What Do You Do When Your Blog Post Flops?

If you've been blogging for any length of time

, I'm sure you've had at least one blog post that was just not at all popular. Even your loyal readers aren't spending enough time on the page to get through the entire article. You're not really sure what went wrong.

While your initial reaction might be to throw in the towel and give up blogging forever, instead I encourage you to take advantage of this great learning opportunity. Take a look back at your blog post and run it through this simple test:

Test Your Title

In less than three seconds, your website visitors decide whether or not they want to stay on your webpage. And that determination is made, in large part, based on your page title. Make sure your title demonstrates a clear benefit to reading the rest of the article. Don't try to get too cute - just be straightforward and clear cut so your reader will know right away what's in it for him if he continues reading your blog post.

Test Your First Sentence

Just as your title must entice your reader to continue to the first sentence, your first sentence must entice your reader to continue to the second sentence. And the second sentence must encourage your reader to go to the third sentence. And so on and so on.

Test Your Eye-Appeal

The eye-appeal of your blog post is also extremely important. Make sure your post looks easy to read. Include a graphic or some type of image for your reader's eye to rest upon. Your reader doesn't want to feel as if reading your blog post is going to be work. Be sure to include subheads and bullet points and short paragraphs.

Test Your Reader Participation

What have you done within your blog post to encourage your readers to continue reading? Have you written in a conversational style? Did you ask questions and invite feedback? Do your readers feel, right upfront, as if they are conversing with you and with each other, or do they simply feel as if they are reading a blog post? Did you blog post include any calls to action? Did you readers know what you wanted them to do as they were reading?

Test Your Topic

Did you write about something your readers want to read? Was your overall topic interesting and enticing to the majority of your audience? Was your blog post unique? Or was it a repeat of what you've been saying all along? Did you give your audience something they need? Sure, it's important to be interesting, but your audience might also be looking for informative, especially if your blog is aimed at other small business people.

Test Your Traffic

What did you do to drive readers to your new post? Is it possible that no one read your post because no one knew it was there? Maybe it's time to add some new traffic generation methods to your marketing mix. Have you noticed that a high amount of your bounced traffic has come from the same source? Pay attention to that source in the future. It might be time to drop it from your link-building campaign.

Test Your Length

Was your post too long? Could you have eliminated several sentences? Several paragraphs? Several thoughts? Your readers don't want to spend a long time reading your post. And on the internet, three minutes can seem like an eternity.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Maybe the fact that this blog post flopped is not really any big deal. It could have been bad timing, there might have been something else happening in your industry that had your readers distracted. Did some outside event have your readers' attention? Could something outside of your post have caused the lack of popularity? If this flop is an anomaly, don't sweat it.

by: Karen Scharf

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