Why No One is Reading Your Blog, and How to Change That!

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We are in 2020 and no matter how good or bad last year was for you, it’s time to collect yourself and work on your blog with a fresh new strategy!

If you still don’t have a blogging business plan, get one now. One of the major problems faced by most bloggers is a lack of traffic and income. Finding motivation when traffic and income are lacking is tough! In a previous post, I covered motivation here: How to motivate yourself!

The motivation to bring visible and effective changes to your blog involves many factors including blog design, content, update frequency, promotion, and more.

In this article, however, I will focus on the most common blogging problem of all:

What to do when no one is reading your blog!

No one reading Blog
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One of the most common issues that lead to the early death of a blog is lack traffic and engagement. Many bloggers struggle with this for a while, and then eventually they give up. If you are at that critical stage as a blogger, this masterpiece is for you.

What to do when no one is reading your blogs:

1. Don’t write for bots!  Make your articles humane.

I have read many bloggers who write only for search engines. They will do what we call “keyword stuffing”, placing keywords at all the required places, which makes their posts highly impersonal.

It is important to remember that PEOPLE are reading your posts!  When you’re new to blogging and you want to grab the attention of readers who will find value in your work and thus be compelled to share it, you must focus on writing for the human readers – not for the bots.

Sometimes when a blogger begins to learn a bit about SEO, they start to feel as though they need to attract the attention of the bots. For this reason, they start writing keyword-stuffed blog posts which, on the contrary, can kill your rankings in this Panda and Penguin world.

If you want to get more search traffic, then in addition to directing your writing to the interest of human readers, try getting quality backlinks, and using long tail keywords on your blog posts. Keyword-stuffing is a thing of the past, so work on improving the LSI keyword, readability score, and other search engine ranking factors.

So, try to write for the readers first, and worry about search traffic later. When you’re building a blog, after all, you’re building a business that needs quality connections and user engagement. This is the only way to make decent money from your blogs in the end.

Having said all of that, there are ways in which you can optimize an article for both readers and search engines. Here are few links from the SML archive which may help you to reach that goal:

I highly recommend that you read this article:  How to Rank#1 in Google, as it will give you great insight into the many paths to ranking higher in a Google search.

Needless to say, before you hit the “publish” button on any post, always check the post against these 11 questions to evaluate your article for high-quality or low-quality.

2. Your design is crazy

Selecting a blog design is one of the toughest tasks for any blogger. Because there are thousands of options available to us, we tend to become confused, especially when looking at some of the amazing blog designs out there. If you were to ask me one hot tip for your blog design, I would suggest that you follow the “K.I.S.S.” principle – “Keep it simple, stupid”.

Focus more on readability and user experience.

When your blog content is more tempting than anything else, go for a minimalist design. I have shared a list of best WordPress themes, and you can choose one which matches your blogging style.

When someone lands on your blog for the first time, he’ll be looking at your design elements. If your design elements are professional, you have completed the first half of your goal of converting the reader from a first-time visitor to a regular visitor.

You need to invest some money to buy a premium theme and to design a great logo for your blog in order to attract the attention of first-time visitors. Also, don’t clutter your blog design by using every widget under the sun. Keep your blog design neat and clean, and this will contribute greatly to a professional-looking blog!

3. Nothing new in your blog posts

If you’re just rehashing what others are saying, you cannot expect to attract a great deal of attention to your blog. Try to spend quality time on creating unique content.

Unique content in a blog means that the post is:

  • Engaging
  • Educating
  • Busting a myth

The more unique the content on your blog, the more likely you are to bring loyal readers back to read your blog content. Always take the time to create and craft a blog post that will be helpful to both you and your readers. This way you can build a thriving audience around your network in no time.

Here at ShoutMeLoud, I keep getting many new guest blog post submissions, but barely 8% of them manage to make it live here. The reason is this: only 8% of applicants have something new to say or have covered a topic in depth. If I look at the ShoutMeLoud archive, some of the most popular articles are:

  • Case studies
  • Personal experiences
  • DIY guides (Ex1, Ex2)

Along with covering industry news, tips, software, and tools in your niche, you also need to focus on adding personal comments, experiences, and articles that readers can connect with.

