Getting more readers to read more pages is far easier and more effective than trying to find brand new visitors. It is free marketing and often can lead to a good rate of return visitors. But, what can you do to make your blog ‘sticky’?

A ‘sticky’ blog is all about getting readers to read that first post and then going on to read more posts, whether that is straight away, at a later date or both. So here are a few important steps to encourage visitors to read more from your site.

Make your blog look good – A blog that does not look the part is a good way to scare off visitors before they have even read the first post. It must look professional and not spammy. There are plenty of free themes to use and make your site look great, just don’t fill them with lots of advertising. Just keep it to 1 or 2 advertising locations. Any more will say to visitors that all you are interested in is advertising to them.

Add RSS feed straight after blog content
Has the visitor just read to the bottom of the post and enjoyed what they read? If so, give them a way to come back for more at a later date, such as an RSS feed or a link to your weekly newsletter. If they have just read the post then they might be ready to sign up for more.

Related posts plugin
Along the same lines, after each post give a list of similar posts that they might like to read. There are plenty of plugins to do this automatically for you and by providing themed additional content, your reader might just want to read that little bit more.

Add Twitter link with RSS
Some people these days prefer to follow what is going on within Twitter, so add a link to your Twitter page so that they can find it and follow you there.

Tweet all new posts
And once they have followed you, make sure that you tweet links of all new posts. Again, there are plugins to enable this to work instantly, you do not have to worry about doing it yourself! However, doing it yourself allows a more conversational Tweet that can work better, so it well worth the slight bit of extra effort.

Most popular posts plugin
Most people display a list of their recent posts, but that part of the side navigation can be put to better use with a list of most popular posts. These are much better as they are popular for a reason so encourage more readers to sample your best work. Don’t worry about recent posts – anyone landing on your home page will be able to discover these anyway!

Write quality content
One of the fastest ways to lose visitors is through writing poor content and not writing frequently. Quality content should be available every week. Make it well written and something that your readers are desperate to read!

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