One of the most effective ways to ensure your blogs success is to create remarkable content, the most critical element in attracting new visitors and owning your niche.
I stole “remarkable content” from Aaron Wall because it got my attention, maybe he stole it from Seth Godin, doesn’t matter you get my point.
I think remarkable is what stands alone, like an island that has every resource you’d need to survive 100 years.
Make your blog like the island, a tropical one.
Content farms aren’t fit for an island, they need to spread out, you don’t.
Getting Tourists To Visit Your Island of Paradise
Use lots of photos, show others having a good time, and make people feel welcome by doing things way beyond their expectations. I’m getting a little abstract but I’m trying to give suggestions on making people feel good when they arrive at your blog.
We subconsciously grade websites, almost as quickly as the page renders, and sometimes even before that.
So you’ve got seconds to make it look like a place I’d want to visit.
Content farms might offer similar “looking” places, but they’re man made out of cheap materials and you have to go through the time share schpeel because its in the fine print.
So how do you make your blog into this natural, spiritual paradise where knowledge is the main currency and to get more you gotta give it away?
Wake UP!
Lets get back to reality because we’ve got lots of things to do, starting with how you want others to read your blog.
First you must know that people aren’t snuggling up with a blanket and a cup of warm cocoa to read your blog, so snap out of it. They are crazed maniacs that want to know everything you know, so give it to them like your gonna save their life.
Speedreading and scanning for information allows us to grab the highlights, or useful pieces of information. (I hate when bloggers use nuggets, hate it).
Sorry, speed-reading, ready set go.
A webpage contains a combination of programming code and content.
I’m going to cover only the portion related to content that we see such as the text, images, and other forms of media users will be seeking, not the underlying code.
Ok, Code, Content, got it, Faster!
When we look at a blog post our eyes scan the items on the page to determine whether the content will help us or simply waste our time.
Don’t waste time!
That’s why we hone in on the links, bold text, H3′s, etc. They are like strategically placed checkpoints that make sure you don’t fall asleep at the wheel.
Ok, make things stand out.
Stop!
What you just saw was my interpretation of snatching the main points from what was written.
So Just How Important is a First Impression on Your Site?
Most of you reading this would be considered highly skilled in the art of internet browsing (hyper-search is more like it), so we are constantly judging the quality of websites.
Time is a precious resource when infinite amounts of information are running on standby in parallel to our own cognitive processes.
We are so close to having answers which we’ve yet posed questions to. Think about that, we may already know the answers yet we just need to confirm it, so we look for sites that can.
Want to make a good first impression? Show readers you can go very deep into the subjects on your blog through interlinking and referencing high quality sources.
So far we’ve talked about the natural ability to detect good content, the speed-reading method, and positioning as an expert on the first impression.
Now we want to talk about flow, or navigation if you will.
Detect: Good
Speed: Fast
Skill: Expert
Status: Realtime
I saved the best for last, as it’s the most exciting in my opinion. So not only do I want the first three, I want to see if you’re still at it.
If you are on Twitter, what does your timeline show? Who’s promoting you?
I think you and your content are great, but now I want your whole clan. I want context, and I want to get instant information that pertains to today.
I liked your post in 2008, but it might as well be 1908, whats changed and how much more do you know now?
Give me those four things and I’ll promote the hell out of you, your content and everything you do rocks! So it’s TTT in Google you go with more natural links than you can count.
This is what I believe great, no remarkable content is all about. Now for some things its not about, and although I might tolerate some of them be cautious and remember the first impression.
Advertising Makes You Slow – Just Say No!
Obviously it requires much less effort for my eyes to scan a page that’s almost pure text vs. a page that has rich media such as flash, popups, or other forms of distraction.
Unfortunately, many types of advertising media use deceptive or manipulative tactics to get your attention. A website costs money to operate and unfortunately these costs are often covered by advertising – so I will be a little forgiving here, but not if its causing a page 20 seconds to load.
God could have written it and I’d still bounce.
Too much advertising can blow a first impression. Its invasive, it lies, it wants money, and the worst possible ad you can have – its irrelevant.
Next Steps For Our Blogs Brave New Visitors
Please make me see something I can do, or I swear I’ll hit the backbutton. Twice.
I want to stay, you’ve passed all my rigorous tests, but how will I remember you?
Billions of sites await my pageviews, but I kinda like it here.
Then it hits you, you can keep your visitors by knowing what they want. They’ve already told you, many times, and it’s all there in the keyword terms they used.
So respond. If you look at your Google Analytics and see multiple people are coming in for the same three keywords then check your page for those terms.
Expanding Your Site Based On Search Queries
Treat a search query like a question.
Then predict the next questions that will follow and link to pages that answer those.
It’s much faster for someone to click on a link that matches what they’d be typing into Google next so give it to them.
Keep giving, and giving, and giving, and THEN ask.
Ask them to subscribe or to buy something, but don’t do that first because you need them to hang around for awhile.
You want to make them experts with your content, so they can refer back to you when they want to share their new found skills with others.
If you can do that, you can and will own your niche, because you want to the further extent to help give when others just ask the first chance they get.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Quality Content Brings Organic Search Traffic
