5 Reasons No One's Reading Your Blog

Blogging can be hard. Make it worth your time by changing your strategy.

If you’re a regular blogger—diligently plugging away, week in and week out, keeping your content updated and fresh—it can be extremely disappointing to look at the metrics and see no movement. Really? Only 20 people clicked on that post? How can that be?

Often, a lack of pageviews isn’t a reflection of the quality of your content, but instead, a symptom of a larger issue. To determine what the trouble may be, it’s important to audit your marketing and the content itself. 

You’re not marketing it.

The simplest way to improve blog post pageviews is to push your content out on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites—and it’s surprising how many blog owners just don’t do it. 

You don’t want to saturate your social media profiles with your own content—remember, it’s good to have a little of your own content and a little content from other sites and people—but you do want to make sure every blog post gets a Facebook post and at least one or two Tweets just to let people know it’s there. 

You’re marketing it at the wrong times.

It’s also possible that you’re posting to Twitter and Facebook at a time that doesn’t drive a lot of traffic. If the only time you’ve been able to get online to promote your blog is late at night or early in the morning, you may not be getting optimal engagement. 

Use your social platform’s advanced scheduling features or a scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to ensure you’re targeting the optimal time to post content to Facebook or Twitter. To establish when that may be, look at the analytics provided to see when you have peaks in engagement; typically, it’s in the afternoons. 

You’re not selling it. 

Just throwing a link into Facebook and leaving it won’t entice people to click—you’ve got to tease the content and make it appealing. Make sure you’ve got beautiful images that render at the recommended image sizes for Facebook and Twitter, and use the editable text area of the social media post to tell people why the blog post is interesting. Consider quoting from it, asking a question, or leading them with some kind of teaser to get them engaged. 

Your headlines aren’t working. 

Ask any writer and they’ll tell you that the shortest pieces of copy are the most difficult—and that includes headlines. Writing a headline that makes people want to click can be a challenge, but it’s well worth it; four times as many readers see your headline as see the rest of the copy provided.

To write engaging headlines that get clicks, try to keep them short and quick—but make sure to drop in adjectives that move people. Still stuck? Here are some more headline tips that will help you net new readers. 

You’re trying too much “me too” content. 

If you’re certain that your marketing and social media strategies are top-notch and your headlines are as compelling as possible, it could be that your content isn’t drawing people in. Often, that’s not because you’re not a good writer—it’s because the subject matter doesn’t hit the mark.

That doesn’t mean you’re not a good writer, though; if people just aren’t clicking through, it’s likely that the topics you’re choosing aren’t resonating with your audience. This may be true for several reasons, but one of the most common is that you’re trying to ride on the tail of something that’s been done to death.

It makes sense to write about things that are topical, but try to avoid choosing topics that are well-trod. Consider your specialties and what you might have unique insight about. Then, try to find an attention-grabbing way to express it.

Keeping a blog can be difficult, especially when you feel like no one’s reading it. But if you’re doing the work and the content is strong, the readership will usually follow—and either way, it’s great for your SEO. 

Looking for help blogging successfully? We can help!

efelle creative is a Seattle-based web marketing firm that specializes in website design and development, business blogging services, website copywriting & messaging, search engine optimization (SEO) content building, and other web services. Since 2005, efelle has worked with hundreds of businesses to help them with their recurring content creation and web development needs. Call us at 206.384.4909 or fill out our online contact form to get in touch with an SEO and custom web design specialist.

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