The End of a Blog Post is Just the Beginning
The end of a blog post is just the beginning.
What I mean by this statement is that a lot of a blog’s success is not only determined by what you write, but what some of your readers do after they finish reading what you write.
Blog readers are divided into two groups: those who just read, and those who read and take action. One isn’t better than the other (since our primary goal is to reach and teach as many people as possible), but it’s obvious which group of people help to accelerate a blog’s success.
So how do we convert the “just readers” to become those who take action? We don’t.
Why?
Because what people do online usually reflects their personality, and we aren’t here to change people’s personalities for the sake of our online success.
So what can we do? How can we accel?
We can cater to those who do take action.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to determine if you’re catering to those who take action, which in turn optimizes the performance and growth of your blog:
- Are you writing content that’s worth sharing with others?
- How are you encouraging commenting on your blog?
- Are you making it easy for people to bookmark your post on social bookmarking websites, such as Digg, Stumbleupon, and Delicious, or share on Twitter and/or Facebook?
- Are you making it worth their while to do more than just read?
- Have you tried asking?
I’ve pondered these thoughts much as of late. This is what led me to redesigning the area after a blog post here on the Smart Passive Income Blog, which I’m actually quite proud of. It’s what I like to call the “take action area”.
Major props goes out to Brady and Brody over at BlazerSix for their wonderful web design work.
Have a great weekend! Cheers!
p.s. Thanks for all of the awesome comments about my eBook guide! I just released a printer-friendly black and white version for easy printing, so you don’t waste your ink. If you haven’t gotten my eBook guide yet, just enter your name and email below to get it for free! Killer content coming in the newsletter as well. Take care!
Posted on : January 8th, 2010
Related posts:
- The Blog Post Checklist: After You Publish Your Post
- Read This Post to Find Out Exactly What You Need to Know About Calls to Action
- 5 Free and Random Tips for Bloggers You Probably Didn’t Know – My 100th Post!
- How to REALLY Profit From Your Blog
- Ask the Reader: Partial or Full Post in RSS Feed?
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18 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
Pat this is my biggest fear. Getting my blog going with my ebook on the way and not having any active participants. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have overcome this fear as my site goes live! Thanks for your ebook and encouraging words!
Natasha,
It’ll take time. I have come close to throttling my own site a few times because traffic and participation were well below what I’d hoped they’d be. Really – our sites are like a piece of us! Think of it as kindling a fire, you’ve got to start out with paper or easy-to-burn material, give it air, time, and fuel until the bigger logs catch flame (i.e. until someone purchases your book). Be sure to read Pat’s post on how much work a blog is. My own site has started to pick up traffic as I’ve posted strong content, participated in forms, commented on blogs, and I even made $2.70 on an affilate sale the other day! Best of luck!
(P.S. – be sure to get a gravatar from gravatar.com, and always post your link in the website field when you comment. Even though it’s a “=nofollow” link that doesn’t help much with SEO, it DOES pull people back to your site when they want to find out what you’re all about.)
Thank you for the information Steve. Hopefully the link will be working by the end of the weekend. I am in the process of getting it up and running now.
Hey Pat,
The redesign definitely optimized the end of the post for sharing your articles, getting others to subscribe to your feed or getting them to sign up for your ebook. My end of post section is getting cluttered up and maybe I should consider doing a redesign too.
Regards,
Vincent
I totally like your “take action area”. Something I will certainly consider when I redesign my site in the upcoming months.
Also, congrats on Keoni. I have twin boys myself and you’re right, there isn’t anything better than being a dad, or baba in my case. It’s by far the best experience I think a man could ever have. Maybe something I should post more about on my new guyknowledgy.com site.
Thanks Pat
I totally love your take-action area, Pat!
It’s really beautifully designed and integrates perfectly with the rest of your blog. If I was a better coder I would totally rip that off.
In all seriousness, though: I definitely want something like that on my blogs as well.
And by the way: Your thoughts about not wanting to “convert” the lurkers but instead just cater to the participators are very insightful.
Cheers,
Shane
And now I realize I forgot to put the social bookmarking bug on my novelist blog! It seems to attract lots of subscribers (more RSS followers than regular hits, unlike my other blogs) so that’s a really foolish oversight.
Thanks for the reminder!
I don’t know about anyone else, but the “free instant access” button for the ebook doesn’t work for me. Probably just related to my computer. Just FYI, Pat.
Great post, love the insight about catering to those that are take action people … this is so huge for bloggers and online marketers!
I really like the call to action area….great work BlazerSix
Pat – Great website and info! I’ve been reading your new ebook and loving it. Couple of questions. I really like your new “take action area.” Did BlazerSix create it for you? Also, which WordPress plugins do you find the most useful? Thanks!
Pat, thanks for the way you are modeling the call to action. It looks great, and so does the rest of your site. Love the pics of your new arrival
Hope you are getting some good sleep in while you work at home 
Thanks for the props Pat and you too, Ms. Freeman. Pat deserves recognition for focusing on an area that is often poorly planned and coming up with a great design to pull it all together. It accomplishes a lot in only a little bit of space without adding clutter. Good job!
Great tip… I’ve been re-designing my ending too for all blog posts. I think it helps to have that signature that you include in all of yours, I’ll have to work on that next
Good stuff!
Great stuff, I have recently realized I need to step up my writing to really provide value for my readers. Why would people keep coming back if there wasn’t anything in it for them?? This tip affirms my thinking, thanks Pat! And Congratulations on your son! I wish you all the best!
Pat Flynn fans – I just plugged my interview with Pat here: http://www.xomba.com/laid_recession_pat_flynn_quadruples_his_income_online
This makes a lot of sense. Everyone is different and doing what you can to encourage what you would like to see people do is one way of making that become a reality. Not everyone is going to do this but if you do out of 10 different bloggers, results will still show significantly.
Great post!
Eric – I absolutely agree with your statement. For sure, not everyone will comment back, but by simply reminding or encouraging it, we’ll get more than if we didn’t. It’s like those big huge buttons you see on people sometimes that say “Just Ask!” Yeah, I already knew I could ask that person a question, but having that button there makes it seem more comfortable to do so, if that makes sense.