If you’re a blogger, it isn’t hard to figure out what you visitors came to your website for: content. And as a webmaster, it’s your job to give your visitors what they’re looking for. There are many ways to do this, especially under the world’s best and most expandable blogging platform, WordPress.
Why is Giving Important?
Giving your visitors more gives your visitors a reason to stay on and come back to your website later. If you’re blogging for income, this means more ad-clicks, more affiliate sales, and most importantly, more subscribers. You easily can appear to have tons of content on your website to both users and content-hungry search engines, which you actually already do, but the visitor doesn’t usually see this. All of these benefits without writing a single word of extra content. Internet browsers are constantly looking for and sharing content.
By using the techniques outlined below, you can lead them to your content using nothing more than your own blog.
Use “Related” Plugins
The WordPress plugins that tell visitors which content on your website they’d likely find interesting are amazing. These addons use special algorithms to know what your visitors are looking for with accuracy. But these plugins don’t stop at helping visitors find new content. They also help search engines find and index more of it and, using internal linking, they add to your website’s link popularity.
How?
These kind of plugins create networks of links in seconds for every page of content you write. Content links to more content. This is an internal linking wonderland, and internal linking does pass PageRank. There is no reason, especially if you use WordPress, to implement a “Related Posts/Content” to your blog, preferably after each post.
Use “Popular Content” Widgets
As we already know, it is very important to give your visitors more content. A good way to do this is to highlight the best parts of your website. And in blogging, that is your content. But more specifically, which content? Your most popular content. Your most popular content is content that your readers have signaled to you to be the best on your website by commenting and sharing.
But why is it important to make this content even more popular?
Don’t overdue what’s popular, just make them aware
You know because it’s popular that this content is good and well-liked. If a visitor gets pulled into an article like this, they may feel inclined to share, read more, or even subscribe to your blog and buy a product. Many people disagree and say that you shouldn’t work on making your popular content more popular, but rather do the same for your unpopular content. Although this is true in a way, it is false in many more ways. Still, do not overdo this, your popular content should only be featured on a widget on your sidebar or footer, and nothing more.
Use “Random Content” Plugins
A new nearly-unlimited source of new content
The major flaw of the “Popular Content” plugins is that they only show a top few of your posts, and they don’t change too much. Random content plugins fix all of this. They show your user a few posts on your blog, picked at random – when you refresh your browser, a few new posts will be shown. This creates an effective solution for easily giving your readers a new nearly-unlimited source of new content right from your sidebar. Plus, these plugins are easy to set up and you can get them running in seconds, whilst popular content plugins may take a few days to setup as they gather post traffic data.
Have an Internal Structure, and Not Just Within Your Posts
Another way to give your visitors more of your content is to make it easier for them to read it.
The problem with most blogs is a lack of internal structure. This mistake has the power to anchor a website’s search engine rankings. But by internal structure, I don’t mean the structure of your content – that’s a completely different post. I mean how your website as a whole is structured. With blogging systems evolving quickly, it is becoming easier and easier to forget about this.
So what should you do about this?
Simply structure your site in an easy to understand way. Make sure that a visitor can easily find what they’re looking for, and be sure to use categories and tags effectively. Also add nofollow links to archives and categories within your blog sidebar/footer. This minimizes what the user has to go through to get more from your blog, and therefore increases your conversion rates, whether they are for RSS or ad clicks.
“3 Clicks Rule”
One related rule I try to follow myself is the “3 Clicks Rule”. The rule states that no page should be more than 3 (link) clicks from your homepage. This makes sure that no page on your website is too weak in terms of link popularity and that each page can be reached with little effort from the visitor. A great way to implement this on your website is to use a Sitemap and link to it within your footer so each page is only 2 clicks away from any other page.
First Sights
Always give your readers more
Your blog is a home to tons of quality content. But what does the visitor see? Only the first page of your posts. It’s important to put some of your blog (sidebar/footer) to use giving visitors more content. The tips above are some great methods you can use to help visitors get more from your website. They also provide a way for you to build your active community - the more content a reader sees, the more comments they make. Finally, giving your users more also gives search engines more to index and builds the link popularity of all of your posts automatically.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this article, be sure to retweet and share! It won’t promote itself! 
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?Thanks for KARAN SINGHAL’s sharing. It’s helpful to me.
Great points Karan.
You are right about providing content to visitors. That is what they come for. And as a webmaster, it is our job to give maximum content and accessibility to your visitors.
Kindest,
Nabeel
You’re stalking me, Nabeel. On most of the guest posts I publish, you’re the first commentator.
Thanks for your thoughts!
I don’t need random post plugins since it is already built into my theme.
great article karan..infact i wil also start using random post plugin now..after reading this have realizes its importance
At the bottom of every post is a list of related posts, my archives are easily accessible on the sidebar and if you follow me on Twitter you will see plenty of links to old content I have written.
I’m always trying to think of new things to offer my readers.
Really great post!
You are absolutely right! Giving your readers what they want will even better enhance their experience.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Don’t know if this is fact or not but I believe Google monitor the length of time visitors stay on your blog and that information is used as one of the factors to determine your page rank…so by implementing these ideas – hopefully your visitors will stay longer.
I think there is a time when you can overcomplicate things, though.
Andrew
Page rank has nothing to do with how much your page provides. It has to do with how many links you have (although links do come with quality content). Pagerank (not the one in Google’s toolbar, the real one) is just another factor in the ranking of sites (albeit a rather important one).
Karan
Are you implying I said “How much your page provides determines page rank” as I don’t think I did.
I tried to say, “the length of time a visitor stays on your site is one of the 200 factors that Google uses to determine your page rank”.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
Andrew
Oh, I thought you were talking about the toolbar pagerank.
