A company blog is owned media that can generate a lot of organic traffic to your website, especially if the content you post there provides valuable answers to questions users commonly ask online. Aside from creating content using keywords to help searchers find your blog, however, what can you do to inspire them to come back?
Driving repeat blog visitors isn’t too different from driving repeat customers: There are countless ways to go about doing it, and some will be more effective for certain businesses than they are for others. Here, 14 members of Forbes Agency Council explore the best ways to ensure that the people who discover your company blog will make a point of returning to it again later.
Forbes Agency Council members share ways to drive repeat visitors to a company blog.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Identify The Top Referral Sources
Identify the top referral sources for your blog and stay consistently visible by posting new content there. If your primary referral source is social media, keep posting content that drives user engagement there and have a way to drive audiences to your site. Being consistent with your publication, tone of voice and designs will also help to ensure repeat visits from your audience. – Ajay Prasad, GMR Web Team
2. Cross-Promote Content On Every Page
Cross-promote content on each page of your blog. Add links within articles that refer to related content as well as blocks on the bottom of the page that link to guides, infographics, Web pages or similar blog content. – Korena Keys, KeyMedia Solutions
3. Add Remarketing Pixels To Popular Content
There are multiple ways to drive repeat visitors. One method is to add remarketing pixels to popular content. Then create content that is related to the popular post and run remarketing ads to the readers of the original post, alerting them of new related content. If they enjoyed the original post, you will likely get very high click-through rates on the ads, so you can get cheap clicks on cost-per-mille campaigns. – Toren Ajk, TAC Marketing Group
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4. Include Links To It In Emails And Social Posts
Keep your blog top of mind through email subscriptions and social posts. In your company e-newsletter, offer links to the most recent and/or the most popular blog posts. Also, cross-promote posts on appropriate pages within your website. – Wendy Covey, TREW Marketing
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5. Focus On Your Company’s Specific Expertise
Great blogs are keenly focused on the specific expertise of a company or person. They have a specific point of view and a distinct voice that engages a target audience and keeps them coming back for more. – Nathan Miller, Miller Ink, Inc.
6. Run It Like A Magazine
You have to put your editor hat on and run it like a magazine. Invite guest posts, reach out to people who could influence your following and engage them in a partnership, host events designed to capture readers, and don’t forget to engage on social. Also, think about advertising in similar newsletters to capture new eyes. – Christine Wetzler, Pietryla PR
7. Provide Value To Your Buyer Persona
Identify one pain point and provide a solution for it across several pieces of content. Don’t try too hard to rank in Google search results; just put yourself in the shoes of your buyer persona, run harsh reviews on your own pieces and improve them. Launch them only once you think your visitor will be impressed by them. That should build trust with your visitors. – Jordi Marca, Gotoclient
8. Update And Reshare Older Content Related To Current Trends
Make sure you update older content frequently and reshare owned media related to trending topics or current events so that it remains relevant. You can also use Google Analytics to see which content resonates with your audience. Leverage that data and encourage repeat visitors by launching a blog series that builds upon historically popular topics. – Heather Kelly, Next PR
9. Use Metadata To Leverage What Is Working
Getting someone to visit your blog once is pretty easy. Getting that person to come back multiple times is hard. One of the best things you can do to facilitate that behavior is to cross-promote similar content of interest. One way to accomplish this is to use the metadata from the blog that is being read and serve up additional blogs that have some of the same metadata in them. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
10. Give Audiences A Choice With A Multimedia Blog
Right now, there’s a variety of content formats available. Some people like reading; others prefer listening to podcasts or watching a video. One great thing about a blog is that you can use it to combine everything. Embed a video or audio to give your visitors a choice every time they consume your content. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
11. Offer Valuable Gated Content In Each Blog Post
Too many companies view their websites as digital billboards instead of the lead-generation engines that they are. Give visitors valuable pieces of content to download in every blog post in exchange for an email address, which you can then use to deliver ongoing, targeted content. Nurture your visitors with custom email sequences that spike interest in your content. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
12. Tackle A Large Topic By Creating A Blog Series
One of the best ways to drive repeat visitors to a blog is to create a blog series. Tackling a large topic by releasing key, bite-sized components of it over the course of a few weeks is a great way to create interest and drive email sign-ups and follows on your social channels. All of these actions encourage future and repeat visits to your blog. – Donna Robinson, Collective Measures
13. Promote It In Your Company Newsletter
Promote your blog content in your company’s newsletter. We’ve been doing this for 18 months, and it’s shown incredible results. We create a new intro for our newsletter, pull out some highlights from our blog and link back to it. People can’t read your new blog if they don’t know it’s live—and you never know what piece of new content is going to resonate, so stay consistent. – Bernard May, National Positions
14. Hire A Professional Blogger
When I founded my company, the second hire I made was a blogger. This allowed us to consistently talk about the aspects that we specialized in. Our blog became a beacon for people trying to figure things out in our industry. This resulted in generating quality leads, branding and building trust with our audience as we continually provide them with value. – Brian Meert, AdvertiseMint
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Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
