users who have opted in each time you post a new blog. The likelihood that they click a notification directly within their desktop rather than clicking through an email they may not open is much higher. Desktop notifications outperform many methods of reaching users in engagement and have an opt in rate of 20%. You don’t even have to think about it, Beamer will automatically send these out as you create your updates.
While you’re putting all this work in to create amazing content and drive consistent traffic to your blog, it’s important it doesn’t go to waste by missing just a few details to get your subscribers to read your new posts. For an all-in-one engaging newsfeed for your blog, try installing Beamer today.
Ps. Check out our new guide for how to use Beamer for blogs.
