There are millions of blogs online and you’re going to be in direct competition with many of them. In most cases, the niche you’re targeting will have competition from other people and the only thing that separates you from growing is a loyal audience. However, there are many factors that contribute to loyalty and it’s important you have a good understanding of these EXACT factors. There’s NO point focusing on elements that don’t produce any results in the end. Over the years, I’ve been able to narrow down the top 4-5 factors that build brand loyal from your readers. These factors give you the upper edge compared to your audience and are vital for blog growth, engagement, and loyalty.
Here are the important factors in building a loyal audience.
Quality over Quantity
One of the best ways to build loyalty is by offering visitors exactly what they’re looking for. Did you know that 82% of all searches online are problem based? This means that for you to engage these readers, it’s important to offer them a solution. However, here’s something that’s changed in recent years…
The depth of your content is starting to matter more each year. Why? People are losing faith in the content people write online and 50% of the pages they visit do not provide them with what they’re looking for. However, if you are able to provide them with a complete solution, you’ve most likely gained their trust and loyalty.
Here’s a quick example,
I currently own six blogs with two of them being my personal blogs. The other four are simply article directories for my website building clients. The four article directories publish new content every day and my personal blogs once per month. The quality on my personal blog is 10 times better than of the others. For rankings purposes, my personal blogs are outranking the other “4†by 10/1. This means for every 10 keywords representing my personal blog, the “4†article directories are ranking “1â€.
The point is with quality content comes…
- Loyalty
- Engagement
- The Google quality factor
- Organic links from other blogs
Email Subscribers is Key
The power of email marketing cannot be underestimated and many top bloggers will agree that building loyalty is impossible without a way to bring them back. You have to remember that competition is going to be your barrier in every niche, but having a way to keep visitors engaged with your brand will ensure loyalty going forward. For example, my competitors can easily be outranking me for the keyword “link building†and people will find their content before mine within the search results. However, if I have 10,000+ email subscribers, I can shoot them a message and link to my content. With one message, I’ve just pushed my content in front of 10,000 people with the chance of increased social shares, etc. Here’s the point,
It’s impossible to have 100,000 people visit your blog organically without a solid email list. Even Neil Patel from QuickSprout.com stated that 80% of his 150,000 visitors per month is through email follow-ups.
If you want to keep your audience loyal, then you need a funnel to get your best content in front of them easily. Starting an email list and building it to thousands of subscribers is the way to go.
Expert Posts
Some websites have built a huge loyal following by simply gathering the most important data and creating a post. Expert posts have worked well for me and even some of my peers within the industry. Searchers are always looking for a “1-Stop†location to find the best information and solutions to their problems. For example, in my niche, I found a common question being asked: What’s the best link building technique?
I decided to contact the best bloggers in the industry and ask them. I summarized everything and published a post. I received over 300 shares, 500 visitors in a single day to that post, and built some solid relationships with the experts.
It’s a great way to give people what they want and build loyalty as someone who gets high quality information in front of people. Here’s another example,
Richard Marriot from Clambr.com generated 348% more organic traffic in 7 days by doing an expert post on “55 SEO Experts Reveal 3 Favourite Link Building Toolsâ€.
A/B Split Testing
Sometimes getting people back to your site is all about testing different things. People respond to content differently so try to engage visitors by mixing things up. The key is to find what content type resonates within readers more so you can continue to keep producing that type of content. However, email split testing is very important, too. For example,
When sending out messages, you want to ensure that you get the highest CTR. This means to test even the messages so you get the most people clicking through to your content. For example, having 10,000+ subscribers doesn’t mean they all respond the same, so split test until you receive the most optimal conversions. Find out…
- What text works best in follow-ups
- What content gets the highest CTR in messages
- What time
- What day