When I first started blogging, I was obsessed with pageviews. I checked it every day. Several times a day. This was before I had Instagram. I constantly checked to see if the number had increased after 15 min.
(Crazy, I know).
I was frustrated AF and wondered why nobody was reading my blog. Instead of focusing on the things I could do to get people to come to my blog, I was obsessing over that ONE STAT.
Since I want sincerely want you to succeed with your blog – whether it’s as a business or using it to help grow your business, I want to share with you some possible reasons why nobody is reading your blog or coming back to your blog.
What I’m about to say may sound harsh but it might be the truth. It may be the things that your friends and family don’t want to tell you or they may not even realize how much it matters After reading this post, I would suggest taking a closer look at your site. Go over it with a fine tooth comb. It might be also a good idea to seek a second opinion.
So why is no one reading your blog?
Ok, are you ready?
Brace yourself.
1. Your Site is UGLY
Meaning it’s cluttered, hard to navigate, there is too much colour, or the wrong colour combination, ads are EVERYWHERE, all over the place, etc. You know the KISS acronym? Keep it simple, stupid. The design of your site can be applied here.
Now I’m not a website designer or graphic designer by trade, but after going through several themes and site designs, I now know the importance of white space and simplicity when it comes to websites.
Just to humour you though – my very first WordPress theme was quite ugly. I still remember how it looks like but it doesn’t exist anymore (thankfully), so I couldn’t show you even if I wanted to.
Oh, and it if it’s ugly on my phone, (i.e. it’s not mobile responsive), then forget it.
Having a simple, clean site doesn’t necessarily mean spending a small fortune on it. There are so many affordable themes available on WordPress and Squarespace.
So please, spend a small amount of money for a nice, simple design that makes your blog posts easy to read. That’s all I ask.
2. I Didn’t Know About It
Let’s be honest. We’re time-starved. Strange as this may seem, now that I have more control over my schedule, I feel I am even more time-starved than I was when I was working a full-time job.
To find out what’s going on in the world and with everybody else, I turn to my social media feeds. Here I will find events, sales, product/service launches, latest blog posts, etc. I’m also subscribed to certain newsletters. Some of them mention their latest blog posts or other blog posts that they found to be interesting and thought I might enjoy.
People can’t read your mind. Until you’ve built some sort of significant community, you can’t expect people to constantly visit your site and share your posts ALL THE TIME. They’re also really busy and need those once in awhile reminders about your blog posts.
3. Your Blog Post Title Didn’t Catch My Attention
Or it did catch my attention, but not in a good way. Try to make the headlines short, concise. Use attention-grabbing words.
4. Your Photos Were Ugly or You Didn’t Have Any
Photos are an absolute must in blog posts. Every time I see a blog post without at least one photo, I feel as if the post looks off. These days smartphones and iPhones have pretty decent cameras on them. It doesn’t have to be the perfect Instagram shot but it shouldn’t be blurry.
There are many great options out there for stock photos (Hello, Unsplash).
Photo: @gooseberrystudios
5. It Wasn’t Skimmable
It looked like a massive blob of text. I didn’t even want to try and skim it. Even if I was to read the entire thing, I would still find reading a massive blog of text difficult.
6. You Have Ads Right in the MIDDLE of Your Blog Post
Why??!?! Why are you trying to interrupt my hard to maintain nowadays focus??!?! I was really enjoying your content and then I came across an ad for running shoes. If you want to put ads on your site, please, please put them on the sidebar, footer, etc, just not in the middle of the post. I can’t tell you how much this grinds my gears.
7. Your Last Post Was 6 Months Ago
I get that you are running a business, have a life, etc so you don’t have time to post every week. As you can see, even I don’t do that. So I’m not asking you to do it either. However, not posting in 6 months (or even 3 months) is ridiculous. It shows that you don’t care about your blog at ALL. Life does get busy. But again, we make time for the things that matter and that are important to us.
Staying top of mind matters.
Being part of an online conversation matters.
Having an online presence matters.
People will creep you online.
People have told me they checked out my social media profiles and site prior to our call or meeting. I’d be surprised if they didn’t. I do the same.
8. It Sounded Like Every Other Post
Sure, this post is nothing new and may sound similar to several listicle posts out there but at least it’s like Cheez-Whiz and has personality added to it.
9. Your Writing is Not That Great
Too many spelling mistakes, slang, grammar. I can understand a little mistake here and there but when it looks like you didn’t even proofread it once, then…. My background is in biochemistry, so I’m sure there are probably a few grammar errors poking around. Overall, I’d say that the blog post is readable.
10. Your Site Took FOREVER to Load.
But that’s a whole other beast which deserves at least one post on its own or a series of posts.
Back in May, my page views plummeted. Like, dropped by more than 70%. I didn’t change anything and was completely stumped as to what happened. While randomly browsing Reddit, I came across a post where a handful of other people said the same thing. Turns out there was a very small percent of us that all caught a bug while updating a plug-in. This bug made our sites take FOREVER to load. And just like you said, people stopped coming. So sometimes these things aren’t your fault 😉
Oh, interesting. Do you mind sharing what plugin was that? I found that when I deleted the Jetpack plugin, my site speed improved by several milliseconds, which is considered a lot for site loading time.