6 Tips for a Smarter WordPress Blog

written by Maggie Sawyer on February 21, 2016

Before we begin, let’s shed some light on what we perceive as a smart blog. A smart blog is one that is able to adapt as per its visitor and behave as per the behavior and characteristics of the visitor.

To further explain this idea, let’s consider a blog that consist of a sidebar that lists the most trending topics. And, this list varies from visitor to visitor, based on their behavior. This blog will be referred to as a smart blog. The crux here is that having a feature that lets your blog adapt as per the visitor’s activity certainly helps you in achieving your conversion goals. This was just one of the many ideas that can help in getting you a smarter. Now we dwell into further ways that will help make your blog smarter.

DISPLAY RELATED POSTS

I believe it is unanimously agreeable that search engine have a huge role to play when it comes to bringing traffic to blogs. People search up very particular things and if they land up on your page through a search engine results it means that they are looking for that specific thing. If they do not immediately come across the thing they were looking for then they won’t waste time on your page and will bounce back. A smart blog will be one that will detect the search terms and put on display a list of articles that are along the same lines. Doing this, you ensure that if the content that was seen on the page is not as per the requirement of the visitor they will still pay a visit to the other pages that are related to what they are looking for.

SELECTIVE ADVERTISING

To increase traffic to our page, many of us often turn to advertising. When dealing with advertising, you may have come across the term smart pricing. What is smart pricing?

Smart pricing basically refers to a model that evaluates how much the advertising company will pay you per click. So, you will be paid more if you have a high click through ratio and vice versa. This is a means to optimize your click through ratio. Why would you want to display ads in those scenarios where they run a risk of not being clicked at all?

To follow through with this approach you will have to first divide your visitor base into two types, new and returning. The chances that a new visitor will click on your ad are greater than that of a returning visitor. So limit your ads to the new visitors.

WELCOME MESSAGES SHOULD VARY FROM VISITOR TO VISITOR

Each visitor is unique in his or her self. So, the content displayed to your different visitors can not be the same. The idea is to display different content to different people based on their characteristics.

A returning visitor cannot be displayed a welcome message. That is a message you only show to new visitors so as to encourage them to follow you on social media platforms, or subscribe to your RSS feed or any other of your various requirements based on the needs and goals of your blog. Also, based on where the visitor might be coming from, you may as well specify a call to action in the message.

If you’re thinking about how you will be able to implement in your blog, then the good news for you is that there are many plugins out there that are already catering to this requirement for WordPress. The underlying idea behind this remains the same that is to adapt the blog based on the visitor’s needs.

SEEK DONATIONS FROM RETURNING VISITORS

Here’s how I look at this, asking a returning visitor for donation is more sensible than asking a new visitor, because we are unsure about what the new visitor thinks of our content. Visitors will come back to your page only in the case where they find your content useful. Also, since a returning visitor will not be hesitant in donating, therefore you immediately feel more at ease when asking them for donations.

If we were to apply a combination of this feature along with that of selective advertising, you will immediately see your webpage become a lot smarter. Your web page will only display donation request to a returning visitor and ads to a new visitor.

‘Who Sees Ads’ is a means of applying this feature. All you have to do is treat donations as ads and make them visible to the returning visitors.

CUSTOM MESSAGE FOR AD BLOCK SOFTWARE USERS

This might not go down well with most of the readers, but as a developer it is an important aspect that needs to be addressed.

For any blogger whose main source of money is advertisements, ad block softwares are a huge punch to the gut. This goes without saying that if your visitor’s devices are installed with ad blocking softwares then your income will be affected. What you can do in such a situation is to remind the user that by using ad blocking software they are deterring the growth of the blog and ask them to turn it off. Another important factor to take note of is that you should not display this message over and over or else you may end up frustrating the user and you’ll end up losing traffic.

“TAKING A VACATION”

The human body works like a machine, and each machine has a specific time duration for which it can work before it reaches the exhaustion point. Throughout the time you write blogs, there will be points when you’ll need a break. As a blogger it is your responsibility to let your readers know that you are taking a vacation and when can they expect you back.

This might not be a feature that is based on the adaptive approach that we have talked about, but none the less it still constitutes to being a smart feature. It prevents you from losing visitors due to inactivity. Also, if there are readers who expect immediate replies to their comments will be aware that you are not available at the moment.

CONCLUSION

This is our idea of a smart blog. These are a few simple tips and ways that can have a great impact on your WordPress page. Using these means, it will even make the visitors feel more connected to the blog.