27 Reasons People Aren’t Reading Your Blog Posts

Do you ever look at prolific blogs and get frustrated by how easy they make it seem?

Thousands of people read, comment and share each new post on the blog.

It can be discouraging, especially if you’re a new blogger.

In contrast, your blog may only get a few dozen hits each post. And the only shares that happen come from your own social media accounts.

“Why aren’t people reading my blog posts?”

This same question may have popped into your mind. I know it’s one I’ve struggled with before. Every new blogger has struggled with the concept of traffic, audience and building a successful blog. And that’s why many give up on their blogging before they see success.

Don’t be another one of these failed blog statistics.

Identify the reasons people aren’t reading your blog. Then take strategic steps to improve.

These 27 reasons will help get you started on your quest:

1. You haven’t identified a strong audience persona

You can’t create compelling content without an in-depth knowledge of your audience. Personas not only help you create better content, but they also help guide your topics, strategy and monetization efforts.

2. You aren’t creating content specifically for the persona

It’s not enough to just have a persona. You must create content specifically for it.

(source)

This level of hyper-targeted content attracts the right reader to your blog.

3. You don’t know how your audience searches for content

This requires a deeper step into your overall persona.

• What does the audience search for?
• What kind of things do they need to learn?
• How can my content serve those needs?

Answer those questions and you’ll not only have a path for content creation, but you’ll know exactly how to optimize for SEO.

4. Your content’s style and tone don’t align with your brand

If you have a serious brand, but write in a laid-back, silly fashion, you create a brand misalignment. And when this happens, you confuse readers and detach them from what you’re saying.

5. You focus too much on products, services and promotions

People don’t always want to read about you.

(source)

The occasional announcement is okay, but you shouldn’t always be promoting something. Make your content about the reader – not you.

6. You don’t publish new posts on a regular schedule

Readers want consistency. Without it, they’ll never become attached to your brand’s content.

It can be tough in the face of competing priorities, but create a schedule and stick to it.

7. You aren’t creating content that provides enough value

Time is a precious thing. If you don’t offer immense value, why should someone waste what little time they have consuming your content?

Answer: They shouldn’t.

As an example, take a look at a recent Currency Liquidator post on the Iraqi Dinar. Clocking in at nearly 2,500 words, the post offers the kinds of in-depth statistics those interested in foreign currency need to make investment decisions:

 

(source)

8. You don’t test different types of blog posts for engagement

There are numerous types of content that drive traffic.

(source)

That should keep you busy for a while. Test out different post styles to see what type of content your audience actually wants to read – not just what you think they want.

9. You’re not infusing any personality into your writing

Bored!

That’s what people think when your content lacks personality. Even the most serious brands can allow their personality to shine through. Don’t be boring.

10. You don’t include enough images throughout the post

We’re visual creatures.

Including images throughout your post creates natural breaks in the content. This keeps readers engaged and reading, instead of distracted and leaving.

11. You aren’t formatting your posts for reading on the web

Please stop writing posts with huge blocks of text.

The online world has its own style for writing. If you don’t adhere to these guidelines, people will leave the page without ever reading a word.

12. Your content doesn’t add a new perspective

If you don’t have anything to add to the conversation, don’t say anything at all. There’s no reason to regurgitate the same thing hundreds of others have already said.

Position your content from a fresh perspective for best results.

13. Your posts don’t stick to the intended topic

Try to avoid veering off topic in your posts. If you’ve ever muddled your way through a post that jumps from one subject to another, you know how frustrating this can be.

When I feel myself getting away from the subject at hand, I make a note of the digression and use it as the springboard for a new post.

14. You use poor grammar and make spelling errors

This should be obvious, but I see so many mistakes online that I’ll say it anyways. Do your best to avoid mistakes, even small slip ups here and there.

(source)

The online world may seem forgiving, but that’s not an excuse. Major syntax, grammar and spelling mistakes throughout are always unacceptable.

15. You only use cheesy stock images in posts

The visuals you use in your content influence your overall. tone, style and branding. Most stock photos are cheesy. They’re staged and unnatural.

(source)

If you only use stock photography, it may be doing you and your brand more harm than good.

