How To Convert One Time Visitors to Subscribers
How To Convert One Time Visitors to Subscribers
November 21st, 2009 by igorkheifets

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Instead of writing another boring “how to” post, instead, I am going to tell you how I did it-and, hopefully, that will answer some of the questions you might have regarding the subject.

When I started blogging, back in 2008, I had no clue about how to monetize my blog. The sole purpose of IgorHelpsYouSucceed was personal branding (and a tiny bit of SEO-because a friend of mine said that WordPress is SEO friendly).

So, here I am-a total marketing newbie, hooked on internet marketing success stories, trying to make it big in the make money niche.

How big do you think my chances for success were? Low, to say the least!

Later I discovered Google Analytics and Webmaster tools and here’s what I noticed:

bounce rates

My bounce rates were sky high!

At first, I didn’t give it much attention-but after couple of weeks it hit me-high bounce rates=NOT GOOD!

I realized that most of my visitors were just “passing by” my blog. 80% of the people who visited my blog-left immediately.

This made blogging a painful experience.

Think about it-my contribution to the marketing community meant nothing. Why? Because no one was reading my stuff-which meant that no one was acknowledging it!

This is the #1 reason why most bloggers don’t make it-no one acknowledges them. People are just carelessly passing by…

How To Deal With It?

The solution here is to lower your bounce rates to a minimum.

What’s a minimum? Partially it depends on the niche you’re in, but generally-as close to 0.00% as possible!

Here’s a list of 6 things you can do to lower your blog’s bounce rates, increase readership and turn your visitors into frequent readers and subscribers:

1. Content Worth Linking To

Professional bloggers call this Link Bait. Link bait proved to be an untimed strategy that can lead to large number of backlinks pointing back to your site from other authoritative (and not so authoritative) websites.

Most bloggers perceive link bait as something funny, scary, unique, newsworthy or controversial …and for some it may be true, but if you’re blogging in a tuff niche (e.g.: make money online)-you have to be better than that!

More on link bait: Comprehensive Guide To Link Bait.

2. Popular Posts Plugin

Another great way to lower bounce rate and increase readership is to place a list of Most Popular Posts in your sidebar.

This can easily be done by installing the Popularity Contest plugin which will produce a widget with a list of most popular posts based on comments, views, links and time frame criteria.

Download the Popularity Contest here

3. Related Posts Plugin

One of the effortless ways to lower bounce rates is to install a Related Posts plugin which will provide a list of related posts and/or pages below every blog post.

It will drastically increase your blog’s Click Through Rates and Navigation by providing your readers with more of what they were searching for.

A great example of this is YouTube. When you’re watching a video on YouTube you immediately get a list of related videos on the right side of the page. Coincidence?

Get Yet Another Related Posts Plugin here

4. Top Commentators Plugin

Another great plugin to improve the relationship with your readers is the Top Commentators plugin.

This plugin allows you to allocate your top contributors and acknowledge them in many different ways to further improve your relationship with them.

More details here: Top Commentators plugin by Daily Blog Tips

5. Internal Linking

Internal linking is a great way to boost readership by linking to older, relevant content in your recent blog posts.

But don’t get carried away with this. Be logical. Be Relevant. Don’t “overlink”-this will only drive readers away.

6. Relevant SEO

The most frustrating experience a searcher can have is to click on a link that promises him something it doesn’t deliver.

Avoid this by optimizing your blog for relevant search terms. Narrow down your niche and get specific-works like a charm.

Read more about relevant SEO: How To Avoid Google Stupid Tax When Advertising With Google Adwords

To Sum Up

Gaining an audience isn’t an easy task-but it’s doable!

Best advice I can give you is to develop a voice. Be unique-don’t follow the herd. People are naturally attracted to leaders.

Be a leader and you’ll get a following guaranteed!