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The Impact of Website Design on Blog Traffic | A Case Study

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When it comes to a blogging program, there are dozens of ways that we can direct visitors back to website content.

Social media, a monthly newsletter, email signatures, paid advertisements and handouts at job fairs are just a few.

But, when trying to acquire blog visitors, your website design is one of the biggest factors to consider when evaluating the true potential of your blogging program.

A Blogging Case Study

Client H has been blogging with Haley Marketing Group for almost 2 years. Their dedicated content strategy consists of weekly blog posts discussing career growth, job search tips, as well as ways to better manage a workforce.

The chart below is a look at their blog pageviews by month since January 2014.

Blog Growth | Haley Marketing Group

I’ll be the first to admit it…the first 6 months of the program were tough! We were posting great content, but traffic wasn’t getting back to the articles like we wanted!

[Note: It is important to include that aside from publishing the blog content, there has been no change to the client’s sharing strategy. Content is shared to social media but is done so sporadically, with no truly defined structure. The drop in July 2015 traffic can be credited to advanced Google Analytics tracking being improperly setup on July 2. Website traffic was not tracked from July 2 – July 16]

So what caused this rapid growth and development? And more importantly, what does it mean for your staffing firm?

4 Website Changes that Increased Blog Traffic

Blog Moved from Subdomain to Root Domain

When a client comes to Haley Marketing Group without a blog, one the of most efficient ways for us to launch a content marketing strategy is by creating a blog subdomain. This lets the client continue hosting their site wherever they may choose, and makes the content startup quick and efficient.

While this is the easiest way to go about this process, it comes with a little more future work. As confirmed by Rand Fishkin of MOZ, subdomains often times do not perform as well in search as root domains. Meaning if your blog is on a subdomain, you’ll still be receiving excellent content! But, you may have to consider additional sharing methods to amplify the amount of monthly viewers that see your articles.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen and we’ve actually tested ourselves by first putting content on a subdomain and then moving it back over to the main domain with Moz. We’ve done that three times over that past two years. Each time we’ve seen a considerable boost in rankings and in search traffic, both long tail and head of the demand curve to these, and we’re not alone. Many others have seen it, particularly in the startup world, where it’s very popular to put blog.yourwebsite.com, and then eventually people move it over to a subfolder, and they see ranking benefits. – Rand Fishkin, MOZ

On July 14, 2014 this particular client launched a new website with Haley Marketing Group and moved their blog subdomain (http://blog.____________.com) to their root domain in a subfolder (http:www.___________.com/blog). Looking back on the data over a year later, we can confirm that this change resulted in increased ranking for unbranded search terms, and consequently increased visitors to blog content.

Blog Slider Added to Homepage Navigation

The client’s initial website had one way for visitors to get to the blog. In the main website navigation there were 4 links: Blog – About – Contact – Login. That’s it…

When the new website was built out by Haley Marketing Group, we took a look at the way we structure homepages and made a conscious effort to better include blogging content on the homepage.

Now, while Blog is still included in the main navigation of the website, we have a prominent What’s New slider that features the latest articles posted on the website. Content is a valuable resource to your visitors. Showcase it and make it easy for people to find.

Whats New

Blog Layout Redesigned to be Meet Modern Standards

With the new website build we also made changes to the overall functionality of the client’s blog. The first obvious step was to make it mobile friendly, making sure that the content could be easily viewed on any device.

Along with the blog becoming mobile friendly, we also took headings into better consideration. A recent report by Dejan Marketing concluded, 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.

If 79% of your audience is only skimming your content, then you better have great headings that can give then the answer they are looking for.

Related Posts Added to Each Blog Article

In an effort to cycle traffic from one blog to another we began implementing Related Posts at the bottom of each piece of content.

With Related Posts, we can automatically feature related content to the reader in an effort to provide them with additional resources.

screenshot-www.hfpersonnel.com 2015-11-06 11-15-47

 

The Takeaway for Your Staffing Firm?

Throughout any blogging program, it is important to continuously evaluate the design and functionality of the blog you are creating content on. Is the user experience it’s absolute best? If not, what changes can be made to improve this? If you have questions about your current website, or are looking to get started with blogging and content marketing. Contact our team today.

 

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