Tips On How To Make Your Blog Visitors Stay Longer

The length of time that you can keep your visitors on your website can be a crucial factor in determining how successful your blog will be.

Simply getting traffic in the form of thousands of unique visitors daily is meaningless if the time they spend on your site is less than a few seconds or your bounce rate is more than 95%.

There are certain things you can do in the way you present your pages and posts which will maximize the chances of your visitors sticking around for a longer period on your site.

The longer people stay the greater your opportunity to monetize their visit or convince them to take your desired call to action.

A call to action is an Internet marketing term which refers to the primary action that you want your visitors to take when they land on your page or website. One example of a call to action  is where you want someone to click your “buy now” button and purchase your product. Another might be that you want to get people to download your free ebook after signing up as members.

Below are some tips which will help you to keep the attention of your visitors or at the very least keep them interested long enough to stay and explore your site and ultimately perform the call to action you want them to.

1. Remove unnecessary external links from your landing pages and use internal linksTrying to increase the average visitor time on your site is one of the ways that you can decrease your bounce rate and increase your rankings.If you use Google Analytics you’ve probably already heard of the term “bounce rate”.Bounce rate (as defined by Google) is:“..the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page”.
   Therefore plastering your affiliate banners and links all over your pages can work against you if your visitors leave your site immediately from the page they entered from.
   Try to entice your visitors to read more by offering them some relevant links to another internal page or post where you provide a useful review and which ultimately contains your affiliate banner. This way you are not pushing people straight out of the same door they entered.
   There are some useful WP plugins you can use to add relevant internal post links to your blog such as Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
2. Use emotion to present your messagePeople most often buy from emotion whether they admit it or not. This is because the actions which emanate from emotion are quite often subconscious.
   Hence, an emotional response is much more likely to achieve a call to action than a logical one.For instance if you are trying to convince someone to buy your product by using logic, then the chances are that they will also look at your argument from a rational point of view and they will weigh up the pros and cons of buying versus not buying.If you introduce an emotional element to your message such as presenting a benefit or selling a solution to a problem or highlighting how people can get closer to achieving their dream, then you will appeal to the emotional decision making areas of the brain.
   This will maximize the chances of gaining a customer because it will create an emotional connection between your message and the reader.Therefore once you have successfully forged a positive emotional relationship with your readers, they will happily want to come back to your site to explore further or even become regular customers.
3. Include video content on your posts and pagesVideo is one of the most effective ways to communicate a message to people. Even short videos of just a few minutes can often deliver more value to your readers than multiple pages of writing can.
   Therefore in the cases where you would usually get people browsing through an article in 10 to 20 seconds before leaving, the added benefit of using a short video is that it increases the likely-hood that people will stay on your site for longer because they are watching your video.
   Video on the Internet is really just a modern extension of TV but the great thing is that you get to be the producer of the content.
4. Use captivating images in conjunction with your copy or content
   Quite often the right image coupled with the relevant content can induce an emotional response and it can help lay the foundations for the right mindset you want to create before somebody reads your sales pitch or post.
   Humans are quite easily visually stimulated and you can exploit this by using effective images and colors with your message.
5. Focus on providing value and informative content rather than blatant advertising
   Your content and the value which it provides is the sticking point which helps to build a relationship with your readers. A relationship needs some measure of trust by both parties but when you successfully gain this trust from your readers or clients then you are also creating a longer term investment where current customers also become future customers.There are many ways you can provide value for people who will in turn be very happy to return the favor by becoming a customer. For instance you could offer free online courses or a series of tutorials which people can access after they sign up as free members.
   You could also set up your own forum or support system which provides help to people but also an opportunity for people to interact with each other.

How to Create a Google Account

If you want to use Google Blogger to create your blog, you need to create a Google account to access the Blogger software. You can easily create your Google account (and your Blogger blog):

1

Visit the Blogger home page.

If you already have an account, you can also sign in from this page.

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2

On the Blogger home page, click the Create Your Blog Now button.

The Create a Google Account page opens.

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3

On the Create a Google Account page, type your e-mail address in the Email Address text box, and then retype it in the Retype Email Address text box.

