Last week, I asked you what makes you choose to read a blog regularly.
Is it the useful content?
The professional design?
The engaging writing style?
Or something else entirely?
Lots of you responded with great, thoughtful comments.
I’ve picked four to share below, but you can read all the comments on What Makes YOU Decide to Read a Blog Regularly?
J.K. Riki wrote:
Personally I don't visit ANY blogs daily. The only websites that receive a daily check from me are message boards, because I'm responding to different people who have responded to me. Twitter is another that falls into that category.
Some sites, however, I check "regularly" meaning every few days or once a week. For those it boils down to repeat posts of useful content. I check animation websites for news in the industry or tips and tutorials, and things like Daily Blog Tips (again, about once a week) to see the headlines of the past few days and if there's anything that I should look further into. This keep me from becoming an Internet Zombie of sorts, which is a problem I had for many years. I had my "regular" sites and became so engrossed in checking them all that I didn't get anything accomplished. So now I try to avoid that.
I generally only subscribe to a site's newsletter if it's an infrequent send-out. I immediately unsubscribe to mass emails that are daily or even every other day. My inbox is full enough, I don't have time for such frequent updates.
Ryan Biddulph wrote:
The blog must be related to sharing blogging tips, as that's my blogs theme these days. This is a biggie.
The content must be original and engaging to draw me in. I've read many posts over the years and need something to stimulate the senses, and to keep me interested. As for engaging, I love when bloggers ask questions of their audience. It proves that they're listening.
Here's another biggie; comments must be open. I appreciate CopyBlogger and other sites that bring the comments to social because of spam issues but they lost a reader the second they did that.
If I'm to become a regular reader I want to be able to: share my thoughts on the blog itself, add value to the post itself, potentially have other bloggers or readers click through to my blog, so we can build bonds, and yep, I want to leverage my presence through blog commenting too.
Jane wrote:
I usually don't subscribe to any blog just by reading one post. Even if that one post is outstanding I usually stick around a while to see how the rest of the content is.
If I find the content to be truly delivering (not just salesy, marketing stuff) – I surely do subscribe, provided the topic/niche of that blog is of interest to me.
Steve B wrote:
1. The blog would have to blog about something that really interests. May change as my personal interests change.
2. The writer would have to write in a style that I like and can relate to.
3. A majority of the posts would have to offer something of value. Like learning something new, or maybe they provide something that will benefit me.
4. There are a ton of blogs out there, so I try to limit my subscriptions to a handful so I can actually read the posts and not simply deleting them from my inbox.
In general, the common themes I saw emerging in the discussion were:
- The blog is relevant to your interests
- Consistently goodcontent, not just one great post
- Feeling a connection to the blogger (Antionette Blake said “When I feel as though the blogger has become a 'part of the family' I make sure to read their blog daily.”)
By far, the most important thing was really good, relevant content; a few readers mentioned things like “design” and “headlines” but it was clear that none of you subscribe to blogs unless the content is truly worth reading.
Many thanks to all who commented! The key lesson here is that people won’t read your blog unless the content is really good, and it’s clearly on-topic for them (which means it’s important not to write about several different, disconnected topics).
Would YOUR blog attract the readers quoted above? If not, what changes can you make to improve?
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