“How do I get better results, faster?”
There are many ways to ask this question, but bottom line…this is what most business owners want to know more than anything else. What can you do…RIGHT NOW…to start getting better results with your blog? Let’s be honest. You have this question too, right?
The easiest way to get better results with your blog is to simply do less.
Simple is Better
Take a look at your blog. Right now. How many calls to action do you have on your home page? 5? 10? More? Most blogs don’t convert well, because their calls to action are scattered all over the place, and there’s very little rhyme or reason for it.
It’s great to have a link to your Twitter profile. It’s great to have a link to your Facebook page. Likewise, it’s totally cool to have links to all your latest posts. You probably also have an email opt-in form (hopefully) somewhere in the mix. A link to your RSS feed should be somewhere in your layout as well. These are all common fare for any blog these days, so what’s the problem?
The problem is that most business owners don’t take a business-minded approach to their blog. If you want to reach business goals with your blog, you need to look at your blog like a business owner. It starts with deciding on a goal.
What is the primary objective for your blog?
There’s no right or wrong answer to this. It’s simply a decision you need to make for yourself. For me it’s building an email list. Email is the primary method I use for communicating with my audience. It’s how I answer questions, let people know about new articles on the blog, and it’s also of course how I make occassional sales offers.
So when you land on Dangerous Tactics, what’s the first thing you see? An email opt-in form front and center. No RSS feeds. No social media links. Very few distractions. This isn’t a coincidence of course. And it’s not rocket science either. If you dig a bit deeper, you’ll also notice that over half the links in my navigation all point to pages with opt-in forms as well. Some are content-rich pages, with an opt-in form at the end, and others are squeeze pages, featuring only an opt-in form.
You may have a different goal. Perhaps you are only concerned with getting comments and driving conversation. Perhaps your primary focus is to get RSS subscribers. Again, there’s no right or wrong goals. The only way to screw it up is to not have a goal to begin with. Unfortunately, this happens a lot in the blogosphere. Too many bloggers wanting better results, without really even knowing what it is they want to improve.
If your goal is to do everything…build huge email list, huge RSS base, huge comment counts, huge traffic, etc…have fun with that. Can it be done? Well, of course it can be done. But why? Why spend all the time and money and effort required to do all that when all your business REALLY needs from your blog is likely one or two things?
Simple blogging is high conversion blogging. Follow these steps:
- Set the goals you want your blog to achieve. Specific, measurable goals. Goals that, when achieved, will be meaningful to your business. It’s cool to say “I want 10k unique visitors a month”. Just be clear about WHY you’ve picked that goal. Don’t just pick some random goal that you think you’re SUPPOSED to set. Set your own goals. This is YOUR blog…and you can do whatever the heck you want with it.
- Determine the primary call to action that will help you attain those goals.
- Place that call to action front and center, removing all distractions possible.
Something funny happens when you do this. Your message becomes a bit more clear, and what you want your visitors to do becomes more clear as well…and a lot more people will follow the path you’ve laid out for them.
What’s great is that this isn’t something that takes a long time or requires a big investment of cash. You can do it right now, for free.