This is the first post of an upcoming series inspired by Barry Schwartz’s book, The Paradox of Choice. Return in the next days for more.
Several sources discuss various ways of increasing not only the traffic, but also return visitors to your blog. Active participation in social networks, quality content, and increasing friend count are just a few.
Most bloggers have tried out these strategies, but not all of them are satisfied by the results. Indeed these tactics are not a guarantee of returning readers.
In blogging, it is the small details that make the difference.
A blog post should not only concentrate on its main body to provide quality information, but also on the final impression it leaves. This can increase the returning visitors to your blog in ways that you didn’t expect.
Leaving a good impression
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist showed, that what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experiences
is almost entirely determined by two things:
- how the experiences felt when they were at their peak (best or worst)
- how they felt when they ended.
This “peak-end” rule of Kahneman’s is what we use to summarize the experience, and then when we rely on that summary later to remind ourselves of how the experience felt.
Peak Moments of Your Blog Post
Of course the major peak moment when reading a blog is the content of the main body of the post.
Depending on the quality of the content, the text leaves a negative or positive impression to the reader. This trace will play a fundamental role on persuading the reader to return to the blog or even subscribe. It is a logical conclusion that quality content means returning visitors.
The second peak moment is located at the end of the post. This is where you summarize your thoughts, pose your questions and invite the reader to participate in the discussion.
A very common mistake when writing an article, is that we mostly concentrate on the main content (the first peak moment of the blog) and we disregard the final impression it leaves (the second peak moment).
Conclusion
The belief that the impression your blog post leaves is also based on your final remarks, is not just a result of Daniel Kahneman’s psychological hypothesis.
Notice how you scan other blog posts:
Do you read the whole post word by word?
Do you comment on the questions posed by the author?
Spending more time on the final part of the blog post is much more important than we actually think.
- it leaves a final good impression to the reader,
- it shows that you followed a structured argumentation concluding to your remarks,
- it shows that you value the time of your readers
Not only your regular readers will appreciate this little extra effort, but also casual readers will recognize the value of your work.
I think your advice about final impressions and conclusions does a really good job of separately fluffy posts that don’t really advance any new information or ideas, versus those more meaningful posts which are truly trying to connect with the reader in order to convey knowledge and understanding.
I even think your formal way of providing conclusions does a good job of bringing closure to your thoughts, while at the same time opening up the posts to comments and discussions from others.
All in all, really good advice that I haven’t seen talked about much elsewhere.
This is basic information that many bloggers/writers including myself need to remember with every post. Too often do I read a great headline then get into the body of the post for the writer to go on 3-4 tangents and never tie everything in together.
Kind of takes all of the fun out of writing a blog.
Nice blog, i have added it to my favourites, greetings
is there any information about this in other languages, maybe german or other else?
Wow Cool !
Super Man
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This is some useful advice that we all need to remember from time to time. As when you become a more experienced blogger you tend to forget the basics.