16. You have an outdated or unprofessional blog design

In many ways, design – not content – is king.

If you have an outdated, unprofessional blog design, would-be readers will leave your site before they ever give your content a chance.

17. Your blog isn’t optimized for mobile reading

More and more people are using their mobile phone to consume content. It’s also increasingly important for SEO.

A responsive design ensures that your website is optimized for mobile viewing. Don’t overlook this key design aspect.

18. Your blog takes too long to load

By nature, the Internet gives us information as fast as we want it.

If your website takes too long to load, readers will abandon their quest to get information from your site – and they’ll quickly find it somewhere else.

19. You haven’t optimized for social sharing

Publishing solid content is only half the battle.

Getting people to read it can only happen if they know it’s there. Social sharing optimization makes it easy for the readers you do have to help you spread the word.

20. You don’t optimize every post for SEO

You don’t need a full-time, in-house SEO expert to make strides in the search engine rankings.

Plenty of tools make it possible for you to rank well from the content you post. Take advantage of them and watch your readership soar.

21. You aren’t crafting compelling headlines

The headlines you use could mean the difference between dozens of people reading your post and thousands of people flocking to your blog.

Learn how to write compelling headlines.

(source)

Spend as much time on the headline as you do for the entire post, if that’s what it takes. It’s that important to the success of your blog.

22. You aren’t testing new headlines using social media

You know you need to create compelling headlines. But have you tried using social media to test different variations?

Formulas and the success of others don’t guarantee your success.

Use your social profiles to test several variations of headlines to see what kinds work best to capture clicks from your audience.

23. You don’t promote the post on social media enough

Don’t post just once.

That’s a huge mistake that many bloggers make. People consume more information in a day than most of their ancestors did in their entire life. Go ahead and promote your new post a few times. You might just be surprised by the results.

24. You haven’t reached out to influencers about the post

No man is an island.

Successful bloggers are always leaning on the influence of others to gain readers. If you want readers, reach out to the people in your industry that already have them. A few ways you can build a connection include:

• Adding immense value to influencers by providing your assistance.
• Asking for their input or expertise on an upcoming post.
• Interviewing them for their new book release.

25. You aren’t building a targeted social media audience

It’s great if you have thousands of followers. But if you’re running a marketing blog and you’ve bought a bunch of fake followers, what good will those bots do for you?

Ultimately, it’s better to have dozens of highly-targeted followers than thousands that don’t care about you.

26. You spend more time writing than promoting

Some people really like taking an 80/20 approach to their work.

And if you’re applying this concept to your blogging, you’ll want to spend 80% of your time promoting and 20% of your time writing. Don’t get bogged down by the writing. Go find your readers.

27. You don’t update your email list about new posts

Anyone who’s starting a blog needs an email list.

But if you don’t do anything with that list, it won’t do you any good. Set up your email marketing service to update list members each time a new blog post releases. This can typically be done automatically, giving you a quick and easy way to get more people reading your blog posts.

It’s frustrating when people don’t read your blog posts, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Which of these areas are you struggling with on your blog? I’d love to hear about your challenges in the comments below.

Guest Author: Aaron Agius is an online marketer, web strategist and entrepreneur and you can check him out at AaronAgius.com

The post 27 Reasons People Aren’t Reading Your Blog Posts appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

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5 Social Media Mobile Apps That Make Your Life Easy

Social media marketing doesn’t always happen at your desk.

There are times when you want to update your status, send out a tweet or reply to a fan while on-the-go. This is when you rely on social media mobile apps to make it all possible.

Social media mobile apps give you the flexibility to work from anywhere and they let you get things done with a simple touch on your phone.

They also eliminate the need to return to your desk every time you want to post something to your social media accounts.

Here are 5 social media mobile apps that can make on-the-go social media marketing a breeze for you.

1. DrumUp

DrumUp is very different from other social media management tools. It searches for content that relates to your business and gives you a fresh stream of recommendations everyday. It also allows you to schedule the content on your social media pages like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

For businesses that require a constant stream of good quality content, DrumUp can work wonders.

To start getting your content, all you need to do is fill in some keywords that relate to your business.

