Blog Audience on The Decline?

It's hard work running a blog.

Not only do you need an endless stream of great ideas, you also need the time to write them all down.

But the feeling you get when you receive a comment from someone telling you how much your post helped them, or seeing it being shared across social media, makes all the hard work worth it.

That's why it's so heart breaking when you see your readership decline.

There are 6 tell-tale signs that show things may not be as rosy as you thought.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="692"] Blog Audience on The Decline?[/caption]

1. How many pages are viewed per visit

You can find this out by looking at your blog's analytics.

In an ideal world, people will land on your blog, read one or two posts and then hang around to explore what else you have on offer.

But if your analytics show they are only visiting one or two pages and then disappearing, or that there has been a general decrease in page views over time, your blog is starting to lose its appeal.

You can use the Social Crawlytics free tool to give you details of how popular your content is, where it's being shared and how often. Then, find out which blogs posts are generating the most shares and produce more of the same.

2. How long are they staying?

If your analytics are showing that your visitors are leaving within seconds of arriving, your content isn't engaging them.

Now's the time to take a look at what you're writing and the needs of your audience. Has your writing gone off track somewhere? Have you starting including topics that are outside your niche?

Find out which posts work and write more of them.

3. More traffic

On the face of it more traffic sounds like a good thing. But what happens when your traffic jumps up without you doing anything to earn it?

The chances are it will be short-lived, so it's no excuse to stop promoting your blog. Share all your posts through social media and make sure there's a link to your blog in your newsletters and email signature.

4. Single source traffic

You wouldn't run your business so it was solely reliant on one client, so don't only rely on Google to bring you traffic.

It's essential you diversify through email marketing, newsletters, social media, video marketing and website promotion to bring in a range of traffic. If you don't the next search engine algorithm change could mark the end of your traffic.

5. Hard work

Blogging is hard work and it never gets any easier.

Make sure you set blogging time aside and don't let anything else encroach on it. Your readers demand great content. It's your responsibility to make sure it is delivered regularly.

6. Stale

Are you running out of blog ideas? It happens to the best of us. Think about your customers and what they need - perhaps there's a new topic that you can bring in that you've not written about before?

Blogging sounds easy, but the reality is very different.

Coming up with new ideas and finding the time to write is a constant challenge, but one that pays dividends.

Hopefully, these 6 tips will help you keep on top of your blogging game.

Author - Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting Ltd

 

Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting, is a professional copywriter, SEO website copywriter and advertising copywriting with extensive experience in both B2B and B2C markets.