Another approach is to create a demand. When anything new happens in your niche, try to be the first one to cover it in detail.

4. Long paragraphs just don’t work every time

We are habituated to writing long paragraphs because we were used to reading long paragraphs in our schools, colleges, or universities. So naturally, we tend to do the same when writing blog posts. Let me tell you a secret to grabbing the attention of online readers with your writing.

Short paragraphs are easy to skim, easy to read, and easy to digest, thus better conveying what you’re trying to say in your blog posts. Remember that most online readers SKIM blog posts, at least initially. So write for the skimmers by using short paragraphs like those you see in this post and use images to make your blog posts appealing. Use bullets, strong letters and italic words to grab the attention of their eyes, thus enticing them to read your blog post.

5. You have generic headlines

Generic headlines don’t attract online readers. You must spend time crafting attention-grabbing headlines.

3 tips for creating great headlines:

  1. Write how-to posts
  2. Use numbers in your headlines
  3. Check out the more popular posts on your blog to get a clear idea of what kind of headlines are going viral on your blog.

Use Coschedule Headline Analyzer to check the effectiveness of your post title.

6. Your blog is full of ads and popups

Who wants to read a blog which is plastered with excessive ads? Design your online business model to earn a decent income. You can’t make more money just by pasting more ads on your blog.

Use only those ads which:

  • Are relevant to your blog topic
  • Offer potential income per sale
  • Are laser-focused on your readers’ needs

If you are using AdSense, you don’t need to worry about this as much because you will be showing targeted contextual ads. But if you are like me and like to earn from affiliate marketing, here’s my top-secret to making money from affiliate products: Write an honest review on a product that you personally use, and embed it with the affiliate links in proper places.  Also, use a compelling image for that ad, and place it in the most visible area of your blog.

You won’t see hundreds of sales in the first month, but you’ll surely notice growth in your affiliate income after several weeks.

When you write a review post about a product in your niche, you are making a sales funnel. You’re educating readers about a product and then sending them to your review post.

Another strategy that works for me is directly linking to sales pages of products I’m promoting. That works as a better landing page for buyers. Test the best locations for potential ads on your blog. This way you will eventually be able to generate good affiliate income.

Related reading:

Still, no one reading your Blog?

All of the above points will be useful for improving your blog internally, but you will also need to work on your blog promotion. One thing which I highly recommend you focus on is building your email list and offering all-important blog subscription options. The goal is to convert those one-time visitors into regular readers. Here are few more pointers which will help you to make your blog better and more readable:

Let me know what you like to do to create and maintain your blog’s regular readership.

Remember to share this article with your blogging friends.

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A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

23 thoughts on “Why No One is Reading Your Blog, and How to Change That!”

  1. Omar Mohamed

    I started my blog in 2013 and the URL remained my name.
    I was writing on many topics but recently decided to dwell more on relationship issues.
    Sometimes, I use interestingarticles from other sites and give attribution.
    My blog doesn’t have many visitors, making me worry about it.
    Am planning to get custom domain and do away with the blogspot sub-domain.
    Considering my design, being professional in blogging,what advice will you give me for the success of my blog.
    v Thanks.

  2. Giri

    “Remember that, most online readers just don’t read the content, they actually SKIM.”

    Harsh great point! 🙂

    I fully agree. Nowadays readers are not interested to read long articles eespecially BIG paragraphs. Its Twenty20 / Twitter period so everybody is expecting short and exact information. so your point is really valid. Even I had written about this while ago.

    Giri

  3. Clinton

    Hey harsh,
    I am a newbie blogger, I’ll try to avoid every thing you outlined here to get the most out of my posts.
    Thank you for this guide.

    Do have a great day,
    Clinton Odumah

  4. Chico Devashish

    Hey Harsh,
    Again a masterpiece article from you. I also do believe in SEO, Keywords, Content… but recently i create a new blog about designing niche. I’d taken care of all these things but unfortunately my search traffic is 0.0% . I am not getting targeted traffic. Any way to get few search traffics?

  5. Blessed

    I totally agree with all your points. However i think that the blog layout/design and content are the two most important features to get more readers.

