People read and then subscribe to blogs that they believe will improve their lives in some way in the future.
Many bloggers build a sense of anticipation in a blog quite instinctively – but there are many things you can do very deliberately to build anticipation and increase the chances of someone signing up.
So how do you convince people that something like this you haven’t created yet is it worth signing up?
Today I want to share an effective strategy for building anticipation in a blog with some practical ideas on how to implement it. Like yesterday’s post – it’s not rocket science – but it’s something that has worked for me.
Highlight current and past quality content
Perhaps the most persuasive argument for a reader is that you will write something that they cannot live without future is to have already written something that they have connected with.
Your current and past posts are your most effective advertisements for an ongoing relationship with those who come to your blog.
As a result – one of the most effective strategies for building blog anticipation is to put your best content in front of your blog visitors – show them what you can do and let the quality of that work speak for itself.
Think back to blogs you’ve subscribed to recently – if you’re anything like me, you’ve subscribed in most cases as a result of reading a post you thought was helpful, interesting, entertaining…etc.
Most of us click the RSS feed icon or subscribe link based on the quality of what we’ve already read in hopes of seeing more of it.
So what is the lesson here?
There are actually two lessons – one that is obvious and the other that many fail to learn.
1. The obvious is to write great content and do it regularly – it should be your #1 priority as a blogger.
2. The least obvious is to get your best content in front of those who haven’t signed up to your blog yet – especially first-time visitors (who are crucial to target if your goal is to grow blog subscribers you). Let me share a few ways you can do this.
How to highlight your best content
There are many ways to highlight your best content to give people a reason to subscribe to your feed.
1. Sneeze pages – Perhaps the most useful technique I can show you is creating Sneeze Pages on your blog. I recently did this at the School of Digital Photography. Check out the ‘Digital Photography Tips’ section in my sidebar (pictured left) – these links lead to ‘sneeze pages’ highlighting my best and most popular content.
With these sneeze pages I’m not only increasing my page views – I’m showing new readers to my blog how much I’ve already covered and hopefully increasing my sense of authority and credibility.
The subscription rate from users visiting these sneeze pages is extremely high (note – I have prominent ways to subscribe to these sneeze pages and the pages they link to).
2. “Best of” Sections. – Another is to create sections on your sidebar or front page that highlight your best work. Check out this example from a previous ProBlogger website design where this is the “Best of ProBlogger” section on my front page of this blog. This section is “hot” – literally. Check out this heatmap (taken a few months ago using the CrazyEgg tool) of this section to see how many people are clicking on it.
The benefits of this are numerous – but ultimately it’s about driving people to previously written quality content. My observations are that many subscribers to my blog come from these popular pages.
Since this screenshot was taken, ProBlogger has been redesigned to create different themed sections that further highlight various themed articles. You can read more about how and why we changed the design of the ProBlogger website here.
3. Landing pages – Another strategy is to use a plugin like Landing Sites to detect when a reader arrives at your blog for the first time and show them other posts you’ve written on the topic they’re looking for.
This works well – especially if you have a large archive – because someone who lands on your blog not only sees one post on the topic they’re looking for, but many (increasing the perception that you’re a comprehensive source of information on that topic).
4. Linked Posts – You should regularly link to your previous posts with best quality in new posts. By doing this you are constantly driving people to the pages where they see writing of a quality that is likely to convince them that you know what you are talking about. The more pages they see that they find useful, the more likely they are to sign up.
But wait, there’s more
The key to the above four techniques is to send new readers to your highest quality and most useful posts and then provide them with the opportunity to subscribe to those posts (modernize: here’s my post with more tips on how to build anticipation in your blog).
However, this labeling content is not enough by itself.
It will certainly work to some extent, but there are many other ways to build anticipation in a blog and I will turn my attention to them tomorrow.