I guess helping your visitors when they have questions and need helps also becoming important, since without them, our blog can’t grow.
Besides, if we are helpful to them, they also promote our blog to their community, which is great.
The 2 things I usually look for when I visit a new blog are Popular Posts and Related Posts. The first lets me see what topics the best content focuses on and the second let’s me continue reading on the subject I am currently interested in.
I think it’s important to make things as easy for your visitors as possible, too many people try and focus on making money on their sites and place adverts in spots that would be better used for content, these kind of sites just annoy me and I generally don’t go back to them
That’s why programs like AdSense are no longer “acceptable” for using your blog to make money online.
I think AdSense ‘cheapens’ a site.
Andrew
Same, a better way to make money is to provide a product or use affiliate links. Who said blogs can’t make money?
I agree with you that the important of the first sight. Sometimes, i will be attracted by the design of the website. The first impression for me is the owner really takes it seriously. Another thing is the About page. I used to see the About page first before i read through other contents.
Some good points here. I have just started storing data for a popular posts widget on my own blog. I think this is a really important feature. If a visitor arrives at my blog for the first time, I definitely want him to find my most popular (and hence best) content. You only get one chance to impress a new reader.
Hopefully loyal readers will come back for more, and these are the visitors who will then read your less popular (but still good) content.
After all, google doesn’t show you randomised content, it shows you the best content. If it didn’t you’d soon start using Yahoo! or Bing wouldn’t you?
Great post!
i thinks to give visiter, we should make special content
Karan,
You are right. People often lack internal structure. I love your 3 clicks idea and I’m not sure that I pass.
Off to check…
Thanks for the great post,
Richard
I just realize that the inclusion of a Random content section is also important, or rather useful. this is especially great for both new and old followers, plus you get to showcase your older posts. I’ll keep this in mind, thanks for this Karan. This will definitely improve any blog’s conversion rate and also reduce bounce rate, just need to place it on a visible section.
Very nice I wish I new how to put a smiley face up for this :0 thanks
Some interesting advice. I like the one about making sure that no page is more than three clicks from the home page. Nothing worse than having to dig through dozens of links to find something.
Thanks for sharing.
Nice advise. Great content, keeping in touch with the visitors helps you more. I like that 3 Clicks rule.
I run a few blogs an I always struggle to get people to look at more than just the post they linked to. I will try a few of the suggestions above to see if I can keep visitors for longer. I guess if someone is searching on a specific topic you will always struggle to keep them looking at stuff on a different topic, even if it is on the same general subject.
Thanks for the advice. I will have to look into the plug-ins more.
I will try a few of the suggestions above to see if I can keep visitors for longer. I guess if someone is searching on a specific topic you will always struggle to keep them looking at stuff on a different topic, even if it is on the same general subject.
I just realize that the inclusion of a Random content section is also important, or rather useful.
Internal links, that’s what I always forgot when posting something. Thanks for this post
Same with here. Especially if your content already reach a hundred count, it is very difficult to remember if there is a related content on your blog. So, plug-in is needed. Or, you can use some plugin which generate link-juice in your article.
The best way to treat your blog visitor properly is to act yourself as a visitor and ask to yourself wether the blog (your blog) already make you satisfied or no. This article is help us to understand visitor. Thanks. I love the concept of 3 Clicks Rule, especially because not all visitor have a good internet speed, so if their need to click more than 3 times then it’s very annoying.
Think of it in a way when you discover other blogs. How you read through a post and then look through the sidebar at the popular posts – you know you always check those out as well
Try to replicate that feeling of discovering on your own blog and people will dig deep.
Only top notch posts will give more to visitors, and this kind of writing requires time and effort. But yes, worth all the time and effort in the worth.
I totally agree with you Karan, the Related plugin and Popular content widget really help a lot.
Thanks much for sucha cool seo blog.. Our number one problem is getting traffic.. The trucking business is a tough business to be in!
Actually, I would think that other than building links, the truck industry should be easy to dominate. If you need help, just go to my website (by clicking on my name) and there’s a blog to help you out even further at http://trafficke.com/blog/.
Thanks for sharing very useful points and keeping it simple and easy to understand. Great Post.
Showing related posts is actually more useful than most people thinks. First of all, the end of the post is a place that visitors wonder what to do next, so if they see some related links it is possible that they will click them and continue reading. This will not only increase impressions and therefore income, but it will also decrease bounce rate (which is also good). And if we look things from SEO point of view, your article will have more related links and will rank better.
So this random plugin will post a unique commenter every refresh? Don’t you think it is better to show all the comments?
Karan,
Well written and good points. I really like the 3-click rule and try to always adhere to that one.
Karan…….I am using adsense for a past 2 yrs….can u tel me from which we get more money..affliate program…..or PPC or CPc programs?
Personally, I’ve had a lot more success with affiliate programs. Thanks for commenting!
Some good points here. I have just started storing data for a popular posts widget on my own blog. I think this is a really important feature. If a visitor arrives at my blog for the first time, I definitely want him to find my most popular (and hence best) content. You only get one chance to impress a new reader.
Hopefully loyal readers will come back for more, and these are the visitors who will then read your less popular (but still good) content.
This is really great list of resources here. Content is definitely the thing that will make your visitors want to stay around for as long as they can. One of the best strategies you covered in this post is internal linking. This is a great way to keep your visitors on your blog by reading all of your other articles. We want our visitors to stick around as long as possible, and this post is packed with wonderful information to help make that happen. I think you do a good job of this in your posts. This method is definitely overlooked but I think you’re doing a great job of getting the message out. Thanks for sharing your insights as always.
Excellent advice Karan. I will truly implement it to our blog. Can’t stop thinking about the 3-Clicks rule – I think I’ve already subconsciously done so but will have to check.
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