For example, if you run your own photography business, you can input keywords like photography, wedding photography, camera techniques etc. DrumUp will give you interesting, share-worthy stories that can be posted straight to your social media accounts.

These stories are then queued for publishing based on a schedule that DrumUp thinks is best. You can even set your own time for posting the content depending on your preferences. You can also review and edit the queued posts before they are published.

DrumUp has a simple user interface that is easy to use, and acts as a central dashboard where you can manage multiple social media accounts.

It uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) and machine learning algorithms to return good quality content recommendations and there are plans of improving the application such that it can generate content that is specific to a location by learning and understanding keywords.

DrumUp is being offered for free, and is a definite must-have social media mobile app because of the convenience it brings to your content discovery efforts.

You can download and use it for free on your Android devices.

2. Mention

If you have been looking for a way to monitor your brand and keep track of how it is performing on social media, Mention is the mobile app for you.

The Mention app gives you an insight into what people are saying about your brand, and whether the buzz around your brand is positive ot negative. Using the application is quite simple.

You can put in keywords that are specific to your brand, and the application will monitor the web for those keywords. It will also send across real-time alerts whenever your brand gets talked or written about.

As a business owner, you might be in need of an application that lets you tackle any kind of emergency damage control. With Mention’s real-time alerts, you get quick notifications if something requires attention and prompt action.

You can also get notified about whether your brand mentions are positive, negative or neutral – which can be quite beneficial when it comes to creating a proper social media marketing strategy.

 Image Source: Google Play

If you see a brand mention, you can easily see the person it came from and respond to it from directly within the application without having to open another website or replying via email. The free application lists all your alerts in order of priority and gives you the ability to assign certain tasks to other team members – all from within the application.

Mention app is available on Android and iOS devices.

3. Facebook Pages Manager

While Facebook might get used for more personal activities, Facebook Pages Manager makes it possible to use Facebook for business with just as much ease. For Facebook page administrators, this tool brings a lot of convenience in updating business pages on-the-go.

Facebook Pages Manager is quite similar in appearance to the regular Facebook application – which makes it easier to use and navigate.

The app allows page administrators to publish updates on multiple pages without any hassle. Page administrators can also look at all the pages they are managing, and the number of administrators there are.

It also allows you to see the account and privacy settings. All these settings can be easily seen on the homepage without having to switch between tabs. The best feature this application provides is the ability to separate personal and business pages  – which helps avoid any kind of accidental posting.

Using Facebook Pages Manager you can monitor the performance of your content because the app lets you see the number of people who have liked, commented or shared your published content.

You can also give other administrators access to specific pages from within the application. This mobile app is a great way to keep your Facebook pages up-to-date even when you are away from your desktop.

The app is free for download on Android and iOS devices.

Image Source: Google Play

4. News Reader by Feedly

News Reader by Feedly is an awesome mobile application if you are constantly on the look out for great content. This free app is available on both Android and iOS, and it gives you the ability to discover fresh sources for content.

You can add various RSS feeds to the app, including feeds for your favorite website and blogs, and all the content will be available for browsing in one application.

Account set up is easy and can be done through either Facebook or Google. Once you have an account set up, you just need to add your preferred feeds to the application.

News Reader classsifies all content in categories like travel, marketing, films, photography etc., which simplifies the process of browsing through the content on your smartphones.

Most of all, News Reader by Feedly works with various social accounts like Facebook, Evernote, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and more – so you can share your favorite content through these social media websites. It also lets you conduct a search for trending topics in case you are looking to discover new content sources.

5. Sparksfly

Quite similar to News Reader by Feedly, this mobile application is pretty cool. The application is designed to bring up content recommendations that are based on your content preferences. This is made possible due to a specific algorith that the application uses.

The application allows you to search for content and filter it by adding keywords that are relevant to your area of interest. You can also add various social networks and other users if you like the content that a specific user is sharing.

Based on the content that you prefer to read regularly, you can create various “routines” on Sparksfly, making it easier to browse through content that you are interested in.

These “routines” give you great content recommendations which can later be shared on social media networks with friends, family and colleagues.

Image Source: Google Play

Sparkfly gives businesses an opportunity to appear in user routines and create a brand that is well known and can be easily identified. It also helps you connect with your consumers in a more personable way.