  6. Istiak Rayhan

    Hi Harsh,

    Totally agree with your all points!

    When it comes to getting people to read a blog post, writing great headline is the most important thing to consider.With boring headline, a great post might go unnoticed. I republished some of my old posts with new catchy headlines. What I found is amazing. Those posts got more views, more social shares and more comments.

    Other things to consider are, providing high-quality content that people love to read, having a minimalist design with easy navigation, content visualization etc.

    Thanks for sharing this awesome post.

  7. Mazino Oyolo Kigho

    Harsh Agrawal, you are my best tech blogger, there is something new to always gain from your post. Another reason why people may not interested in a blog is that some bloggers don’t use their real identity. People need to know the blogger behind the blog. By that they can they see why they should trust the information.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Mazino
      Thanks for your kind words and that’s so true regarding identity. Having a face for your blog is always helpful and helps to build trust. Meanwhile you might like to register for gravatar.com which will show you your images in comment section.

  8. Bhumi

    Thanks Harsh,will blog promotion helpful for gaining traffic? because only content is not worth.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Bhumi
      Without post promotion, a good article is like dancing alone in the jungle. Post promotion is an important part of growing your blog and one should keep promoting even the old content.

  9. kaushik

    Sometimes it happens that even if a blog has good design, good content but still no one reads it. The reason is that blog owner is not finding a target audience. A new blog (in 2015)should have a very focused & less competitive topic then you are guaranteed to collect subscribers.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Kaushik
      That’s so true. It’s important to have a niche and also to know who is the target audience. Without knowing the target audience, one can’t write the perfect post.

  10. Tanmoy Das

    Making a blog a easy job but keep it running in proper way is hard. As competition is growing high day by day. Making bounce rate low is hard job. As people visit your blog to the info and forgot about your blog. Email subscription is good way but people also don’t like to make their inbox nasty. If a viewer does not impressed by your blog on first visit then he will never click on subscribe or the social media follow button. so main thing is your content and writing style like breaking into short paragraph. But I have seen many professional blogger just write one sentence in a paragraph. What kind of shit is this. Don’t understand. May be they are professional and I am newbie. 😛

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Tanmay
      There are various ways to write content and important thing here is “Voice of the blogger” and audience resonating with that voice. For example, see Seth Godin who writes one sentence blog post and it gets great number of share. The key here is to find the voice and stick to it.

  11. sathish

    I agree with you long paragraphs or more text wont get a reader all times. Its all about quality, quantity dosen’t matters..!
    Thanks for the valuable information.

  12. Orval

    Great article Harsh I agree with a blog post having too many pop-ups. I hate to go to a website where there are 3 -4 pop ups. I usually windup leaving the site. I am one of those skimmers and italic and bold words do work very well.

  13. Rahul

    all the thing which discuss above is matter in blogging your blogger should be having clean without popup and minimum ads then any wants to read your blog
    thanks for sharing this information,..

  14. sangram

    Everyday i plan not to read your blogs and end up reading atleast 5 -10 blogs thanks to some serious and excellent blogging by harsh agarwal

  15. Shorya Bist

    Hi Harsh,

    Nice post brother, the points you have mentioned are convincing.An article written for search engine is article without soul that i always say ,article should be written for readers/audience not for bots.

    Always writing same article again and again by just twisting it a bit or by moving around a same sort of topics are also boring and readers start loosing hopes.

    Thank You
    Shorya Bist
    From Youthofest

  16. sahil

    this is awesome post upcoming blogger like me or who have lost hope from blogging

    Harsh you always try to motivate the blogging from within, thanks

  17. Rafaqat Ali

    well said,i think trending topics can also change your visitors to readers compel them to stay. There should be something informative to stick readers.

  18. Nishant

    A guy writing for bots will only get pageviews not visits, the person who writes for search engines never succeeds because that search engine can can’t even understand a single word you write they don’t understand your emotions in your article all they do look at is your META keywords. STUPID BOTS

  19. Gautam Doddmani

    i will follow all ur rules bro…i think i wrote long paragraphs before, now i wil try to break them as u said and see the difference…thanks for such informative posts!
    Cheers,
    Gautam

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