Readers visit your blog because of its content. It is therefore very vital to show them immediately what you are offering. Your recent posts could be helpful in doing this. However, you cannot rely on them only. The following are some great ideas for showing regular and new visitors the best parts of your blog.
Introduce highlighted content
This may be a list of popular posts, reader favorites or most commented posts. You could use a ‘Popular Post’ widget to do this. This will be a vital part of your sidebar since it shows people immediately why your website is worth visiting.
Position your highlighted content prominently
Your list of popular posts is probably the most interesting and useful feature for visitors in your sidebar. Ideally, it should be placed right below your feed button. If you wish to be more creative, you could place it above the fold.
Use images to grab attention
Images can be very eye-catching. Instead of displaying your popular posts as text links, you could create images for them. This will create more visual appeal for the blog. Make sure you have a text headline over the image. This is a technique I have used frequently in my diet blog which features weight watchers coupons and ediet discounts.
Change the highlighted content regularly
When highlighting content, keep regular readers in mind. If your list is not dynamic, the regular readers will stop engaging with it since there is nothing new being offered. If the highlighted posts are changed regularly, old and new visitors will have a plenty of reasons to interact with the content. With images, you readers will be able to see whether items have been subtracted or added to the list.
Recommend related content
Many bloggers make use of the ‘related posts’ plug in. A great way of ensuring readers look at your related content is to suggest it at the conclusion of your post. For instance, ‘Interested in this subject? Check out these other great posts.’ Such a suggestion will grab the attention of your readers while they are in ‘reading mode’. However, this should only be done when you have other posts directly related to the subject.
Incorporate targeted internal links in your content
Ensure that the anchor text for your links is directly related to the article being linked to. For instance, if your anchor text is ‘making money online’, make sure it links to an article on the same topic. The anchor text should give the reader a good idea of where the link will take them.
This is a guest post by Charles, a social media and internet marketing blogger. He also writes about coupon deals at discount blogs that share weight watchers discounts and ediet coupons. Currently, he is contributing to a coupon blog which offers a weight watchers promotion coupon and ediets discount codes.
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