You can download Sparksfly for your Android and iOS and use it for free.

Sum up

For businesses, social media management is a necessity, and these nifty social media mobile apps help cut down on the time it takes to handle multiple accounts.

Having mobile applications for social media management also means that you can have full control of your social media accounts even when you are traveling and away from your desktop.

Tell us about some of your favorite mobile social media management applications in the comments section.

Guest Author: Jessica Davis is a Content Strategist at Godot Media, a leading content marketing firm. She works with businesses and individuals creating targeted content for various requirements. She also manages a team of article writers in Godot. Other areas of interest include technology, science and fashion. 

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How to Make Your Video Rank Number One on YouTube (Case Study)

You know it and we know it – being visible on YouTube has become essential to any company that wants to promote their brand through video marketing.

The problem is that being found by your potential customers on YouTube isn’t that easy – you have to beat millions of competitors with larger budgets and brighter videos.

Being visible on YouTube and ranking high in its search results requires thorough search engine optimization (SEO), a wise distribution plan and, above all, a quality marketing video.

Today you’ll learn the basics on how to rank number one on YouTube with your own video. But I’ll not just describe how to do it; I’ll explain and demonstrate each step by using a successful case study from Yum Yum Videos: their explainer video got ranked number one on YouTube under the most valuable business keywords in just 3 months, so it will serve us as a clear example on each step.

You can also get the free step-by-step eBook “How To Rank #1 on YouTube” which expands on this effective strategy.

Now let’s start this exciting video SEO journey with the first question:

Why YouTube?

You might wonder: why choose YouTube as a video hosting site? And why spend time and effort reading this piece to gain a good position in its search engine rankings?

First of all, with over 1 billion active users worldwide, YouTube is the 2^nd largest search engine in the world (behind its owner Google, but above Yahoo! and Bing) so it’s not just an average hosting site.

Then, what many people don’t take into account is that YouTube is also a massive social network; it actually happens to be the world’s 3^rd largest social network, behind Facebook and Twitter.

This alone makes YouTube a perfect spot on the web to promote your brand.

But the thing is, you can’t really be on YouTube without a video, and even then: you won’t rank high in the search engine without a quality marketing video, simply because yours need to stand out among the 4 billion videos that are watched on it every day… and that leads us to the next point.

The importance of having a quality video

The problem with marketing videos is that you need to make a quality one, or else YouTube will send it to the dark bottom of its page results, even if you spend your whole budget on advertising.

Why is that? Because YouTube cares a lot about complete video views, and the amount of time people spend watching a video is one of the factors YouTube cares about when setting up its SERP (search engine results pages). And, let’s face it; no one would care to watch a video all the way through if it’s not well made!

Take a look at “What is the best explainer video style for your business?”, the quality animated video that made Yum Yum Videos rank number one on YouTube:

Now check out this simple YouTube Analytics graph to see how long viewers spent watching that video:

The graph reveals that the video reached a high audience retention rate with almost 1:20 minutes per viewer on average. That doesn’t cover the entire video, but it’s a great number, considering people’s average attention span is just 8 seconds.

You should keep in mind that only a quality marketing video makes people engaged and willing to watch it completely.

When we say quality, we’re talking about storytelling, design and animation; something that only a professional video production company with qualified experts in each production area can offer.

Long story short – you need a high-quality video to make your SEO strategy work and get your marketing objectives covered.

Video SEO and keyword planning

Ok, so you have a quality marketing video and you want it to climb up the YouTube results page. What you need now is a clever video SEO strategy and some wise keyword planning in order to optimize your video’s performance on the site.

Let’s learn the best practices in this area:

1. Keywords

First of all, you should learn which words from your business niche come up frequently on YouTube and how many people usually search for a particular word by using a SEO tool such as Google’s keyword planner.

In the case of Yum Yum Videos the most relevant business keyword is “explainer video” with over 1,600 monthly search results in the US:

However, don’t fight over the most searched keyword terms because that would be really hard to rank for. I recommend using longtail keywords instead: they’re longer and contain more specific phrases, which do include your main keywords, but have less people fighting over them.

In our case study, the longtail keyword is “the best explainer videos”.

