Depending on where you find your information, it’s been said many times that a webmaster has between 10 and 30 seconds to capture the attention of the site’s visitor. If you don’t do it, you’ve lost someone. And this very practice begins with loading time… if someone has to wait too long for your site to load, bet that they’ll be out of there!

So, when you’ve hurdled past the idea of getting their attention, how do you keep them longer and pack a lot of information into just a couple of seconds? Usually, a webmaster will leave this up to a web designer. But that’s not always possible when we’re talking about a blog and content that you’ve developed.

In the month since I launched I’m Blogging That’s new theme and went to a magazine style with my theme, everything around here has changed. And because of that, I feel I’ve learned some lessons that I’d like to pass on to you.

Feature Posts

On my index page, I have at any given time 3 posts featured. And each time I have rotated them, I’ve made them the most popular posts on my site for the month or week. In the beginning, they were the most popular posts for months and months. By having these posts front and center, I’ve enabled my visitors to go in one of four directions when they hit my site (3 featured posts or today’s post).

The spotlight on these posts has helped to increase my page views, comments, and EMails from visitors. Where I used to sport 3.6 page views per visitor, I now average 5.1 page views per person.

Lesson: Spotlight, whenever possible, the most popular posts on your site. Typically, if you’ve gotten enough views on a post to make it stand out from the crowd you’re going to find that a big majority of visitors to your blog will also enjoy the posts.

If you’re not using a magazine style theme, no worries. There are many plug-ins for WordPress available to add “most popular posts” to your sidebar. Consider installing a plug-in like this to keep your visitors up to date on what’s hot around your blog.

Post Frequency

I’ve talked before about determining a post frequency that works best for your blog. Some bloggers enjoy this kind of schedule to get when they should or shouldn’t post and other’s prefer the more leisurely feel. For I’m Blogging That, the clear winner is for me to have a defined posting frequency of every single day. And while I haven’t fully accomplished that, I’ve kicked up my post frequency a few notches.

My posts now come often enough where I have people coming back daily just to see what’s here. RSS Subscribers have really seen an increase but more than anything, it’s been my page views that took the biggest spike.

By posting more frequently and finding myself staying more and more on the topic of “how to tips,” my page views took a big enough increase to push me over a big milestone. At the end of April, I saw for the first time that I’m Blogging That went over the 100,000 page views mark.

Lesson: Once you’ve developed the posting frequency that works for you, stick with it. Visitors appreciate knowing when they’re going to find something new and when they’re not. Huge factor when you think that someone may think you’ve wasted their time when your blog doesn’t have a new post. I know, huge pressure right?

Consistency

Unless we’re talking about a personal diary, our blogs should remain consistent with our post topics. I’m quickly bugged by any blog that I thought had a topic of one thing and suddenly writes about something else. Again, it’s a waste of time. When I catch up on feeds two to three times per week, I want to get in and get out with the most relevant information and information I wanted to find when I first subscribed to the blog.

Keeping this in mind for I’m Blogging That, I’ve really taken note of what it is that I talk about around here, what people are interested in, and then work my posts to go with majority interest. While writing is my passion, I’m not writing for myself.

This factor alone, more than anything else, is probably the reason that I’ve gotten a lot of changes with my stats around here. Let me tell you, when this was a personal diary, I had all of 5 readers (OK, maybe more but you get the point). So, when I changed my niche to how to tips for bloggers, it as almost as though I was starting from the ground up with a brand new blog. And I treated it that way!

Pressure

OK, let me not even try to lead you into something false… the changes around here have put a little pressure on my shoulders. But you won’t find me complaining about that!

In fact, I find the change of pace and stat information to be more inspiring and interesting for me. Not only has blogging now begun to take up more of my day (because I want it to), I’ve got quite an extensive list of ideas for articles to publish.

To best cope with the pressures of increased visitors, I go back to my suggestion of having a post arsenal ready to go. This will also help with my point on post frequency.

The Point

By correctly (I stress correctly because I didn’t read my stats correctly for a long time) understanding the stats of your site, what’s popular, what visitors expect to see from you as a blogger, and putting your best foot forward when networking, you’ll see results. There was a time when I didn’t ever believe that I’d accomplish some of the goals that I have reached. But that was me with a lot of self-doubt.

Understanding what happens around here now gives me new motivation, new goals, and new reasons to continue writing…

What Works for You

Not every blog reaches the same goal and not every blogger has the same results. The key is to know what’s working. So, what’s worked for you to push your blog to the next level? What are you finding is most important to keep visitors around your site and coming back? If you have tips, I’d love to hear them!