How to Make Great First Impressions and Turn Visitors Into Readers
As someone (it is still argued who so I will leave it at that) once said “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. Regardless of the situation is it true, but in some situations is it easier to handle than in others. When it comes to blogging is it as true as everywhere else, but hard to control as you never know who is going to have an encounter with your site, nor when they will, nor where they will or how they will. Believing that the perfect visitor enters your newly updated site through its main page when they have time to actually read it is not just overly optimistic, but plain unrealistic.
You will mostly have visitors who by chance come across your site, who enter through a specific post, who may be on the lookout for something else and who really don’t have all the time in the world to check everything out. In the words of Samuel Johnson: “Few have strength of reason to overrule the perceptions of sense, and yet fewer have curiosity or benevolence to struggle long against the first impression: he who therefore fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.” Thankfully is there help to get.
10 Minute Blog Tips: Making a Good First Impression
“You have seconds to make a good first impression. That first glance might make all the difference between a subscription and the loss of a return visitor. Design makes a big difference, as in colours and graphics, but layout could make the biggest difference. What you put and where. Today’s tip: 10 minute blog tweaks that make a good first impression.” Chris Garrett asks 4 questions concerning the layout to see if he is making a good first impression, but more importantly does he suggest you get the opinion of others. No matter how hard you try will you never be able to be entirely objective and since you (probably) made the layout to begin with you really aren’t the best to judge what impression it makes on someone who have never seen it before.
Building Blog Relationships: Making a Good First Impression
“There are two types of first impressions, two chances you get to encourage someone to click through to your blog and stay there. The first impression comes from search engine search results, feeds, social bookmarking services, and what other bloggers have to say about your blog and blog posts. The second impression is what the visitor sees when they get there.” Interesting take on how many first impressions you get although not entirely logical. I would rather talk about external and internal first impressions for example. At least that would not confuse how many firsts you can have and at the same time help explain the difference. The point is very valid though. As mentioned in the introduction do you really have very little control over the visitor and this is an example of it. Lorelle goes on to develop this topic with her usual insight and care so do read on there.
Blog Relationships: Fishing With Lures and Bait
“… the first impression a reader may get doesn’t always come from the front page or even any page on your blog. It often comes through search engines, feed lists, and links from other bloggers. By the time they get to your blog, they may have already formed an opinion with what they have found. Now that they have arrived, it’s up to you to live up to that opinion or work harder to earn it.” After laying the foundation in the previous article is this the article where Lorelle gives you sound and practical advice about how to deal with first impressions, make the most of them and move people past them. Converting visitors into readers I like to think about it is a lot about expectations and consistency. What good is that you make a great first and second impression just to let people down by the third? Hence should you never promise more than you can keep and never create expectations you cannot fulfill. Not even to make a great first impression.
5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang
“Just imagine how disappointed you’d be after crafting a killer headline for your post, only to lose readers with an opening that failed to carry the momentum. A great headline mixed with a lame opening is like inviting someone into your house, only to slam the door in their face as they approach.” Moving on to the actual content Brian Clark explores how the first impression goes beyond the headline. Obviously the headline should draw the visitor in, but if he or she isn’t confirmed when reading the first paragraph then it really is of no use. How you write a great first paragraph is not only explained, but also brilliantly demonstrated. Don’t miss the bonus tip btw. as that may be even more important as the opening when it comes to creating a regular readership.
How To Elevate Your Visitors
“They say that the headline is the most important part of your online copy. But your deck and lead copy are just as important. These often make up the the section called “above the fold,” which is the topmost section of your website’s page, without any scrolling. … it’s the first screen your visitors see when they hit your site.” Writing about copy Michel Fortin gives a lot of good advice and offer great insights. In this case he uses the elevator speech to make his points, which among others are to be specific and to keep things as short as possible. You cannot adapt every copy writing advice to blogging, but in general most make sense and can be helpful. Thinking about it is using the elevator as setting a great analogy to blogging since it highlights that we are there for different reasons, get in and out at different places and times, never know who we will meet and what the journey will bring and not least that you never get where you want to go if you fail to push the right buttons.
I am very well aware that I do not follow all of these tips and suggestions myself. There is only so much you can do in one day as the saying goes. You simply cannot follow every piece of good advice you get nor is it absolutely necessary to do so. In fact you should read everything critically and think about whether it makes sense at all and more specifically if it makes sense to you. If not you shouldn’t use it. However most of the suggestions here do make sense to most and probably only have to be adapted to fit your blog as well. This may take longer, but will also work better in the end. Execution of an idea is often as important as the idea itself and sometimes even more so.
If you want to help me see what you see and thus help me make this blog better then please comment below. All constructive criticism is more than welcome!
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7 Responses to “How to Make Great First Impressions and Turn Visitors Into Readers”
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I love the things you’re doing here and wish you didn’t leave the conversation we had been having. I need some help in finding truly unique blogs in other languages.
I sent you an email explaining. Thanks again for the nice words and of course I will help you in your search!
Hi Jan, very interesting posts so far.
This post left me thinking about design… I am (used to be?) a believer in “content is king”… But first impressions are needed, unfortunately.
I do not really like my blog’s design, but do not know enough to improve it (and don’t have the time, either!).
Hi Leo, thanks for stopping by.
The one thing that strikes me about your blog is that is all gray. I am pretty sure it would look at whole lot better if you simply changed the background color into one that compliments gray without being gray
It may seem like a small thing, but it would make a world of difference I think.
Also, content still is king, but even the king cannot rule alone. If people come for the content then it will bother them less if everything else is less perfect, but if they just happen to drop by then I do feel that design plays a more prominent role than most are willing to admit.
One thing that I have heard about from others and also start seeing here is that few people read more than one or two pages. The question is why. Is the content not good enough, is the design unappealing or does the navigation simply not allow to find more that they could be interested in?
With a new blog like mine is it harder to experiment, but I will certainly try adding all kinds of design and navigational element later on to see if that makes a difference.
On the subject of first impressions, and turning visitors into readers, I noticed that this WordPress theme lacks a critical design detail that stops readers from digging into your blog content.
There are no next and previous post links, both on single post page views and your blog’s front page. I couldn’t go past the post at the bottom of the list to see what else you’ve written.
Might want to consider adding those so readers can “continue” their first impression to more posts than this one.
The Theme actually had the previous and next links, but they did not work properly and I couldn’t get them working so I took them off. I figured people would be using the links at the bottom to the recent posts and the categories instead, but I guess you are right about some people missing them.
I will be adding some other opportunities to navigate as well. They just required more content to be added before making sense, but I believe I am slowly getting there. When I start adding things will I also see if I can get the previous / next links working again.
Thanks for the comments so far. They are most welcome!
PS: Did you get my email about your weekly digest?
Albert Einstein’s contribution to physics was perhaps not quite what the layman usually thinks it was. Albert Einstein was asked to poseso many times that he said if he hadn’t been a physicist, he could havemade a living as a model. Albert Einstein was the most famous and influential scientist of the twentieth century; his discoveries transformed both the world itself and our understanding of it. ” — Albert Einstein”So long as they don’t get violent, I want to let everyone say whatthey wish,for I myself have always said exactly what pleased me.