The e-mail address you use doesn't have to be for a Google Gmail account. You can use any e-mail address to create a Google account to access Blogger. The e-mail address you enter is the one you use to log in to Blogger, and it's the one to which Blogger sends your username and password if you forget them.

4

Enter a password in the Enter a Password text box, and then reenter it in the Retype Password text box.

You can change your password later, if you want. Google shows you, just beneath the Enter a Password box, howstrong your password is (how difficult it would be for someone to figure it out) after you enter it.

5

Enter your display name in the Display Name text box.

Your display name appears at the bottom of each of your blog posts, indicating that you're the author of the post.

6

Type the letters displayed in the Word Verification box.

This security procedure ensures that new Google accounts are created by human beings, rather than by automated spam systems.

7

Select the check box in the Acceptance of Terms section to indicate that you accept Blogger's terms of service.

You can click the Terms of Service link on your screen to read the complete document.

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8

Click the Continue button.

The Name Your Blog page opens on the Blogger Web site.

How to Use a Custom Blogger Template

To use a third-party custom template on your Blogger blog, you need to download that template to your computer and then upload it to your Blogger account. Get your custom third-party template onto your Blogger blog:

1

Download the custom blog template to your hard drive.

The custom blog template's designer or Web site should include explanation about how you can download the template.

2

Log in to your Google Blogger account.

Your Blogger dashboard appears.

3

Select the Layout tab from the Blogger dashboard.

The Page Elements page opens.

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4

Select the Edit HTML tab from the navigation bar to open the Backup/Restore Template and Edit Template page.

This page offers options to change your template.

5

Click the Download Full Template link under the Backup/Restore Template heading.

The File Download dialog box appears. Backing up your template is an essential step if you think that you might want to revert later to the exact template you were using previously .

6

Click Save.

The Save As dialog box appears.

7

Navigate to the folder on your hard drive where you want to save a copy of your existing blog template and give the file a recognizable name.

Choose a location where you can find the template file if you want to use it again later or create a new folder called My Blog Backups.

8

Click Save.

The Save As dialog box closes, and the template backup file is saved in XML format in the folder you chose.

9

In the Backup/Restore Template and Edit Template page, click the Browse button, which appears next to the Upload a Template from a File on Your Hard Drive text box.

The Choose File dialog box appears. Locate the XML file for the new template you downloaded to your hard drive in Step 1.

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10

Select the file, and then click the Open button.

The file path for the XML file you just selected appears in the Upload a Template from a File on Your Hard Drive text box.

11

Double-check the file you selected.

Make sure it's the file you want!

12

Click the Upload button.

Your new template is uploaded to your Blogger account.

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13

Click the Confirm & Save button.

The new HTML code for your third-party template now automatically appears in the big box in the Edit Template section of the page.

14

After your new third-party template is uploaded, click the View Blog link to review the look of your blog.

You might want to modify your blog's page elements after you upload your third-party template. For example, you might need to clean up your blog by changing the order of your profile, updating the archives in your sidebar, or adding a graphical image to your header.

Promoting your FeedBurner feed on your WordPress.com site

To promote your FeedBurner feed on your Wordpress site, just use FeedBurner's Publicity Tools to select a "chicklet" image to display a link to your feed from your blog's homepage.

1. Click the Publicize tab.
   
   A list of publicity-related services appears.
2. Locate and click the Chicklet Chooser service.
   The form shown below loads into the right side of the screen:
   
   This form contains several options for buttons that promote (and link to) your FeedBurner feed.
3. Click the radio button next to the button you want to display on your site.
4. Copy the HTML shown in the bottom section of the Chicklet Chooser. You will paste this HTML into your WordPress site template.
   
5. From the WordPress Dashboard, click the Presentation tab and then the Sidebar Widget option.
   
6. Drag the text widget from the Available Widgets area to your Sidebar.
   
7. Click the right side of the widget to expand it
8. If you'd like to give this widget a title you can, but it is not required. This title will show up on your site.
9. Paste the code you copied from FeedBurner in an earlier step into the content field.
   
10. Click the "X" in the upper-right corner to close the widget box.
11. Click Save Changes.
    After the code is saved, you should immediately be able to view your chicklet in your site's sidebar.