Do you wish you had the time to overhaul your blog? Often when you’re trying to keep up with writing enough content, it’s hard to find the time to do anything extra.
But that definitely doesn’t mean you should give up. If you split your tasks into small chunks, you will be surprised what you can accomplish.
In this article, I’ll show you 10 two-minute tweaks that can help you improve your blog.
1. Make a Title More Compelling
Even if you’re great at coming up with attention-grabbing titles these days, you most likely have some great posts gathering dust in your archives that could use a better title.
Most readers judge your posts by the title. A few small tweaks like adding an adjective, number, or even rephrasing the title to make the benefits of reading the post clearer could give you a huge boost to your traffic.
Here’s an example:
Old Title: Using Twitter Effectively
New Title: Six Clever Twitter Tricks to Save You Time
It’s easy to see which of those is going to get more attention…yet they could easily describe the exact same post.
2. Link to Another Post
One great way to decrease bounce rate is to give your users ample amount of opportunities to check out other related content.
You probably have posts languishing in your archives that hardly anyone sees. Take two minutes to find an appropriate place to link them from an existing post.
You can also link to your new posts from your older articles. Perhaps you’ve gone into a topic in much more depth since you first wrote about it, so you should point your readers to your best material.
3. Update Your About Page
When did you last update your About page? If you’re like most bloggers, you’ve not touched it since you created it … and that might have been years ago.
Take a quick peek right now. Is there anything out of date? Look out for:
- Biographical details, new updates, press and mentions, etc.
- Information about your services and products – you may have ditched old ones or added new ones.
- Links to your best posts – you might have some even better ones now!
4. Add a Photo of Yourself
Photos can be a great way to help readers connect because it shows them the person behind the words. If you’ve got a good recent shot (it doesn’t have to be a professional one) add it to your About page.
You could even use it in your header, like I do, or in your sidebar.
Alternatively, you can add images to your older posts. A photo helps to break up the page and makes it easy to read your content.
5. Remove a Widget from Your Sidebar
Most blog sidebars are hopelessly cluttered. Readers often struggle to find the options they actually want (like subscribing to your blog or following you on Twitter) in the middle of all the clutter.
Take a look at your sidebar and find one widget that you could do without – then remove it. Hint: tag clouds and little calendars aren’t usually adding much to your readers’ experience.
6. Deal With Any Comments
Even if you’re not inundated with comments, it’s easy to get behind with dealing with them. Have a two-minute check for any that need a quick reply…or for any spam that’s snuck in past your filter.
Unanswered questions and obvious spam comments don’t create a great impression for readers.
They make it look like you don’t care about your blog or that you’re an absent blogger. If you find it hard to keep up, you might want to close comments on posts older than a month.
It’s also a good idea to turn off comments on pages (such as your About page) so these don’t get cluttered over time.
7. Put More Information on Your Contact Page
Some bloggers put a contact form on their contact page and nothing else. While that’s not a disaster, it does create barriers for readers who may want to contact you in other ways.
Depending on your business, you may not want or need to include a phone number or address on your contact page, but it’s often a good idea to add:
- Your email address: Not all readers trust that contact forms will work, and they may prefer to create their message to you through their email client).
- Links to your social media profiles: Especially if you’re easier to contact on Twitter or Facebook than by email.
- Information about your preferred contact method: If you take a look at my Contact page, you’ll see that while I welcome emails, I let readers know I’m most responsive through Twitter.
8. Add “As Featured In”
If you’ve been blogging for a while and have guest posted on other blogs, or been interviewed in a blog or podcast, then make sure your new readers know, especially if those blogs or podcasts are well-known names in your field.
My header includes logos of some of the key sites where I’ve been featured.
You should use your header or your sidebar for this. That way, every visitor on your site can instantly see that you’re an authority on your topic.
9. Fix a Typo
Typos happen to every blogger, but they can create a poor impression. If your posts and pages are riddled with spelling mistakes, you’ll look less professional and potential clients will – understandably – question whether you’re much good at paying attention to small but important details.
Read carefully through your blog articles starting with the ones that get a lot of traffic. If you spot a typo, fix it.
If you’re sure your work is typo-free, look out for sentences you can improve or images or videos you can add.
10. Add a Call to Action
When you get to the end of a blog post, it’s easy to just stop, but that’s a huge wasted opportunity. Instead, you may want to include a “call to action” – a prompt for your reader to do something.
You might want them to:
- Leave a comment.
- Share your post on social media.
- Comment on your post on social media.
- Take action in their business or life.
- Read a related post on your blog.
- Check out one of your product or services that’s related to the post.
- Or any other action that would benefit you (and hopefully them too).
Each of these tweaks could take you just two minutes – but it could reap you huge benefits.
Which tweaks will you be putting into practice today? Do you have other 2-minute tweak suggestions? Let me know in the comments.
If you liked this article, then please follow me on Twitter and Facebook.
This post originally appeared on SyedBalkhi.com, and is re-published with permission.
