What is the #1 thing that you want people to do when they arrive on your blog?
Last week at an event about blogging that I attended I asked the above question to 10 bloggers and jotted down their responses:
- 2 said ‘click on an ad’
- 2 said ‘buy my product’
- 1 said ‘subscribe to my RSS feed’
- 1 said ‘subscribe to my newsletter’
- 4 said they didn’t know
There’s no wrong or right answer to the question – every blog will have a different ‘conversion point’ to it – but it’s a great question to ask yourself from time to time.
Your answer will inform numerous aspects of your blogging including:
- How you design your blog – your call to the conversion you’re after should be prominent, above the fold and eye catching
- What you blog about – your blog posts should, at the very least, relate to your conversion goals and, at best, should lead people to wanting to take the action you’re after.
- Your promotional activities – knowing what you want people to do when they arrive on your blog can inform your decisions on where and how to promote your blog.
So what is the number 1 thing that you want people to DO when they arrive on your blog?
PS: tomorrow I’m going to flesh this out a little more and share a few tips on getting people to take the action you want them to do.
I want them to leave a comment. Subscribing is nice, buying stuff from my store is nice, but a positive, sincere comment is very rewarding.
Hi Darren,
I might be the odd man out here, but I think I just want visitors to read an article. I want them to know a little about me and what it is that I do. If he or she likes what I have to say they hopefully they will return, join my rss, my newsletters, leave a comment, buy something. The best success I have is when I have developed a relationship, probably over time.
Hi Darren.
Only one thing I want when people log onto my blog…. book me for their wedding day. Hopefully my photos will grab attention straight away. Maybe down the line I might take it further with ad space but I need more clients first of all.
http://www.garybonar.blogspot.com
Regards
Gary
Hi Darren,
So glad I found your blog. Very insightful and from a fellow Victorian no less! I’m currently working my way through 31DTBBB and finding ‘blogging gold’ on just about every page. Anyway, enough of the gratuitous praise! What I wanted to say was that I changed my attitude and direction last year and it’s really amazing to see how just about everything I read from successful people all comes down to a couple of fundamentals – goals and focus. It’s easy not to see that if you’re not looking for it but if you are, there’s this constant message that basically says you should figure out what it is that you really want to do – have a well defined purpose – and then hone it, work it and tweak it until you achieve whatever it was that you set out to do. It’s taken me a long time and more than a few distractions but I’ve found that listening to the right people and reading the right books has made such a huge difference.
Identifying what the ‘conversion’ is for a blog is another one of those things that kind of forces you to ask yourself some questions and look for something to focus on – or at least define what it is that you want your blog to be and how you want to brand yourself. I honestly couldn’t tell you what my conversion is – I guess I’m looking to help others so a conversion occurs when someone finds some good information or a useful recommendation.
This is a very good and realistic post. I also think that encouraging the readers to take action is likely to make them feel involved in your own mission and that’s the start of the relatioship blogger-reader that every blogger should aim at.
I know, I know it’s days since you posted this… but it struck a cord. I have been batting to post (teething kidlet, homeschool madness, world cup!!!) and feeling a bit bleh about blogging!!! I know madness, since I love blogging so. But it made me think – what do I actually want from our blog and the truth is when folk stop by I want them to read three or four posts… and I am getting that consistently!!! Most people read a couple of posts before they move on – so thank-you… I had to think about what I wanted from blogging and then realized that I was totally getting it and I can be content!!! And plod on until my post rate can speed up again. Really, thank-you!!!
#1 thing we want is for people to call us for their electrical work.. One of the best feelings I had was to go for a quote and spot a print out of the home page of the blog, our number strikingly visible, on their kitchen table.. :) And of course, when people call and say they haven’t seen a more interesting electrician’s site, we know we’ve hooked them :D
For me a conversion is when a visitor clicks on an ad.
But your article makes the great point that a “conversion” can be different for each blog/website
The number 1 thing I want someone to do when visiting my blog is to comment on the posts. That way discussions can take place and relationships can form.
I am not trying to sell a product and it would be nice if people subscribed to more posts. But the number one thing I want to happen is for users to act on what they see…and comment.
My number#1 goal is for each visitor to subscribe to my daily newsletter. Of course, I want them to enjoy the content, however, we all visit my sites with great content but forget about them quickly after leaving the site. So, subscribe first is a priority and then, hope the enjoy the content enough to continue receiving our postings.
As for selling products…I do feature a variety of products/services for purchase, but if they enjoy the site, the sales will eventually take care of themselves.
I want my visitors to visit my blog frequently and tell their friends too, to generate more traffic and participation in my blog ( comments are really needed ).
Monetize from my blog, i still need to improve on this part though
I think I might have a problem here because I want people to do two things . . . subscribe and sign up for my newsletter (opt-in). Oh, and follow me on Twitter too. Yeah, I don’t want much, do I? Is it better to work on one thing at a time and move widgets/forms/buttons around to put the focus there?