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21 Days to a more profitable blog - Day 3! Customize your blog’s welcome message for new visitors
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21 Days to a More Profitable Blog Tutorial > Day 3! Customize your blog’s welcome message for new visitors
(Yawn….it’s 3:52am - do you know where your sleep is?)
I’ll tell you where mine is NOT - here! Woke up at 3:30am and decided, well golly gee, why waste time sleeping when instead, I could be enjoying the stark utter stillness that WOULD be present if my 15 TwitterBudgies decided to actually silence their beaks?
I know, I know, it’s a rhetorical question. 
Thus, let’s dive into:
Today is Day 3 of my series, 21 Days To A More Profitable Blog! And for today, I’d like to talk about…
Crowds, chocolate, coffee and bungie jumping.
Got that mental picture square in your mind? Alright now, imagine the following - you’re the host of the bungie jumping corporation that decided to run a 3 day Bungie Jumping Convention, courtesy of the Britian Elastic Rope Sports Association. Because it’s a three day affair (aren’t all megaSporting events 3 days?), you have trained your staff to handle all sorts of attendees, including:
- Experience bungie-jumpers
- Newbie bungie-jumpers
- Parents who are freaking out over their idjut kids’ desire to bungie jump when they can’t even keep their room clean longer than 2 minutes and don’t even get me started on their inability to retain MATCHED pairs of socks and ….
- Press
- Vendors
Let me now ask you:
On every day, do you greet every person the EXACT same way?
Or do you follow a process like:
- For each first-time visitor of the crowd, offer hand-made chocolate, the Beverage Of Life (ie coffee), a map of the grounds and a wish
that they survive their jumpfor a great time? - For each returning visitor, make sure everyone smiles and they know where to directly migrate?
Well?
Think about it. Methinks as a brilliant organizer, you’d set up a process that takes into consideration the visitor’s awareness of the event. Newcomers would have the full Welcome Wagon experience while returning visitors would know exactly how everything is laid out, and to where to go if questions arise.
Let me now ask you:
Does your blog do the same thing?
When someone new visitors your blog, do they get a customized welcome message that points them exactly where your site’s goodies are located?
HMMMM?
Just think of the benefits that would offer - newcomers would have their hands held and be led to the information they crave, while returning visitors already know the ropes…no need for them to see the welcome message a second time.
Sounds enticing? I certainly hope so, because that’s what I’m about to reveal!
And the good news is, it doesn’t take a lot of time at all to make your blog all friendly-like.
So! With coffee in hand (okay, coffee in cup that’s in hand), let’s turn to:
Before You Begin - Know how to install Wordpress plugins.
The goodie with which I am going to amaze and astonish you is a Wordpress plugin that you’ll need to install on your blog. If you need help for doing so, check out:
Wasn’t that delightful?
Ready to continue? Excellent! Move smoothly now to:
Step 1 - Install the What Would Seth Godin Do Plugin
You’ve heard of Seth Godin, master of permission marketing, right? Well, one brilliant blogger wrote:
….Seth Godin advocates using cookies to distinguish between new and returning visitors to your site:
One opportunity that’s underused is the idea of using cookies to treat returning visitors differently than newbies. It’s more work at first, but it can offer two experiences to two different sorts of people. (Source: In the Middle, Starting)
I built this WordPress plugin to implement Seth Godin’s idea. For WordPress users it reduces the “work at first” to almost nothing. Installation is simple…MORE….
Click HERE to download/install it, btw.
What’s really neat about this plugin is you can configure it to display any welcome message you’d like. Many people display:
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Let’s stop for a second and think what this does. You’re giving people a hint that hey! There’s an RSS feed and perhaps, it would be most incumbant upon myself to subscribe!
But wait! An opportunity is now barreling down upon you like a runaway train that escaped from DisneyWorld, a herd of toddlers that heard the ice-cream truck bell, a fleet of TwitterUsers who spied a freshly brewed cup of coffee, a …. (alright, I’m pretty certain you get my point)
And it’s this!
People may…or people may NOT….want to subscribe. How the heck should they know if they’ve never been on your site before?
Hmmmm?
I really wonder why people don’t seem to take that little itty bitty fact to heart. Tackling this issue requires an entire complete lesson in of itself…so I’d like to pause here and verify you’ve installed the WWSGD plugin. I promise you you’ll be tweaking it tomorrow. Okay?
Great!
Let me switch gears for a moment as I’m still only on Step 1 and charge off in a totally new direction that will make complete and utter sense tomorrow. Tell me now:
Are you on the cutting edge of your blog niche? After all, having a welcome message is fine and dandy but kinda sorta useless if nobody visits your blog…..
Right?
‘Course right! One great way to ensure your traffic goes UP instead of imitating a herd of lemmings and crashing DOWN is to gain knowledge of your niche’s news. And the best way for that is:
Step 2 - Grab a feed-reader and add in current niche blogs.
Do NOT underestimate the importance of feed readers (RSS readers, etc.)! A reader jam-packed with the latest and greatest happenings in your niche will not only give you tons of content about which to write, but also provide you with like-minded blogs at which you can comment and generate a direct link back to your site (a Good Thing for search engine visibility).
