Blogging tips #21: keeping first-time visitors on your blog: Introduction

(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)

A lot of bloggers, especially those who intend to earn some money with their blog(s), read a lot about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), to make people visit their blogs for the first time, ensuring that their results appear as high as possible in Google and other search engines when people search for subjects they blog about. Directories can also help. This is, of course, a good idea - if people don’t find out about your blog, they won’t visit it, much less click on any ads.

Regular readers, as I’ve mentioned before, tend to earn you less money in the short term, because, as they get to know your site, they tend to unconsciously “filter” any ads (this effect can be lessened by moving ads around from time to time, or changing ad types). What they do earn you is new visitors, as they mention your articles in their own blogs, or simply link to your blogs (this also improves PageRank), or tell friends about them. That’s why being a good host is so important.

All of the above is (or should be) well known. But there’s another important making-money-from-blogging tip that many people forget about, or forget to mention: *keeping* first-time visitors on your blog.

Why is this important? Two reasons:

the more articles of yours they read, the more likely they are to become regular readers
any pages they browse to have new ads, which increases the chances of them seeing one that interests them

Next: how to actually do it.