Creating a personal connection with your readers is critical to your blog’s success. Readers want to feel like they are a part of a community to which they can relate. If your blog is nothing more than a series of generic articles, you will ultimately fail to establish this relationship. Thankfully, there are several simple yet effective techniques for making a blog more personal.
Use a Real Name
Are you still using the default “Admin” username that came with your blog’s content management system (CMS)? While this may seem harmless enough, it doesn’t have the same effect on readers as a real name. You can establish a deeper connection with your blog’s readers by changing your name to a real name, so anytime you publish a new post or page it will say something alone the lines of “Written by John Doe” or “Post by John Doe.” You don’t have to necessarily use your own name, as a pen name will suffice.
Enable Commenting
Another way you can make your blog more personal is by enabling visitor commenting. Some bloggers — especially newcomers — disable this feature, assuming it offers little-of-no value. But visitor comments are more valuable than you may realize. They encourage engagement, add unique content to your blog, and boost the percentage of returning visitors to your blog. Granted, you’ll have to invest some time and energy into moderating comments and weeding out the spam, but that’s a small price to pay for the value comments add.
About Me Page
If you haven’t done so already, take a few minutes to create an “About Me” page for your blog. As the name suggests, this page should reveal a little bit about who you, what you do, and why you decided to start blogging. There’s really no specific format required for an About Me page, so feel free to write in your own words. Of course, you’ll want to include a photo of yourself on this page to really connect with readers.
Social Media Networking
Don’t underestimate the power of social media networking sites when building a blog. Including social buttons linked to your various accounts will naturally make your blog more personal. If your blog was built using WordPress, search for “social media buttons” on the plugin library and you’ll find dozens of options available.
Have any other ideas that you would like to share with our readers? Let us know in the comments section below!
