Thank you so much for all the great response to How To Make A Blogger Happy last week! This week is Part 2:
Top Ten Ways To Make Your READERS Happy!
1. Full Feeds
This is for those readers that read your blog in a feedreader. You can set up your blog to show FULL feeds (the entire post) or PARTIAL feeds (a snippet of the post). There are many different opinions on why you should have one or the other. But as a reader of blogs, I don’t like reading partial feeds. Let me rephrase, I DO NOT read partial feeds. I subscribe for a day or two, then get tired of clicking a billion clicks (oh, poor me!) so I end up unsubscribing.
If you’re not sure if you have full or partial feeds, you should subscribe to your own blog. Then if you’d like to change it just go to SETTINGS-READING and then click “full text” or “summary” on a WordPress blog. (Any blogspot folks wanna put the instructions in the comments?)
Read more: Full or Partial Feeds at Blogging Basics 101
2. Easy Commenting
We have already established that comments are like crack. So. If you want to help your reader make YOU happy, make THEM happy by making it easy to make you happy by leaving you comments. (Do you love that crazy sentence?) OK. Back to the point. TURN OFF all those crazy steps and hoops to enter a comment. Sometimes blogs make you go through 3 different steps to leave a comment. Some people get fed up and don’t even leave one.
On my blog all you have to do is enter your name, your blog/twitter/facebook URL (which is optional, but potential traffic for you) and your email (which is private). Easy Peasy.
If you are trying to protect yourself from spammers just moderate your comments OR just make sure you have ONE step to protect the comments. Not three-thousand.
3. Easy Reading
Use bullets, spaces, bold text and italics. Thewholestreamofconciousnesstypehowyouspeak is really hard to read. Spend time making your post look good. Experiment with headings, titles and wording. The average blog reader spends SECONDS on a post. Make sure you give their eyes something easy to read with those few seconds.
4. About Page
I love me a good About Me page. I do. When I get to a new blog, I always look for an About Me page and I read it! I want to know if this person is related to someone famous, has a special talent I want to imitate or lives down the street from me. About pages fill me in the same as if I read twenty posts.
Here are a few About Me pages I really like: ProBlogger, Musings of a Housewife, BooMama, and The Gypsy Mama.
5. Respond to Comments
Some people respond to comments in the comments (there are lots of great WordPress plug-ins for having a conversation in the comments or if you are a blogspot blogger, you can use Disquis or Intense Debate) while others respond via email. But whatever you do, respond to your comments. Someone spent the time to leave a comment, send ’em a note back! Say thanks, answer their question or ask your own. You can start a fun conversation this way and attract some loyal readers.
6. Visit their blog/twitter/fanpage
Venture out of your world and visit theirs! Read a few posts and comment on more than one. Become a fan on facebook and let them know you did so! Follow them on Twitter and give them a shoutout. Don’t think of them as YOUR readers, think of them as potential networks, friends and allies. It’s also one of those “do unto others” kinda things…
7. Link
I’m link-happy. I think it is important to link to any and all things. For example, you could write,
“I went to Target today and found that book I was telling you about. Only it was in hardback. So, I let my mom buy it for me.”
OR you could write,
“I went to Target today and found that book
OK, so that could get a little overwhelming. BUT, look at what this second sentence does for the reader: 1) Links you to Target, you know in case you live under a rock. 2) Links to the actual book with an Amazon affiliate link, so you can potentially earn some money if your reader buys it (or anything on Amazon) 3) Links the reader to one of your old posts which is good for you AND them 4) Links to my mom letting the reader know more about me AND gives some linky love to my mom. (Did that make sense?)
8. Freebies
This is something I wish I could do more of. I guess I’m just not very informative. But when someone talks about a checklist or a party game or a coloring sheet, I love when someone gives ME a copy! Perfect examples: Living Locurto’s Printable Menu Plan, Organizing Your Way’s printables and Cathe Holden’s free art.
9. Photo
Your readers want to see who’s talking to them. Put a good picture in your sidebar so they can connect a face to your words. And the best part? YOU get to pick out the picture. They don’t have to know you don’t look like that every day.
10. What did I miss? What makes you happy as a blog reader?
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Wanna add your own Top Ten list? I’d love to hear what you’ve got! Just write one up, link it back to me, enter your post’s URL below and start to visit the rest of the TopTen-ers! For more details visit my Top Ten {Tuesday} page!