Longtail keywords drive precise views from potential customers way faster, helping your video to rank under the main keyword too. Once you find your own, don’t forget to use them everywhere in YouTube: titles, descriptions, tags, etc.

2. Titles

Titles help people get what your video is about before hitting the play button, so it’s vital to place your keywords in it.

Here’s the title from our case study:

Now don’t forget to keep your titles brief and direct. I recommend using less than 70 characters, because longer titles are cut off in the YouTube results page.

On the other hand, try to avoid writing titles that don’t represent the true content in your video. Tricky or misleading titles cause a huge drop-off that will reduce your video’s performance.

3. Thumbnails

Thumbnails are essential SEO features because they act as the only preview for your video on the YouTube results page and suggestions. Besides, it’s proven that a spot-on thumbnail will invite more people to press play on your video, but a badly-chosen one will drive them away.

Therefore, you should choose your thumbnails carefully.

Here you can get a glimpse of the early-considered thumbnails from our case study (the upper-left one became the final choice):

As with your title, don’t cheat with a misleading thumbnail. People hate tricky thumbnails.

On the other hand, use only hi-resolution images (640×360 pixels at a minimum) and make sure that the thumbnail looks good in both small and large sizes and on different devices (TV, iPad and desktop PC).

If your image is not attractive enough, people simply won’t click on it.

4. Descriptions

Descriptions explain what your marketing video is about. You need to make them short and accurate (around 2 sentences are perfect) but don’t forget to use your business keywords.

It’s also mandatory to include a link to your own site within those two sentences, and you can add links to your social media channels as well. These actions will increase your website traffic and create a great opportunity to drive potential customers to your brand.

Check out the description in our case study:

5. Call-to-action

Now, for this strategy to drive concrete marketing results apart from views and SEO purposes (for example downloading your content, subscribing to your newsletter, visiting your site, etc.) you need to encourage your viewers to take action by adding a clear call-to-action in the form of a clickable button.

Or you can use the YouTube Cards feature instead (which is a sidebar call-to-action), in order to lead your viewers to your website, landing page or any other video of yours that’s hosted on YouTube:

Distribution and link building

In order to set up its results pages, YouTube considers all the websites where your video is embedded and played on, and also takes into account the amount of YouTube views that come from those sites.

Then, if you really want to enhance your Video SEO strategy, you need to distribute your video in the right spot for potential customers to watch it.

Let me quickly describe those spots:

1. YouTube ads

Investing some money in YouTube Ads (aimed to the right target audience) can give an initial boost to your video marketing campaign, making you clinch a first bunch of viewers and allowing YouTube to start measuring your videos’ performance.

However, after that first push, it’s better to rank organically on YouTube, because it gives your video more credibility and fairness.

2. Link building

You must drive your marketing video forward to make it rank number one on YouTube. Besides embedding your video on your blog (and other people’s blog) use it in landing pages, press releases, email marketing campaigns and social media posts, to then measure its overall performance.

Remember that your video can turn into a powerful marketing tool to suit your online campaigns.

Here you can analyze the visit rates and sources from our case study:

As you can see, views came almost exclusively from the embedded player source -in light green- during the first 3 months (that’s blogging and guest blogging playback).

But then YouTube’s organic visits -in purple and dark green- (those are direct searches and video suggestions playbacks) began to rise, because that’s when the video started to rank number one on YouTube’s search engine results page.

Eventually, YouTube’s searches and suggestions’ playbacks beat the embedded player source:

From then on, the animated video started to gain 300% more views every day, comparing it with day 1. Views keep growing by a monthly 20% on average. As today, the video has over 30,000 views and holds the number one position under Yum Yum Videos’ most valuable keywords.

Now you’re ready to build up your own videos and set up a wise video SEO strategy to start ranking high on YouTube’s search engine results page!

Remember that you can download Yum Yum Videos’ free eBook to widen this knowledge and learn how to craft a quality marketing video to compete with.

Good luck!

Guest Author: Juan Jose Mendez is the Content Editor for Yum Yum Videos production company. For more tips on explainer video production, video marketing strategies, visit Yum Yum Video’s Explainer Video Academy, where you’ll get some free educational eBooks, infographics and slides.

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