Right now you’re probably busy cleaning whatever you were drinking off the monitor.  How on EARTH, you’re muttering blackly while scraping coffee dregs off the screen, can this guy promise an increase in readership down to hundredths of a percent?

Well, I’m not specifically promising that.  That’s not a guarantee, it is not implied,  nor should it be inferred to be. But what I AM going to do is show you how it was done in one specific case that you can then use yourself to try for similar results.  It’s not a guarantee, it’s a study.

Over at Marketing Experiments.com, they ran a test for six different blog headlines, including one control headline.  Here are the headlines:

Best Price Dental Care – Without Insurance.

Low Cost Dental Care for the Uninsured.

(Control)

Dental Plans for $8.33 a month. Acceptance Guaranteed.

Over 55,000 Dental Care Providers. Acceptance Guaranteed.

Dental Care Coverage. Best Price Guaranteed.

Now, you can see right off the bat that some of these are more effective than others.  But the most effective, without question, was number four.  Number four brought a readership increase of 72.76 percent for that post.  You can see the remainder of the study results here, though more than likely we’ll be coming back to this well in future editions as there’s VOLUMES of useful data there.

Specificity, ladies and gentlemen–specificity is the order of the day.  When you can put that number in the headline, that eye-catching, coffee spewing number, DO IT.  You’re a lot more sure to catch eyes with numbers than with most anything else, so it’s definitely worth trying.

Folks, we do a whole lot of talking around here about the kinds of things you should do to make your blog look better, look snappier, look more APPEALING to your incoming readership.

Well, the biggest consideration you need is to make it more appealing to you.  You need to make your blog “feel like home”, and this is actually a more complex process than you’d think.

Sure, we’re thinking about things like the right furniture and wallpaper and paint colors and such–the right “look” of home for your blog.  But what we’re not necessarily thinking of immediately, that we should, are things like your “address” and “location” (these are great metaphors for which I must thank daily blog tips), the content of your blog and its web address.

These are all great things to consider when you’re either starting a blog or needing an alteration.  If things are looking a little on the down side, try a little “home improvement”.

I know, it’s amazing that you can distill the thought of building your readership down to just three simple questions, but that’s what we do every day here at Slyvisions–we do the amazing.

So what are those three questions?

1. Why?  Yeah, that’s pretty simple.  But it’s a good question, WHY do you want more readers?  And no, “I wanna make more money” doesn’t count–you’ll have to be specific here.  Do you want to sell more merchandise?  Increase your advertising revenue?  Or do you just want to be regarded as a pundit so you can get a foot in the door with publishers?  Each approach requires a different strategy–know what yours is.

2. Who?  Again, simple–but who are these readers that you want to come to your site?  Are you looking for experts who’ll fire a community up with high-level chatter about the minutiae of your topic?  Do you want to make something warm and welcoming for the noobs?  Do you want ad-clickers, or stuff-buyers, or just more readers?  Again, different strategy for each.

3. How?  This is the grandest question of all.  But once you’ve figured out the why and the who, then the how will be a lot smoother.  If you want to get the stuff buyers, then offer discounts or new and interesting stuff.  If you want the ad clickers, make sure your ads draw sufficient attention that they’ll be practically begging to click.  And so on.

With these strategies in mind, you’re likely to put a serious fire under your readership numbers.