5 Ways to Increase Engagement and Growth on Your Blog

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5 Ways to Increase Engagement and Growth on Your BlogAre you focusing a lot of your efforts on Instagram or Pinterest into growing a following? Do you gauge your “success” by the number of followers you have?

I know, I know, it feels great to have a large number of followers, but that doesn’t necessarily make you any money!

So —

Instead of focusing on growing your following (whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.) ‘just because’, I want you to focus on increasing engagement and growth on your blog!

By focusing on blog growth and engagement, you will have a better chance to grow long-term. Plus, Google will show your content to more people searching for what you have to offer and brands will be willing to pay more for engagement!

So how do you do this? Here’s 5 ways to increase engagement and growth on your blog:

#1 Don’t obscure your content.

Do you have ads on your blog? Email opt-in popups on your homepage all the time? If you have something that is getting in the way of your visitors consuming your content, then you have to ask yourself if blog engagement is truly your goal. If it is, you need to remove them or restructure them so that they do not interfere with your content.

The mobile site seems to be even worse – but that’s because visitors EXPECT their mobiles to load quickly. Some things don’t even load due to the number of ad servers the site needs to connect with.

Note: Ads not only obscure visitors content, but also kills the page load time, which means more visitors are abandoning your site than engaging with the content!

#2 Use keywords.

You should be using keywords on EVERY SINGLE BLOG POST. I actually advise using your keyword(s) up to 5 times in one blog post; the title, meta description, introductory paragraph, somewhere in the middle and in an outro (aka final post summary) paragraph. Some of your photos in the blog post should also contain your keywords.

Keywords allow your content to be discoverable by Google (and Pinterest). Not using keywords in your blog post makes you a guppy in the ocean — and no one is going to find you in all that space!!!

Unsure of how to use keywords to your advantage? I GOT YOU. Sign up for a 1-hour consultation and we can do an extensive Keyword/SEO training here

#3 Have a CTA (Call To Action) in every blog post.

Your CTA doesn’t always have to be ‘click the link to learn more’. It could be ‘pin this’, ‘shop this’, or a question!

Questions are great because you’re asking to have a comment reply. For example, “Are you a sweet or salty food lover? Let me know in the comments below!” This CTA is a two-way conversation, plus you’re ASKing your followers to engage with you. A novel concept, right?!

By simply asking for comments, or inviting visitors to engage, you’ll give your blog the extra engagement boost it needs.

#4 Have ‘You might also like’ these other blog posts – at the bottom of every blog post.

Once a visitor finishes reading your current blog post, they are offered additional posts that could peek their interest. (Scroll down to the bottom of this post and you’ll see mine).

Not only does a ‘You might also like’ keep visitors longer on your site (which Google loves), it also provides another opportunity to fall in love with your blog and keep coming back.

#5 Make the first move/engage with others.

This one seems like a no-brainer, but oftentimes we forget this key step to building relationships and growing our blogs.

If You Want To Be Interesting, Be Interested

In Dale Carnegie’s book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, Dale tells you to become genuinely interested in other people.

“You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.” And… “The only way to make quality, lasting friendships is to learn to be genuinely interested in them and their interests.”

I’d suggest taking a few minutes each day commenting on others blogs to help open up the lines of communication. You’ll be surprised what happens when you leave an authentic comment on someone’s blog post, they tend to repay you with a visit to your blog to do the same.

In a nutshell, if you’re feeling like you have low engagement on your blog — get out there and do something about it. Just make sure you are targeting blogs and accounts that would actually be interested in what you have to offer. Remember, you want to attract quality followers who could potentially do business with you.

Now to practice what I preach, I’m going to do #3 now…

Which of my five ways to increase engagement and growth on your blog is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!

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13 Comments

  1. Great article, Tana! Its’ refreshing to see that you suggest not doing ads on a blog. I don’t have any on mine because I think it interferes with the aesthetic and I think a clean look is worth the small amount I might possibly make from ads on my page. Also do you have a post on how to do signatures for your blog? Would be interested in learning how if you don’t! Thanks and have a great Thanksgiving with your family!

    1. That’s the biggest one you can do for yourself and make the most impact by far! Keywords are why I drive so much traffic to my site – it’s the gift that keeps on giving!!!!

  2. This post was great Tana!! I have been trying to focus on the blog a lot in the last couple months but it certainly take time and isn’t nearly as easy to grow as those others. I am going to try your tip on the ‘other post ‘s you may like’. Thanks so much for this!!

  3. Hi Tana,
    My friend Rhonda at Hallstrom Home speaks highly of you so I subscribed one day while we were chatting on the phone. Unfortunately, I’ve had little time to actually read your emails with the holiday season that pretty much begins for us decor bloggers in mid-August. Today, though, I landed on this post via a decor email and had to comment. Nothing personal, my eyes got trapped on the hyperlink for this post instead. Ha ha.

    Interesting point you made about CTA’s. I had never thought that requesting a Pin of a graphic could be a CTA in itself. I have read that there shouldn’t be a whole boatload of CTA’s like Click to Tweet, Subscribe at the top, Pin, Comment, another Subscribe, Shop here, read this post here etc. etc. Lately I’m on a big kick with inserting opt-in boxes within posts and almost always include a graphic. Sometimes I don’t but it’s more because by the time I get the post lined up I’m just to darn worn out to go make the bloody thing. Terrible, right?! Sometimes I add them in later if the traffic seems to continue trickling in on that post or I do it the following year right before it’s time to promote last years content. Anyway, that’s enough on the short story of my bad blogger habits.

    I just wanted you to know, I liked this post of yours. Makes sense to me and showed me a few little things I wasn’t aware of before. Rhonda does say you are awesome and I believe her when she speaks highly of anyone. I’ll be back to visit again soon. Your graphic is dropped into a biz Pin group. I’ll get it into a few of my Tribes too.

    Hope you have a great day and a Merry Christmas.
    Olivia

    P.S.
    I lied. I have more to say. What are your thoughts on this strategy- When leaving a comment on a blog would you say it’s a good idea to insert a permalink to a published blog post or would the plain home page .com suffice?

    1. Hi Olivia! So great to see someone new (and from a referral like Rhonda at Hallstrom Home). I totally agree there shouldn’t be a boatload of CTA’s – a little goes a long way in my book! In regards to your P.S., I don’t typically insert a permalink unless it’s answering someone’s question. I’m there to leave a comment about the persons post, not to insert myself/my blog post into there’s. I’m not saying this is wrong, I’m just saying that for me I don’t do this. (Note: automatically your website is linked when they have a website address in their comment section. I simply use my home page because they can get to my blog and anything else right from this page). Thanks for commenting! xo

  4. Tana you always have the most helpful blog post to share! I love #5…authentically engaging with others is always a good idea and always pays off. I need to remember to do this more often and make it part of my routine. I tend to get in a rut and always comment on the same peoples’ post. SO helpful!

    1. It really is so true and simple, yet we all get into our ruts. Love your honesty! Thank you for sharing.

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