Here’s what I use:
And here’s others you can use:
Some neat articles to learn more include:
- Brief - RSS Reader for Firefox Dynamic Bookmarks
- Google Reader Is Now Feed Reader + Twitter + Del.icio.us
- Why you should subscribe to your own blog’s RSS feed
Remember your goal here. You want to have your niche’s industry news at your fingertips.
A great feed reader can really assist!
And finally, for my last step in Day 3 of 21 Days to a More Profitable Blog, I’d like to suggest that you adroitly:
Step 3 - Add relevant feeds
Finding relevant feeds is easier than teaching a teenager to embrace the word ‘angst’. Just go to Google and search for:
- niche blog
ie
Whenever you find a good blog, simply add its feed to your blog reader and voila, you’ll be kept abreast of any new posts that are made.
In addition, you can tack on
- commentluv
so you’ll be assured that when you comment on a post, you’ll receive a deep link direct back to your own personal blog. i do this all the time, it’s very useful! Check out these searches:
Voila! End result? Not only are you kept current in your daily reading, but you now know which blogs will help you with your own search engine visibility. I have Commentluv on all of my blogs to encourage commenting; you should too!
And that brings me to:
In closing
In today’s lesson, you learned about the What Would Seth Godin Do plugin you can add to present a welcome message to your readers..
But! An opportunity now arises!
(remember, there’s no such things as problems in real life - just misunderstood opportunities)…..
HOMEWORK - I had mentioned the 64 coffee cup question above:
People may…or people may NOT….want to subscribe. How the heck should they know if they’ve never been on your site before?
Your homework tonight is to tell me how you can enable visitors to KNOW if they want to subscribe or not…thus effectively increasing your blog readership.
Can you think of anything else to include? Feel free to comment about it below!
Until tomorrow,
Barbara
#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:
Beginners make money blogging tips: Welcome messages are nice for newcomers to your site.
Intermediate and/or Advanced make money blogging tips: You can put far more than just "You might want to subscribe to my RSS feed"…..
#END highlights of this blog writing post
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- 32 Resources To Make Your Blog Warm and Welcoming - Day 2 of 7 Days To Making Your Blog Blossom
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- 21 Days to a more profitable blog - Day 4! Craft your Why Subscribe? Page and Network
- No Hype, Just What Works - You can now make money with “21 Days to a More Profitable Blog”
- Package and Sell Your Best Posts - Day 21 of 21 Days to a More Profitable Blog
Subscribe to the comments for this post
Thanx for the reader tips. I only recently learned you can make folders with blog readers and keep things in separate places. It’s much better than using just one huge category!
Hi Barbara,
hmm, of course every vistor is welcome to me.
Thus i prefer to have no welcome message at all.
Especially because every visitor might be looking for a differnet piece of information or a special “goodie”, so you can’t “please” everybody with a welcome message …
But what i do is to use a special plugin, that enables me to learn what kind of info my readers are looking for, when they search my blog.
So i might be able to come up with a blog post adressing their needs, in case i haven’t adressed them yet.
Regards,
Michael
Michael’s last blog post..How To Put The Secret To Work For You
@Jeff - I have about 24 different folders that I monitor constantly on my feedreader, everything from blogging to Mom stuff to BJJ to kids to Local News to World of Warcraft to Fitness to … it’s really helpful. Folks at my karate dojo are always surprised that I know the latest local happenings.
Barbara
What an interesting and informative post. I had heard of the WWSGD plugin on previous occasions but the information was not presented in such a fashion to make me want to use it. This particular post outlined very well and it was easy to install. When people are giving the opportunity to post comments with their site link attached, it drives more traffic to their site. Great post, looking forward to reading more!
Colleen W’s last blog post..Flash Developer - P/T contract
Barbara is my guiding light in understanding the complexities of SEO for blogging as well as common sense approaches to effectively marketing your blog.
Great stuff!!!
Bill Vick’s last blog post..Jim Durbin - Social Media Consultant
@Bill -
You’re too kind - thanks so much!! I love knowing what I’m sharing is useful.
@Colleen -
Thanks for your comments! Be sure to stay tuned for tomorrow’s post - methinks you’ll really enjoy my rather unique take on it.
Glad you’re enjoying the series,
Barbara
[...] a clam, surfing about and come across a blog that uses the What Would Seth Godin Plugin do that we described yesterday. Heck, let me provide you the link to find sites that have this that right now: click [...]
Would this work for an ebay blog as well?
Birgit’s last blog post..Happy Weekend!
Hi Birgit!
If you mean the blogs off of ebay.com, I don’t think so…but I just posted a comment at the plugin page to ask. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks for stopping by!
Barbara
Hi Barbara,
LOL @ you getting up at 3:52 .m. Some nights that’s about the time I’m going to bed.
I’ve seen the "If you’re new here…" on several blogs recently. I didn’t realize it was a plugin. I’ll have to look into that one.
BTW: Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting. It’s always great to add a new member to the community.
I’ll see you again soon.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..No Comment
@Barbara,
Thanks for your kind words - glad to show you how the welcome message is done via a plugin.
Best wishes, Barbara
[...] wrote extensively about this over at 21 Days to a more profitable blog - Day 3! Customize your blog’s welcome message for new visit…. Please visit, read, and then download the [...]